"Love Is Building Bridges, Not Walls"

By Colleen Sinsky

This past week I had the opportunity to be part of a delegation of high school students who chose to leave their more comfortable lives to spend seven days on an immersion trip with the goal of building bridges between themselves and the homeless community of Portland. Sponsored by JOIN, the Portland Plunge has been an annual summer experience for Oregon teens for the past 20 years.

JOIN’s Immersion Coordinator, Daniel, spent months organizing volunteer placements, reviewing applications and coordinating logistics. He and six young adult volunteers (myself, Amanda, Sinclair, Kelly, Jess and Neil) joined the teens in sleeping at St Francis, in inner SE, walking to daily volunteer placements, and abiding by a set of “simple living” guidelines that the whole group decided on.

“Simple living” we decided for the week, would mean challenging ourselves by limiting what we wore to just two outfits, showering once or not at all, eating simply, and a “sleep challenge” on the last night we spent at St. Francis. Originally this last challenge meant giving up a pillow or sleeping pad, but the leaders secretly decided to include a “sweep” at 2:30am. Without warning, we came into the boys’ and girls’ sleeping rooms with flashlights and even a siren yelling “No camping here! move along! you’re in violation of Oregon code yadda yadda yadda…” We prodded the poor bleary eyed, and rightfully pissed-off teens down the hall to switch rooms and let them continue Thursday’s “sleep challenge” until 6:30 when it was time for a quick breakfast and a neighborhood clean up and BBQ with the Volunteers of America Mens Rehabilitation Center. While the “sweep” sounds a bit sadistic at first, the valuable lesson was an experience in what occurs regularly to homeless folks, when made to “move along” from a doorway or illegal camping spot in the middle of the night.

The Plungers also got to volunteer at 15 organizations around town that serve not just the homeless community, but other marginalized groups. Some examples of where we spent a morning or afternoon working are Downtown Chapel, Dignity Village, Rose Haven, Housing Transitions Program, the Oregon Food Bank, Sisters of the Road Café, and even sorting donations, gardening and hanging out with folks at JOIN. The week was a whirlwind tour of many aspects of homelessness, and we had evening speakers who shared their perspective of working for the Portland Police Department, or p;ear, or JOIN.

Lio came to debrief the large group after their first day of placements. His talk prodded everyone to think about the larger picture of their place in service and solidarity. He shared stories from his 14 years of doing Outreach at JOIN, and challenged the group to learn names, the stories behind the faces, and not to be afraid of making a human connection with people who we’re usually more comfortable avoiding eye contact with. We also got to hear from Marc Jolin who talked about the legal and practical side of homelessness and lack of affordable housing. In discussion afterwards, my small group (named “Jesus! And the Jive Turkeys”) talked about how important it is to have the “big picture” numbers in addition to conversations with folks on the street.

We all came into the Plunge from different places, but we were all challenged and grew together. I heard so many amazing insights come out of my teens, one of which came after a few days of volunteering in Old Town. “I can’t believe that I always go to concerts and restaurants around there, but I had no idea that any of this was here. Like the Red Doors? [Downtown Chapel]? I’ve seen that a million times and never known what it was.” This week was about opening the door to shift our perspective, and see new things in our community. All of us involved in the Plunge laughed a lot, made or cemented friendships with each other, and learned valuable lessons from folks affected by homelessness. I was moved, and continue to be touched by how open everyone, and especially my small group was. I learned that we are all hungry for a human connection, and that experiences like the Plunge really can take us out of our comfort zone and into that place where love can transcend social barriers.

Thank you participants! You all rock. See you at the reunion! Feel free to weigh in here with any memories or comments you want to share!

Getting a tour of "the caves" from a longtime JOIN friend, Buck, who once camped down here.

"Even Jerks Deserve Housing"

By Colleen Sinsky

I was remembering back to one of my first days at JOIN, while I was tagging along with Quinn, one of our outreach workers. We were stopping in to visit one of the guys Quinn had housed recently. Now, the vast majority of our folks are some of the most wonderful, friendly and sweet people I’ve had the privilege of meeting. Working with them is a joy, and I love spending time and talking with almost everyone. This guy though, was not a joy. His apartment was a minefield of empty Steel Reserves, and our friend was cranky, belligerent, and dismissive of the food box we had brought. The brief visit felt like it bordered on hostility towards us and I was relieved to escape into the fresh air.

Walking back to the car, I asked Quinn something along the lines of “How do you work with that guy? He’s such an ungrateful jerk!” And Quinn’s simple answer has stuck with me, and reminds me that we aren’t doing this work for our own gratification. “Even jerks deserve housing.”

So we house jerks and saints and everyone in between. Even in the most hardened, long-time homeless alcoholics I’ve seen incredible moments of human vulnerability and warmth, and we keep plodding along every day beside them because we all deserve housing.

On a more fun note, everyone in the office is excitedly getting ready for the golf tournament tomorrow! We’re excited to see our supporters out there having fun on the green and raising money for a great cause.

Tomorrow is also the beginning of our 30^th annual Portland Plunge, where 25 high school students from the Portland and surrounding areas will come for a week of immersion into the world of homelessness. I’m going to be one of five small group leaders on the Plunge and am feeling both excited and nervous about spending the next week away from my home and my usual job at JOIN. When I return, next week’s blog post will be about our experience on the Plunge. Stay tuned!

Lonely Apartments

By: Colleen Sinsky

I feel like every opinion I offer has to be preceded with the disclaimer that: I’m new at this! Several months ago I didn’t know a thing about homelessness. I still don’t know much about the issue in general, let alone being able to make judgements or offer any insights. I do have the wonderful opportunity of building my knowledge base from scratch, straight from the experts on homelessness. From this unique perspective of being the “outreach assistant” at JOIN, it’s been a daily hands-on classroom on the streets in Portland. Every day I’m exposed to some new tragedy, issue, story, or complicated individual. Today, I got an intimate look into the loneliness that often accompanies the transition from homelessness to independent housing.
At one point I naively thought that giving someone apartment keys would magically solve not just whatever issues had forced them into homelessness to begin with, but would also preclude new issues coming up. Obviously, as needing to have a large “Retention” team at JOIN proves, I couldn’t have been more mistaken. Housing often carries a new batch of potential problems, not least of which is isolation.
Today while running around doing errands and dropping off and picking up our folks, I had a chance to sit down and talk with a few recently housed friends. One of the guys I visited, “Thomas” lived on the streets for nearly 20 years and has spent the past few weeks adjusting to living in his own apartment, far from the downtown scene that he had been part of for so long.Thomas is one of the most sociable and outgoing personalities I’ve ever met. We all love spending time with this guy, and despite his health complications is a constant source of fun. He asked me to read an excerpt from his journal, which included having fear of failing this opportunity, and a desire to “make JOIN happy and do whatever JOIN needs me to.” After the initial few days of unbridled happiness at finally being inside, Thomas is beginning to realize that moving into an apartment is just the first step of a larger paradigm shift along the path to self-sufficiency and independence.
Sleeping under a bridge, individuals have to be in survival mode, and are focused on the next meal, staying safe, avoiding arrest, being able to carry enough blankets, etc.. there is no time to think about “long term” issues that we, as housed individuals consider necessities. Thomas spent his whole day relying on his experience to deal with each day’s logistics, and made canning and survival into a full-time job.. Learning to budget, to save, to manage time, get a job, pay utilities, take advantage of resources in a new community and often, to navigate healthy interpersonal relationships often replace the issues that our folks faced while homeless. Our retention workers help navigate these hurdles to maintaining housing, and possibly most importantly, are reliable friends and a source of moral support when someones entire way of life is suddenly changing.
Thomas, who has a disability, jokes about sometimes being bored out of his mind, and only being able to spend so many hours a day cleaning his already immaculate apartment. He’s talked about how he realized that people whom he had considered his friends on the street, suddenly think that Thomas is “so much better than we are, now that you’re a housie.” He admits that it’s tough to deal with, but for the first time in years is choosing to seek help for his addiction and is ready to own his life, even if his only supportive community for the time being is JOIN.

Spring at JOIN

By Colleen Sinsky

I feel like spring has finally arrived in Portland! I’ve never lived somewhere with so much color exploding in blossoms and flowers everywhere you look. It’s great, and I think that the mood among our folks living outside is starting to reflect the sunnier weather. This morning after our all staff meeting my friend Emily was waiting for me upstairs with a grocery bag full of lilac, rosemary, allysums, irises that she had picked along her walk to the office.

We chatted and made a few arrangements to decorate the office with and they look great! I love these fun little surprises throughout my workday that remind me of the wholly human element of working here.

With spring comes new life, and we’ve been busy offering folks the chance at creating a new life of their own through permanent housing. One of the most touching stories I’ve been involved with lately is my fried Karen, who has been forced into a rough life of drugs, suicide attempts, sex abuse, and bouncing between various unstable, and often dangerous living situations, since the age of 13. I’m often struck that Karen is my age, yet she’s seen a side of life that I cannot begin to imagine. Karen is a friendly and talkative person who has been a constant smile and helping hand around the office since she decided to forge her way from her previous destructive lifestyle. Now, Karen is hot on the job search and working with JOIN’s Melissa to complete her GED. Yesterday she came into the office with gorgeous handmade thank you cards for Lio and I for the work we’ve done getting her into her own apartment and fixing it up with furniture from Community Warehouse.

I can’t begin to explain how touched I am when people like Karen come in a visibly brighter person, for the first time in who knows how long, actually excited about what possibilities her future holds, instead of dreading the next day. We don’t do anything besides provide the fertile ground for people like Karen and Emily to really blossom into the wonderful, independent people they can be, but it still is a beautiful thing to get to be a part of. This photo of Karen and I was taken on her move in day, of that symbolic moment of handing someone their own key. This move was especially memorable for me because my family was in town for the weekend and got to help move Karen's furniture in and see what we get to do every day. Thanks, Mom, Dad, Matt & Emily!

Housing First

By: Colleen Sinsky

Lately what’s been taking up my time at work is one of the less glamorous aspects of social service – gathering data to comply with funding regulations. One of our larger sources of funding is a city program which provides a flexible source for us to pay housing costs.

The catch- from my perspective- is the series of surveys that we are required to give the recipients. These “cost-avoidance” surveys collect data to compare the costs to the government of providing subsidized housing versus the costs to government of allowing individuals to remain homeless. Giving these surveys is tough- tracking down hundreds of people from a list is a logistical challenge and I sometimes feel invasive asking these questions that are fairly personal.

“How many nights last year did you sleep on the streets? In a short-term shelter?”

“How many times in the year did you go to the Emergency Room?”

“How many contacts did you have with the police? Arrests?”

“If you have children, have they been in foster care?”

A lot of the folks I visit for the survey are lonely, and relish the chance to get to share their story with a new person. I think that sometimes being able to share their experience, and know that the time they spent under the bridge was noticed, documented- validates what they went through prior to getting keys to their own place. Sitting down at someone’s kitchen table in a dingy studio apartment downtown, I try to frame the survey into a conversation, rather than the series of bullet points it is, and it opens the floor to talk about some really incredible stories. I love being able to just listen without an agenda that I have to get across during our appointment. While people have a wide range of reactions to the survey, I almost always feel as if I’ve been given a gift- of someone choosing to let me into a little bit of their life and telling me the story behind each of the ER visits, the arrests, the nights it was too cold to not go to the Red Cross warming shelter.

At the end of each survey I always thank the person and explain that, as pointless as the survey seems, that it’s their chance to let the government know based their own experience, “hey! It’s cheaper for you to be putting people into housing rather than letting them sleep on the streets!” And it is. The “housing first” model has proved cheaper to taxpayers because of increased costs associated with the higher rate of incarceration, emergency shelter and hospitalization required for homeless individuals.

This interactive tool, from the National Alliance to End Homelessness shows a breakdown of Portland’s costs per individual and drop from $42,074 to $26,819 once the person has been supported into permanent housing. Right now, Multnomah County’s Ending Homelessness Advisory Council has a ten year plan that points out that of the $30 million spent on homelessness, just 12% goes towards permanent housing.

This is a tough policy call to make, and I would feel unqualified being anywhere but on the sidelines, gathering data, but I hope that this controversial balance becomes a larger conversation. In the meantime though, I’ve helped out with four moves this week and am happy to be playing my small role in Portland.

Toes In The Mud

By: Colleen Sinsky

Danny, one of our housed folks is an amazing poet and musician and spent years running cattle on ranches in the mountains of Colorado. He is one of the most intense and gifted harmonica players I've ever seen. One of these days I'll get a video up here on this blog of Danny jamming, but in the meantime here's a lyrical poem he wrote that he let me share up here.

Toes In The Mud

By Daniel Eley

Sittin’ in a window

Feeling at ease

Mouth held open

Slappin’ my knees

Head tossed back

Hair in the breeze

eyes are closed

and all is free.

Off the sill

and into the air

feet slappin’ grass

Happiness there

Jumpin’ real high

Naked and bare

Spirit is soaring

Got no care

On down the path

branches above

skin is tinglin’

no one that shoves

Relatin’ with nature

toes in the mud

sun castin’ shadows

and fallin in love

Spinnin’ around

nothin’ is dead

birds in the trees

makin’ their beds

Hearts pumpin’ hard

and I’ve been led

to a place in life

with Peace in my head.

© 4-2001 Daniel Eley

The Four Letter Word

By: Colleen Sinsky

I was thrown off the first time that “Emily,” one of our housed folks ended a conversation with “Bye Colleen, I love you so much!” I had a split second of confusion… ‘wait.. you’re not in my family, not a close friend, and not some boy I’ve been dating a while, not my dog… what do I respond with here?’ That first time Emily said that I sputtered off an automatic “love you too Emily, see you later!” But it wasn’t until I was sitting in my car and had time to think that I realized that I really did love Emily. This realization shocked even myself, and I immediately started stressing about that blurry but very present line between “clients” and “caseworkers.” Where, if anywhere, does love fit into that relationship?

Until recently, the L-word had a very specific place in my life and in my relationships, and keeping that feeling safely segregated helped me feel aloof, and protected from being able to care too much about people outside of my “bubble.” Realizing that I do, in fact, love those strangers sleeping on the streets or precariously housed was a scary, humbling, and vulnerable moment. It’s much easier to operate from a place of sterile assistance rather than opening my heart and being awake to our shared humanity.

A great Jesuit in El Salvador described the feeling of opening up to the world we’d rather ignore better than I ever could. He talks about those of us who experience poverty and find ourselves investing in and being changed by the people we meet and the stories they share:

“A sweet shame comes over them, not bitter remorse but more like the shame one feels when falling in love. The visitors feel… the world that is made up of important people like them and unimportant people losing its grip on them. As the poet Yeats says, “things fall apart;” the visitors’ world is coming unhinged. They feel resistance, naturally, to a current that threatens to sweep them out of control. They feel a little confused –again—like the disorientation of falling in love. In fact, that is what is happening, a kind of falling in love. The earth trembles. My horizon is opening up. I’m on unfamiliar ground, entering a richer, more real world.”

-Dean Brackley, SJ

Meeting the Victims, Falling in Love

I didn’t expect to find this love in urban poverty, or to work in an environment where it’s okay to embrace and run with this feeling. Love is a scary word in general, but for it to exist in social service is a rare and wonderful thing. At JOIN, love is regularly cleaning out a chronic hoarder’s bedbug-ridden apartment so that she won’t be kicked out. It’s rehousing, and choosing to help the stubborn jerks that no one else will work with. It’s saying “no” and ending rental support. It’s Sara, our Data Guru’s saint-like patience or Ellene waking up early on her first Sunday on the job to do a move. It’s Keith putting everything on hold at the end of a crazy day on the House to have a heart to heart with Don. Love is Lio telling someone to “get your head out of your a**” and Quinn endlessly talking Yankees with Tom, and a thousand other examples of love as a verb. It’s the tangible grief that settled over the office when Lee Critchlow died, or having the respect to step back and let our folks make their own mistakes along the road to self-sufficiency. Love is constantly bending over backwards to lengths I don’t always understand.

Last night I found an old voicemail in my phone of Emily calling me late one night from the hospital to check in and tell me that she loves me. I was humbled, and honored that I can be that person for someone. Her life has been devoid of many experiences of love that I take for granted, yet she shares it and says it so easily. In a society where talking about this kind of love has become taboo, there is a lot to be learned from this woman. I love you too Emily.