----- ) )-0----)000(----0-( ( ( ----------------------- ) +-0-=0+ T + C + A + H + R +0=-0-+ ( ----------------------- ) ) )-0----)000(----0-( ( ----- "To aid in the incubation, breeding, and release of butterflies in Asia." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Iss. 42 Sheltered Nights ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- January 19th, 2003, I was faced with the event which I’d been expecting since I became an overnight supervisor at the homeless shelter six months ago. A client with a history of arrest, violence and drug use had spent the night intimidating other clients, volunteers and staff members. As I was aware of his mental instability and the little chance of finding another shelter late on a cold Chicago winter night, I had balked at having him ejected from the premises. I, however, felt that I couldn’t allow him to jeopardize the safety and comfort of the other 64 clients. I ordered security to tell him to leave. The client didn’t take it too well; he rushed toward me while ripping off his jacket and threatening to kill me. The large, muscular client took advantage of the security guard’s hesitance and inexperience. Instead of restraining the furious client, the guard stepped aside and allowed the client to stomp past him and toward me. I had little time to prepare as he popped a fast left hook into the side of my neck and then stepped back into position for another punch. Being versed in martial arts, I capitalized on his mistake with a hard right cross into his angry mouth. I used his backward momentum to tackle him into the nearest wall, and then followed with a slam onto a table. The security guard finally woke from his coma and helped me to remove him for the shelter. The client vowed the usual death threats of murder, gang retaliation and lawsuits. I considered myself the victim of the attack, so I was quite surprised by my further victimization by the shelter’s executive director. Betraying a lack of practical logic, she opted to follow a blanket shelter policy that prohibits employees for protecting themselves by anything more than covering up in all cases. By throwing a punch in self-defense and then restraining my attacker as the security guard and other clients stood by doing nothing, I was rewarded with a week’s suspension without pay. I also received three months probation during which I would receive no references if I attempted to become employed anywhere else. I spent the following week bitterly assessing the role our homeless shelter plays in protecting parasites and criminals. When I tell people that I work at a homeless shelter, they usually respond by with words to the effect of it being a selfless, humanitarian and noble career. There is nothing I despise more than those comments as they remind me of my own naïve mindset when I started this job. Inversely, I enjoy sharing my venom with those who don’t know the inner world of homeless shelters or its effects on people and neighborhoods. Though my job begins at 8:00 p.m., I have to mentally psych myself out much earlier. At about 5:30 p.m., an hour before I’m expected to pick-up the list of the night’s clients at the homeless shelter, my body undergoes what has become ritual in order to prepare myself for the night. I pace a circle of nervous energy on the cluttered floor of my tiny studio apartment. Every few laps the bile in my system becomes too much and I fill the apartment with gagging sounds. I grind my teeth to stop the attack, wipe the spittle from my lips with my sleeve and begin to pace the familiar circle once again. At 6:15, I pull on my flight jacket and lace my steel-toed jackboots tight. I give the books, the espresso machine and my eternally unfinished painting a resigned look. After locking up my apartment, I walk through Uptown towards the $16,000 a year job that supports my humble existence wondering if I’ll live through the night. I somewhat enjoy my walks to work. While walking through the neighborhood I take stock of the beautiful architecture of decades past. The stately Uptown Theater on Broadway and Lawrence, however, has become my cue to be on guard. After Broadway, where the shelters, human service centers and food depositories are centralized, the mood of both the neighborhood and myself change. Gangs sometimes patrol the neighborhood en masse. During the summer, drunks sitting outside the train station yell abuse and challenges at the commuters. I have more personal reasons to be careful on my travels. It is not unusual for staff members to be stopped by angry clients here. It is for reasons like this that I walk through Uptown looking behind my back while trying not to indulge in the luxury of putting my hands into my pockets. I arrive at the nighttime office at about 6:30. Before going into the building I take a look at the clients sitting on the bench and sniff the air for signs of alcohol or marijuana. Our shelters allow anyone who signs up for the night to stay with no checking into their background. Even clients who have shown a history of violence and crime during their stay at the shelter can be re-admitted against the advice of the shelter supervisors by the administrative supervisors. Because of this, our client list tends to reflect a large number of current and former gang members, drug addicts, dealers and low-level pimps. Occasionally we find that a client that has been gone for a few days is a child molester or rapist on the run from the law; the sight of children playing in the gated yard next to the office building sickens me. Client intake begins at 8:30. One of the complaints I’ve made to the shelter director in the past is the lack of experience of the security staff combined with the unrealistic policies of the board of directors. While weapons, drugs, and alcohol are not allowed in the shelter, we are not allowed to do a proper search of the clients’ possessions. In our searching procedures, we may ask the clients open their bags, but cannot put our hands inside them to check for contraband. Instead, we can only run our hands on the outside of the bags in the futile hope to feel out weapons that may be wrapped in a bundle of old clothes. On one occasion, a client was able to sneak in a six-inch butcher knife by putting it in his back pocket and using his jacket to cover it up. Last summer, one of the supervisors had his hand slashed open by a client welding a box cutter. The security guard checks out at 10:30, while I check out at 8 in the morning. Though our search for contraband of clients with questionable backgrounds is inefficient and I am restrained from defending myself, I am expected to watch, guard and discipline the clients alone. The only option that an overnight supervisor can use is ejection from the shelter. The clients know that that this threat is only marginally effective. Clients knowledgeable of the rules will run amuck in the shelter until the police are called. This, along with the shelter policy of not allowing police officers in to search for suspected criminals, and the shelter’s reputation for not pressing charges, have caused cops on the beat to hesitate or even ignore responding to calls originating from us. By the time the police arrive, the troublemakers have left and the shelter supervisor must deal with the police officers’ ire. 11:00 p.m. is when the lights are turned off for the night. I spend most of the time between security rounds of the sleeping area in the kitchen. It is during these times that one of the mentally challenged clients will take advantage of my absence by smearing feces on the wall or urinating in the sink of the bathroom. Next to the criminal element, the mentally challenged are the largest population residing in my shelter. The reason for this is that our organization runs two shelters. The bigoted supervisors of the other shelter have an agenda that the shelter director has chosen to ignore. Along with sending us the most violent residents, they have chosen to bar all clients considered undesirable—the mentally handicapped and known homosexuals—from their shelter to ours. Neither of the shelters is well equipped to take care of a client with psychological issues. One case in particular centered around a client who would spend the night roaming the shelter, plugging up the toilet and talking loudly to himself. We brought up our inability to deal with this client at our Friday staff meetings where the director routinely ignored us. All this changed the night the Department of Human Services arrived to interview the clients. The first client in the shelter that night was the mentally challenged client in question. The DHS interviewers were in the shelter for less than ten minutes as the client’s loud angry cursing and punching of the furniture frightened them. That night the executive director and shelter director barred the emotionally unstable client from both shelters. In the morning I am responsible for making sure that the shelter, which is situated in a church gym, is cleaned for the kids who will be studying and playing there during the day. Before clean up I am expected to serve breakfast to the 20 to 30 clients who wait to eat before they leave. As soon as they eat, they walk out and leave the cleaning to three or four clients who volunteer to stay. These 30 odd clients tend to be those who are milking the lenient shelter system. Staying true to the lazy homeless stereotype, they hang out all day at the local McDonald’s, Burger King and library until one of the churches serving as a food depository opens up to give away free dinners. These clients could assure themselves of a guaranteed bed at the shelter all month by going to daily meetings in the administrative offices, but refuse to do so. I guess it’s too much like work. The hedonistic and self-destructive aspects of these particular clients are most visible on “Buckwheat Days”. Buckwheat days are the nickname the shelter supervisors have given to the two or three days following the first of the month. Most nights I have to turn people away from the shelter; at the beginning of the month I’m shocked if I intake more than 30 clients. On the first of the month, the clients on welfare have money wired into their LINK card accounts. The next few days will be spent in an orgy of drugs, alcohol and sex, only to have them return after their money is gone. There is so much that could be changed within the shelter system. The shelters of Uptown could demand that in order to receive bed space, clients must attend self-help classes during the day or prove that they are actively pursuing work. Those suffering from drug addiction should be made to work on overcoming their addictions. Clients with psychological problem should be referred to agencies that could help them instead of simply allowing them to exist in a chaotic state that eventually punishes them when they run afoul of the rules. By not implementing programs to help the homeless help themselves, the homeless are not being served. Some changes could also make the shelters safer. Those clients who are violent repeat offenders of the law should be purged from the system instead of allowing them to turn Uptown into a home base of criminal activity. The drug dealers residing in the shelters should be removed so that they won’t further ruin the lives of the addicts. Instead of treating the police as the enemy, we should work with them. In order to retain quality employees, the safety of supervisors should not come at the expense of bureaucratic liberal idealism. Security guards should be paid to guard the shelter at least until after “lights out”. The background of supervisors should be checked before being hired and then be routinely monitored less they allow their prejudices to punish those they are assigned to help. I realize that my last suggestion would result in me being fired. I returned to work after my suspension full of hatred against for the clients. Being an overnight supervisor has changed me into a bigot more concerned with my paycheck than the homeless. As I contribute to the erosion of Uptown by working for a system I find immoral, I am reminded of the actions of Vlad Tepes in the 1500s. Vlad Tepes, King of Wallachia, invited all the beggars in his land to a sumptuous feast in a large hall. After they greedily ate themselves into a stupor, he barred the doors and posted guards outside the hall. He then lit the building on fire and watched it burn to the ground. Six months ago I found this story horrifying, but now I understand it more than I ever wished to. I’d settle, however, for all the shelters in Uptown closing down. --The Tcahrian _________________________________________________________________ / _______________________________________________________________ \ | / \ | || TCAHR is the invention of Juan M. Diaz (a.k.a. The Tcharian). || || TCAHR is his self-created delusion and prone to the mental || || aberrations and valiences that are part of Juan M. Diaz's || || psyche. These aberrations and valiences include depression, || || meglomania, Nietzschism, Objectivism, anti-social and || || borderline personality disorders, Machiavellism and || || conservative right-wing thinking. || || || || TCAHR welcomes all comments. All comments will be read, then || || used to glorify TCAHR, The Tcahrian and all TCAHR-related || || entities. This will be accomplished by editing both your || || praise and scorn in order to show off TCAHR in the best || || possible aspect. || || || || In other words, TCAHR is not a democracy. It's my psychotic || || episode. Any offense you feel belongs entirely to you. || | \_______________________________________________________________/ | \_________________________________________________________________/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Committee Against Human Rights -- http://www.tcahr.net ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- tcahr@hotmail.com Copyright 2003