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An inn for those who are out; The business of running a homeless shelter
This article appeared on page one of the Gloucester Daily Times on January 21, 2003
By RICHARD GAINES,Staff writer
Call it the inn of last resort.
Unlike the dozens of hotels and motels, guest houses, bed and breakfasts and all the other inns that fill up in summer and close down with the cold, this inn finds would-be guests lined up outside its door at 370 Main St. every day of the year.
If anything, its in-season is the off-season -- business booms in winter's bitter chill.
Like the many other roofs in Gloucester's hospitality trade, this one honors industry standards of cleanliness, efficiency and dependability. Its guests can count on good food, warm beds, attentive service and advice, when sought.
The others are vacation-makers. This one's a life-saver.
As in all communities, Gloucester has a fluid, but constant population of homeless people, numbering "between 28 and 32 consistently," says Ralph Johnson, who ought to know. He is director of Gloucester's one and only homeless shelter, which is owned and operated by Action, Inc.
About half the 26 guests who occupied the 26 beds in the cozy split level ranch-type inn across the street from John B. Wright and Steve Connolly's seafood distributing plants are regulars -- "a core group," says Johnson. The other half comes and goes in short and not-so-short order.
Some are fatally or chronically afflicted with illness or weakness, from HIV to schizophrenia and depression to addictions to drugs and booze. Some are victims of circumstance not of their making. Some made their own bad luck.
Most are men; some are married; some are single; and some are somewhere in between. Some aren't particularly ill-fated at all, just drifters or fishers, traveling life light and passing through.
Some are lifelong locals, some new to town, like the fellow who showed up one day as the usual line formed around 4:30 p.m., a half hour before the door opens and the guests are admitted for the night. First come, first serve.
He was in his prime, hailing from Texas, a graduate of Texas Tech University in Lubbock. He had been through a tough divorce, found himself barred from the family home that now belonged to his ex. He had nowhere to go except up here, where he had relatives. But they wouldn't take him in.
While a guest at the inn, Johnson said, the man "reorganized himself and left in good shape, went back to the South."
A few have jobs, a few cars. What they have in common is no other place to go at the end of the day. The shelter has, unfortunately, a captive market.
Out of a trailer
It first opened in 1988, thanks to the foresight of Action, Inc.'s longtime director, Bill Rochfort. He had seen to it years before that the homeless could stay in a trailer, which was semi-permanently located on Emerson Avenue near the Food Pantry. When he discovered that the house on Main Street was for sale, he had Action, Inc. buy it.
It had been operating on a $250,000 grant from the Department of Emergency Assistance, until last summer when the recession took a $40,000 toll, leaving the shelter to do as much with less. The staff took the hit, dropping part-timers from four to three, working with the four full-timers, including Johnson and Jackie Martin.
Martin is the inn's nurturer, a single mother who says her own home in Pigeon Cove "has always been full of teenagers." She is a gatherer of strays.
So, she is most at home working in the homeless shelter, which she imbues with a homey aura.
Shrinking resources
Now, even with less, the shelter is doing even more. With the onset of winter, the shivery lines grew longer, but the occupancy permit for 22 beds limits the shelter to 22 guests. Mayor John Bell was called and a conference was held in his office before Christmas.
Johnson, a resident of Leominster who began work at the shelter last summer, is awed by Bell's commitment to the wellbeing of the homeless. At the meeting, which included police Lt. Mike McLeod, Bell directed that "no one would be left on the streets," the shelter's director recalls.
"I can't say enough about Mayor Bell," says Johnson. "He's got guts."
Bell issued an emergency edict raising the occupancy limit to 26 until Action, Inc., which goes before the Zoning Board of Appeals at the end of the month, obtains authorization of a permanent expansion.
Meanwhile, McLeod offered bench space outside the security zone at police headquarters to those who come to the door at 370 Main after the 26th bed is filled.
"We're going to get them out of the cold," says Johnson, even if it means putting some folks on the train to Salem or Beverly to shelters in those cities, or transferring their overnight care to volunteers, many associated with the city's Inter-faith Commission, who act as an auxiliary pro-homeless corps.
Many friends
Johnson, who has worked in residential programs throughout eastern Massachusetts, is impressed by the community's appreciation of the shelter and its understanding of homelessness and willingness to help.
Some who help the homeless insist on anonymity, deflecting recognition. They are, in Johnson's words, the "invisible volunteers."
There's the fellow "who comes by with a big vat of hot soup" every Sunday night; the dozen or so who come a night or two a week just to hang out to keep the guests connected to the larger world; and the restaurateur who brings in an hors d'oeuvre tray, which fits the bill because "everyone's hungry when they come through the door."
Then, there's Fatima Heath, a real estate broker, who has become a special friend to the homeless.
A few months ago, she happened upon the line outside the shelter. Her curiosity led her to Action and action. Johnson says she helped organize the City Hall meeting. "She held a luncheon to raise money for donations," says Johnson. "Fatima's friends cooked turkeys for Thanksgiving."
More than that, she and the shelter's friends are emissaries and witnesses. They bring crucial eye-witness testimony back to the homes of the city. Johnson reasons that "their saying 'These folks are OK' goes a lot further than my saying so."
Of course, these folks are not OK, not in the sense that most people describe their own lives as "OK" in response to the casual question, "How ya doin'?"
What the shelter does is provide a modicum of "OK" to lives that, in the main, are anything but.
House rules
The rules of the house do not require sobriety for admission, but drugs and alcohol are forbidden from the premises, and guests must be in a civil state when they register and are assigned to one of the rooms on two floors, each with four to six bunk beds, which resemble accommodations in a college dorm without wall posters and laundry piles.
They do chores to keep the place neat and clean, change and wash the linen, do their laundry upstairs, are served a solid, balanced, hot supper prepared in one of the two kitchens on the entry floor.
Guests use their after dinner time in various ways.
Some go off to Alcoholics Anonymous, some meet with mental health counselors. The city nurse comes by to look after others. Depending on the will of the majority parked in the living room, videos or cable television try to divert and entertain, or just provide background noise to clatches in conversation.
Some ponder, some pick a book from the small library. There's the Bible and light reading selections, and classics like Thomas Wolfe's "You Can't Go Home Again," and Robert L. Stevenson's "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyl and Hyde."
As with most inns, guests with early work or appointments may ask for a wake-up call. The place grows quiet early, often by 9 p.m., as guests luxuriate in the linens and blankets under a roof secured by the overnight shift of two.
The bed and bath comes with continental breakfast -- juice, cereal, English muffin, coffee, tea and milk -- which is served from 6 to 7:25 a.m. Guests are given two sandwiches and a snack, prepared by the Inter-faith Commission, and are ushered out by 8 (though the shelter has remained open through the day during extreme cold).
Then the place is quiet again until the night staff of two arrives around 4 to open the inn of last resort for the night's guests.
They're always waiting at the door.
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