Mid-Life Crisis Trip Log--Entry 90: Only to find Gideon's bible
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Robert & Laura
Mar 16, 2008, 8:26:27 PM3/16/08
to Robert & Laura's Trip Logs
Only to find Gideon's bible
Sun, Mar 17, 2008
Yes, the trip log is a day late. That's because Robert had a dental
appointment, which entailed driving up to Seattle on Thursday, and we
figured as long as we were in Seattle, we'd stop by to see Laura's Dad
(who just got back from looking at penguins in their natural habitat),
which meant that on Saturday we were gazing bleary-eyed out at the
asphalt of I-5 noticing how little it has changed in the last three
months.
We're getting closer to actually living up in Seattle again (only 2
months and 16 more days), so this is the last dental trip we'll need
to make. And we're not going to whine at all if we have to drive 45
minutes to the dentist!
While we were at the dentist, a couple of ladies stopped by to drop
off some Gideon New Testaments for the dental staff. Robert
complimented them on their fine work in the Hotel & Motel industry
(which Robert can do without a trace of sarcasm). "I know I can always
find a Gideon's bible in a motel!" says Robert.
The ladies go into trance for a moment (a common reaction to Robert)
and then thank him for the compliment as they carefully back out of
the dental office.
Anyway, this week, we thought we'd talk about two of the families at
the homeless shelter, to help explain how some folks end up homeless.
FAMILY OF FOUR
There's Dad, "Dave," who has a steady job and has worked at it the
entire time his family has been in our shelter. Mom, "Nikki," recently
got a job working at a big department store. They also were expecting
an income tax return of between $1500 and $3100 (the amount varied by
day and they said they hadn't gotten a copy of the tax return, so they
couldn't be sure).
About three weeks in, Dave took his car up to Portland and ended up
taking the bus back. The sad story we got was that his car had broken
(the timing chain slipped which snapped the valves and trashed the
car). Somebody donated a car and Greg (our Family Case Manager) tried
to give them the car, but Dave declined.
Turned out Dave didn't, technically, have a valid driver's license. In
fact, he had a suspended Florida driver's license, and his car hadn't
so much broken down as it had been towed away after Dave got pulled
over.
Now, you or I might have been up front about the suspended license and
asked Salem Interfaith for help getting it cleared up. Not Dave, for
reasons that still escape us. (And, no, we didn't give his family the
donated car.)
The other thing you might think is that after six weeks of regular
paychecks and no expenses (Salem Interfaith provides food, shelter,
necessities, junk food--your only expense is cigarettes if you smoke
and these folks don't), you might have saved up some money. In fact,
by our tally, Dave and Nikki should have had at least $3,100 and
possibly $4,000 (or more). A comfortable sum with which to rent a nice
two- or three-bedroom place.
Last week Greg asked them to bring in a bank statement (since Greg was
running short on trust with these folks) and we discovered that they
had only about $1,200 in the bank (!).
None of the paychecks had been deposited in the bank, and the tax
return deposit was exactly $2,000 (which is unlikely, so we suspect
that they withdrew some money as they deposited it).
Where did this money go? Well, Dave spent at least $300 on getting his
bike fixed up nice and slick. Now, granted, the bike is his main
transport (since his car got towed away), but do you really need to
have it fixed up fancy when your family is living in a homeless
shelter?
Various other amounts seem to have disappeared from the account in
bits and pieces and, when Robert was last in the office, nowhere near
all of it had been accounted for. We don't think they were spending it
on drugs, although anything's possible.
Somehow, more than $2,000 slipped through their fingers in the last
six weeks.
The really sad part is that their kids are pretty cool. Rose is a very
polite four-year old, who's very bright and mischievous. She likes to
put together jigsaw puzzles and play games on the computer and color
and generally be four years old. Their son, 12-year-old George, is
also a good kid.
But because they have idiot parents who can't manage money (or tell
the truth when it counts), they're homeless and sleeping on church
floors and not having their own rooms.
At this point, Greg will probably be asking Dave and Nikki to move out
next week (if he hasn't already). We'll arrange for a cheap apartment
for them to move into, but it's anybody's guess as to whether or not
they'll be able to afford it--on paper, it's not a problem, but that
money seems to just keep sneaking away.
SINGLE MOM
Isabella is a 20-year-old mom with a nine-month old and an 18-month
old, although only one of them stays with us at a time. Her
"fiancé" (it's never boyfriend with our guests, we notice, it's always
"fiancé") is also 20 and is staying with his mom (who doesn't like
Isabella and won't let her stay with them).
Isabella's fiancé is having problems finding a job, because he's got a
felony on his record. A felony for assaulting her, but, of course,
he's gotten much better and something like that would never happen
again. Usually, we avoid domestic violence (DV) cases, because it
endangers the volunteers. This didn't seem like a DV case, but more of
a homeless-mom-with-small-baby case, so we decided to let her stay.
Isabella had a job working at a large department store until a week or
so ago. The complete story is still a little murky, but it seems to be
a combination of not removing her tongue stud for work (she forgot)
and not making sure that extra cash in her till got properly removed
before she went on break (she called them once, already). Basically,
she was guilty of being 20 years old and clueless about proper work
habits.
She's also clueless about money. She turns her paychecks over to her
fiancé, who's a "very private person" (no one at Salem Interfaith has
met him) and doesn't want to tell us what he's doing with the money.
The problem is that Isabella wants us to recommend them for an
apartment (if we recommend people, they can usually skip having to pay
last month's rent up front, plus evictions and bad credit can get
overlooked). Greg is having a hard time doing that, because we haven't
met the fiancé and he's refusing to provide any accounting for her
money.
Is he a drug dealer? Probably not, but there's a world of pain in the
difference between "probably" and "definitely."
At this point, we don't see any real exit plan for Isabella to get an
apartment with her fiancé in the next couple of weeks (we're a 30-day
program and she's about halfway through). We'll probably send her over
to Simonka Place, which is a woman's shelter (it's the female side of
the Union Gospel Mission).
IN SUMMARY
Well, you can begin to understand why we snicker when we hear that the
Federal Gummint is going to "eliminate homelessness in ten years."
Yes, it's a noble goal. But, Geez Louise, there's a lot of reasons why
people end up homeless. And we only deal with the ones who have kids
and are drug-free (and even then we're still staying pretty full!).
These folks need more than just a handout OR a hand up. They need long-
term counseling and education and training and some lucky breaks. And
even if you manage to take care of everybody who's homeless now,
there's a never-ending stream of folks who are working hard at
becoming homeless.
It doesn't mean we plan to quit trying, but we're also not too worried
about running out of work...
=======
That's it for this week. Next weekend, we're traveling to Goldendale,
Washington for Laura to help with a memorial service for a friend's
mother (Laura did the service for Robert's Mom and did a very nice job
of it). So, the trip log will be late again.
Robert & Laura
Mid-Life Crisis Trip
Sun, Mar 17, 2008
Yes, the trip log is a day late. That's because Robert had a dental
appointment, which entailed driving up to Seattle on Thursday, and we
figured as long as we were in Seattle, we'd stop by to see Laura's Dad
(who just got back from looking at penguins in their natural habitat),
which meant that on Saturday we were gazing bleary-eyed out at the
asphalt of I-5 noticing how little it has changed in the last three
months.
We're getting closer to actually living up in Seattle again (only 2
months and 16 more days), so this is the last dental trip we'll need
to make. And we're not going to whine at all if we have to drive 45
minutes to the dentist!
While we were at the dentist, a couple of ladies stopped by to drop
off some Gideon New Testaments for the dental staff. Robert
complimented them on their fine work in the Hotel & Motel industry
(which Robert can do without a trace of sarcasm). "I know I can always
find a Gideon's bible in a motel!" says Robert.
The ladies go into trance for a moment (a common reaction to Robert)
and then thank him for the compliment as they carefully back out of
the dental office.
Anyway, this week, we thought we'd talk about two of the families at
the homeless shelter, to help explain how some folks end up homeless.
FAMILY OF FOUR
There's Dad, "Dave," who has a steady job and has worked at it the
entire time his family has been in our shelter. Mom, "Nikki," recently
got a job working at a big department store. They also were expecting
an income tax return of between $1500 and $3100 (the amount varied by
day and they said they hadn't gotten a copy of the tax return, so they
couldn't be sure).
About three weeks in, Dave took his car up to Portland and ended up
taking the bus back. The sad story we got was that his car had broken
(the timing chain slipped which snapped the valves and trashed the
car). Somebody donated a car and Greg (our Family Case Manager) tried
to give them the car, but Dave declined.
Turned out Dave didn't, technically, have a valid driver's license. In
fact, he had a suspended Florida driver's license, and his car hadn't
so much broken down as it had been towed away after Dave got pulled
over.
Now, you or I might have been up front about the suspended license and
asked Salem Interfaith for help getting it cleared up. Not Dave, for
reasons that still escape us. (And, no, we didn't give his family the
donated car.)
The other thing you might think is that after six weeks of regular
paychecks and no expenses (Salem Interfaith provides food, shelter,
necessities, junk food--your only expense is cigarettes if you smoke
and these folks don't), you might have saved up some money. In fact,
by our tally, Dave and Nikki should have had at least $3,100 and
possibly $4,000 (or more). A comfortable sum with which to rent a nice
two- or three-bedroom place.
Last week Greg asked them to bring in a bank statement (since Greg was
running short on trust with these folks) and we discovered that they
had only about $1,200 in the bank (!).
None of the paychecks had been deposited in the bank, and the tax
return deposit was exactly $2,000 (which is unlikely, so we suspect
that they withdrew some money as they deposited it).
Where did this money go? Well, Dave spent at least $300 on getting his
bike fixed up nice and slick. Now, granted, the bike is his main
transport (since his car got towed away), but do you really need to
have it fixed up fancy when your family is living in a homeless
shelter?
Various other amounts seem to have disappeared from the account in
bits and pieces and, when Robert was last in the office, nowhere near
all of it had been accounted for. We don't think they were spending it
on drugs, although anything's possible.
Somehow, more than $2,000 slipped through their fingers in the last
six weeks.
The really sad part is that their kids are pretty cool. Rose is a very
polite four-year old, who's very bright and mischievous. She likes to
put together jigsaw puzzles and play games on the computer and color
and generally be four years old. Their son, 12-year-old George, is
also a good kid.
But because they have idiot parents who can't manage money (or tell
the truth when it counts), they're homeless and sleeping on church
floors and not having their own rooms.
At this point, Greg will probably be asking Dave and Nikki to move out
next week (if he hasn't already). We'll arrange for a cheap apartment
for them to move into, but it's anybody's guess as to whether or not
they'll be able to afford it--on paper, it's not a problem, but that
money seems to just keep sneaking away.
SINGLE MOM
Isabella is a 20-year-old mom with a nine-month old and an 18-month
old, although only one of them stays with us at a time. Her
"fiancé" (it's never boyfriend with our guests, we notice, it's always
"fiancé") is also 20 and is staying with his mom (who doesn't like
Isabella and won't let her stay with them).
Isabella's fiancé is having problems finding a job, because he's got a
felony on his record. A felony for assaulting her, but, of course,
he's gotten much better and something like that would never happen
again. Usually, we avoid domestic violence (DV) cases, because it
endangers the volunteers. This didn't seem like a DV case, but more of
a homeless-mom-with-small-baby case, so we decided to let her stay.
Isabella had a job working at a large department store until a week or
so ago. The complete story is still a little murky, but it seems to be
a combination of not removing her tongue stud for work (she forgot)
and not making sure that extra cash in her till got properly removed
before she went on break (she called them once, already). Basically,
she was guilty of being 20 years old and clueless about proper work
habits.
She's also clueless about money. She turns her paychecks over to her
fiancé, who's a "very private person" (no one at Salem Interfaith has
met him) and doesn't want to tell us what he's doing with the money.
The problem is that Isabella wants us to recommend them for an
apartment (if we recommend people, they can usually skip having to pay
last month's rent up front, plus evictions and bad credit can get
overlooked). Greg is having a hard time doing that, because we haven't
met the fiancé and he's refusing to provide any accounting for her
money.
Is he a drug dealer? Probably not, but there's a world of pain in the
difference between "probably" and "definitely."
At this point, we don't see any real exit plan for Isabella to get an
apartment with her fiancé in the next couple of weeks (we're a 30-day
program and she's about halfway through). We'll probably send her over
to Simonka Place, which is a woman's shelter (it's the female side of
the Union Gospel Mission).
IN SUMMARY
Well, you can begin to understand why we snicker when we hear that the
Federal Gummint is going to "eliminate homelessness in ten years."
Yes, it's a noble goal. But, Geez Louise, there's a lot of reasons why
people end up homeless. And we only deal with the ones who have kids
and are drug-free (and even then we're still staying pretty full!).
These folks need more than just a handout OR a hand up. They need long-
term counseling and education and training and some lucky breaks. And
even if you manage to take care of everybody who's homeless now,
there's a never-ending stream of folks who are working hard at
becoming homeless.
It doesn't mean we plan to quit trying, but we're also not too worried
about running out of work...
=======
That's it for this week. Next weekend, we're traveling to Goldendale,
Washington for Laura to help with a memorial service for a friend's
mother (Laura did the service for Robert's Mom and did a very nice job
of it). So, the trip log will be late again.
Robert & Laura
Mid-Life Crisis Trip
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