Homeless For A Night
Background Info.
Ever wonder what it would be like to stay at a homeless shelter? I did. Not only did I wonder but, I decided to do it for one night. I thought it would be a unique experience to stay at a homeless shelter to understand firsthand what it would be like. While I was visiting Tallahassee, I took the plunge and put the idea into action.
You may be wondering why not do something like this in Daytona Beach? The answer to that question is the lack of emergency shelters for single adults. There are two emergency shelters located in Volusia County and none in Flagler County.
The first shelter (located in Daytona Beach) is the Salvation Army Homeless Emergency Shelter. This shelter has 18 beds total for the single homeless male or female. Ten beds are reserved for men and 8 for women. Only one night a month is free. After that, one needs to pay $10 a night or get a voucher from a local church or organization to stay. Even then, the maximum number of nights a person can stay is thirteen a month. Once that limit is reached, an individual has to wait until the next month to stay there.
The other emergency shelter is The Neighborhood Center of West Volusia, located in DeLand. This shelter has nine beds total, 6 reserved for men and 3 for women. This shelter allows one to stay free for up to two weeks. After that, it is $5 a night and after 30 days the organization hopes that the person moves into their transitional housing program.
The total number of emergency shelter beds is 11 for a single woman residing in Volusia or Flagler Counties, not nearly enough. If I stayed one night, someone who truly needed sleeping arrangement would have been bumped because of the lack of space. According to the point in time survey conducted last January by the Volusia/ Flagler County Coalition for the Homeless, there are 2,155 homeless people in Volusia and Flagler Counties and only 27 emergency shelter beds.
“The Shelter” is an emergency shelter located in Tallahassee Florida and has 110 beds total. Sixty beds are reserved for men, 38 for women and the rest are reserved for families. Although that is the total number of beds, they accommodate if there are more people with the use of cots and mats. All services are free for people staying there and the shelter has no limits as to how many nights one can stay. This year the shelter has been averaging about 225 people a night. A total of 202 people stayed the same night I did.
What was it like?
Here is the daily/ nightly routine at the shelter:
-Intake at the shelter begins at 5pm and ends at 7pm.
-Showers and laundry is done prior to dinner or after, based on numerical order.
-Dinner is served at 7:30pm, clean up after.
-Lights out is between 9 and 9:30pm.
-Everyone needs to be out of the shelter by 8:30am. Coffee and a breakfast snack are served on the way out.
Men and women are separated, and the women’s part of the shelter is located upstairs. After 7pm, a woman cannot come back downstairs or leave until 4:15am.
After everyone signed in, I filled out an intake form. The nice thing about The Shelter is that it is optional for a person to have their information entered into the homeless management information system (HMIS). If a person wants confidentiality, they may get it. I wanted my information to remain private. As a new college graduate, I had the fear that in some way it would get back to me. For example, if I am looking for a job, an interviewer would see that I was homeless (even for a night) and deny me a job. I will admit that maybe I was a bit too paranoid.
Unfortunately, there is a huge stigma associated with being homeless. According to homeless individuals in Daytona Beach, if a person is applying to a job and they list the STAR Family Center (an agency that provides services here in Daytona) or the Salvation Army as their home address, red flags are up for the hiring agency, and most likely the applying (homeless) individual will not get a job.
I signed the confidentiality portion of the intake form and went upstairs to the women’s area. I did not know what to expect that night and was a little jittery considering I was by myself. I only took with me a plastic bag containing a pen, notebook, book, toothbrush & toothpaste, disposable camera, and t-shirt to change into in the morning. Cell phone use is prohibited, so I left it in my car. I saw that many women were watching the news in the common room, so I figured I would sit there and chat with people until dinner.
The first lady I met was in and out of the common room, because outside women are permitted to take smoke breaks. (I don’t like smoking so I didn’t go outside). The first thing she said was, “This is your first night here isn’t it, well welcome to The Shelter!” That eased my anxiety a bit, because it seemed as though these people had a sense of comradeship. Not a bit what I expected. A part of me thought almost everyone would want solitude in this environment, and I would have to work extra hard to carry a conversation. That was not the case. Many of the women there for an overnight stay were chatty and interested in why I was there. Another woman sat next to me and we had a long conversation. She fled from California in 2004 from an abusive relationship and is now here in Tallahassee. She is in a bind and needs to get her social security card because it is lost. She asked if I was here for a model search in Tallahassee. She told me that young women travel to Tallahassee when there is a model search in town and stay at the shelter in hopes to become “discovered.” I politely said I work for the homeless coalition in Daytona Beach. Then she proceeded to talk to me about anything from giraffes and how beautiful their eyes are to the mound builders in southern Ohio.
When I made a comment about working at a homeless coalition in Daytona, a lady overheard and asked if I was going to write an exposé on them. She figured if I was from Daytona and working in Tallahassee, I should be staying at a hotel and not a shelter. She was hesitant at me being there, so I decided against taking pictures of people and writing in the notebook that I brought. She said that I would not like sleeping there. She was covered in bed bug bites and even showed me where she was bitten. I shuddered at the thought of being prey to bugs when I slept. She wouldn’t tell me why she was homeless, only that she was born in Alabama, raised in New York, and lived in Cleveland for 28 years as the best dancer at Pinky’s Famous Saloon. Once she left the room, the ladies told me not to worry about the bugs because they are attracted to her because of poor hygiene and bed wetting.
Then there were the young women. I befriended three women ages 21, 22, and 26. They were the easiest to talk with. The 21 year old came to Tallahassee from Alabama. Her step mom kicked her out of the house because she was didn’t approve of her fiancé (he stayed in the men’s section of the shelter that night) or relationships with men in general. She spoke frankly about being promiscuous and her step mom’s distaste of it. She also spoke of taking birth control and how it makes her gain weight and that she has no children. When we ate that night, she refused to eat the green beans because they were seasoned with pepper and spicy food sparks an anxiety attack. This was her first night at the shelter. There were three new women staying at the shelter that night, including me.
The 22 year old was sharp. She didn’t talk about being homeless, but was excited to have passed the ASVAB (Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery) exam. She plans on enlisting in the Navy as soon as possible.
The 26 year old and I spent the most time together since we both slept on the top bed of bunk beds placed perpendicular to each other. She is originally from Georgia and moved to Tallahassee with her boyfriend. He recently lost his job and they became homeless because they couldn’t afford rent. This was her second night at the shelter. Her boyfriend also stayed in the men’s section of the shelter. She showed me where to get blankets, pillows and pillowcases. We laughed when people got fussy with each other about petty things such as taking too long in the shower.
I couldn’t help but feel for the young women staying at the shelter. The streets are not exactly the safest place. At two different feeding programs in East Volusia, I was approached by pimps and asked if I would like to work for them. They prey in those areas and I can’t imagine it would be different in another city. It makes sense that pimps hang out at shelters and feeding programs, because this is where people are vulnerable, especially young women. Pimps may offer protection to a runaway woman who fled an abusive relationship or home. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
A Good Night’s Sleep
After dinner, there was about an hour of relaxation before lights out. This is when I got my linens and made my bed. I slept above a 60 year old woman who is known by residents as the woman “who makes you laugh when you feel like crying.” She did exactly that. I made a joke about falling off the top bunk (which I have been known to do) and she sang a song about how I should not do that and keep my limbs near the wall. I then jumped up and down on my bunk to pretend like I was going to fall and she screamed. She said that only fat people should sleep on the bottom bunk because they serve as the anchor that holds the bed down. She put her Luther Vandross CD in her portable player and fell right asleep. Someone made a huge mess in the bathroom and many residents were complaining about it. She defended herself by using some colorful language and the 26 year old and I couldn’t help but laugh at the situation, especially when she tripped over the mop. I lucked out, the room I was in had eight beds and everyone had good hygiene. In the other room, that was not the case. There were a handful of women who didn’t take showers and it made the room smell terrible. Some women who were sleeping in that room walked to our side in hopes to switch beds with us. We responded by making fun of them and their situation. Afterwards, I did a little reading and then lights out.
Lights were out around 9:15. I was hoping to get a decent nights rest, but that was not the case. I tossed and turned. Around 10pm, ladies came in and cleaned the bathrooms. For what felt like a long while, I heard buckets rolling around the floor, quiet talking, and the strong scent of Mr. Clean. My bunk bed was nearest to the bathroom. They propped the bathroom door open and the lights inside kept me from sleeping. When they finally left, a man came around with a flashlight to examine the rooms. I figured he was some sort of night guard making rounds. I looked at the clock located above the bathroom door. I think it read 11:45pm. I couldn’t tell what time it was because even at the top of the hour, the hour hand pointed between two numbers.
After the night guard left, I tried to sleep again. It didn’t work. I seemed to be stuck in a room with a bunch of snorers. There wasn’t a silent pause between the people snoring, it was a constant noise and it was driving me nuts. After lying in bed for a couple more hours, I FINALLY fell asleep. An hour and a half later, I woke up again. This time I woke up from someone coughing in the other room. This person was coughing loudly for another long while. I was grateful that I just finished antibiotics two days prior because their cough sounded terrible. I was imagining they had bronchitis by the sound of it. When the coughing ceased, the snoring kept me up again. Then while I was up, I thought about bed bugs and how uncomfortable my blanket was. The blanket felt like it was covered with dew. It could have felt that way because of the humidity in the room or that I was directly under a vent. Anyways, I laid there thinking for another hour or so. The night guard made another round as well. I looked at the clock again and it looked like it was 3:45am. I concentrated on sleeping again. I woke up again. It sounded like the 26 year old girl was crying. I heard sniffling and soft sobs. The only thing I could do to clear my mind of this situation was to say a prayer for her. I tried to go back to sleep afterwards. At this time I heard birds chirping and I knew it was early morning. I looked at the clock again. I think it said 4:40am. I focused my efforts on sleeping and did. I woke up at 7:00 by the shout of a woman saying “time to wake your asses up everyone!” I lay in the bunk bed for another ten minutes. Finally I dragged myself out of bed, folded my linens, and walked out the front door of The Shelter. I had enough. I slept a total of 3 hours and was not happy. There was coffee and food, but I didn’t care. I was sleep deprived and annoyed.
Reflecting Back
First off, I wouldn’t have done this if I thought in some way I was in danger. Not once during my stay did I feel threatened. As I mentioned earlier, most women who stayed the night were welcoming, even as a first timer. There were women who kept to themselves, and those individuals were left alone. There were a couple of people who were skeptical of my presence, but I was polite and didn’t cause trouble. In a strange way, the homeless shelter felt much like living in a college dorm. The situations living in both are similar. In both college dorms and homeless shelters there are community showers, common rooms shared by everyone, people having disagreements, people befriending each other, invasion of bugs, and people who have bad hygiene.
Many people envision a homeless person as dangerous, and to some degree I thought I took a huge risk staying at the shelter. Sometimes, I think of a worst case scenario for situations I encounter. This was mine while staying in the shelter: I envisioned a hostile environment where people fought physically with each other, stole items, and even imagined seeing drug use or deals between people.
After spending the night this is what I encountered instead: women having verbal arguments that were settled eventually, personal belongings locked up in storage units, and no use of drugs or alcohol. The general feeling I got from staying the night at the shelter was a community of people who were struggling, but building each other up with friendship.
