Frustration all around

Photos by Tom Hogarty

Lorie Castillo sits in the waiting area of the Community Shelter for Hope. Her eyes are red from tiredness and crying as she sits slumped in her chair. For the past week, the 33-year old woman had been staying in the women's section of the shelter with her newborn baby. Normally, she would be inside the edifice, joining the residents in the food line.

But things are far from normal for Castillo. After spending a night on the streets, she returned to the shelter only to have her baby taken away by the county Department of Social Services. She was told that someone had reported that she took her child to a crack house. She denies the allegation, but losing her child isn't Castillo's only problem-she also needs to find a place to live now. Due to new shelter regulations, if a resident spends one night on the streets without a valid excuse, he or she receives a one-week suspension, during which the resident may not stay at the shelter. In this instance, Castillo said she told her father to call the shelter, but when a staff member from the shelter made a check-up call the next day, her father could not corroborate the story. That's why she isn't allowed in the shelter; she's just waiting for someone to take her to a facility in Chapel Hill.

"These people who say they want to help you-they are out to hurt you," Castillo says. "I don't have a place to go tonight. I don't know what I'm going to do."

Mike Collins has a different perspective. One of the case managers at the shelter, Collins says that while he has only been working there for a month, he's seen Castillo numerous times. He considers a decision to put a drug habit over the well-being of a child to be reprehensible. Suspending Castillo was a tough thing to do, Collins says, but he thinks it was the correct choice.

"You're talking about a child," Collins says. "It might be the kick in the butt that she needed."

Castillo's situation is one the staff at the Community Shelter for Hope faces every day. And while the resulting decisions often seem inhumane, staffers say they are only trying to help-it's this kind of tough love that the shelter gives its residents.

But it's the same tough love that some residents resent. The scene at the shelter is something of a tug-of-war: The battle is between the people who seemingly want help-yet want it their way-and the staff, who is willing to offer help, but acknowledges that the help has a price. Ann Norwood, a case worker in the women's section, compares the shelter and its residents to guests in a house. She says in their own home, the residents can do whatever they please.

From August through November, "Betsy" and her husband "Ben" lived in an abandoned van down the street across from the Durham County Health Department. The van had holes from rust, which "Ben" covered with blankets. Meanwhile, the couple resided in the very back portion of the van, using approximately 10 blankets to keep them warm. All of their possessions were crammed into this one space. But to them, living in such conditions was better than living at the shelter.

"It was kind of a hell in a way," "Ben" says of life in the van, but implied that life in the shelter was, in fact, worse. "The way they treat people in the shelter, I would go crazy in that place."

The two rules most roundly criticized by former residents were the strict attendance policies and the rules on maintaining lockers. The former infuriates residents because they want some type of freedom. One past resident, who wished to remain nameless, complained that there are times at which he wants his privacy, or the chance to go see his girlfriend. If he stays in the shelter, he can't do those things that many others take for granted.

Assistant Director Melvin Daniels and other staff members defend the rules. Daniels explains the reason for suspending residents after missing a single night-many of the residents will go out one evening, get high, and then need a place to stay, he says. The sequence of events often occurs on Friday nights, when many of the residents get paid.

"The question is, which is more important to you-having a safe, clean environment where all of your basic needs are fulfilled, or going out, getting high, continuing to cause trouble, not seeking any help," Daniels says. "People make choices. It's not like the rule does anything that the person is not permitted to do. The individual is free."

The locker policy is another issue on many residents' minds. Each resident is assigned a foot locker or wall locker for their possessions. To maintain a sanitary atmosphere, Daniels says that all of a resident's possessions must fit in the locker, and not be left lying around. If a resident leaves for more than four days, the shelter can claim the locker back. That clause is implemented to prevent residents from storing drugs or other illegal substances in their lockers for a long period of time.

Yet the policy has another important aspect to it. Sometimes, emptying out a locker means throwing away all of the residents only possessions. "Ben" pulls out a pair of used Nikes from his stuff, saying he found them in the dumpster and once belonged to someone else in the shelter. Daniels acknowledges the latent unfairness that some find in the shelter's decision to throw items out.

"Obviously, that would be some person's reception," he explains. "In the same light, that consideration alone cannot overrule cleanliness and security considerations in operating such a place."

While describing the locker policy, Daniels pulls out a box of wrenches, knives and other cutting devices-all of which could easily be used as weapons. Everything in the box was found in abandoned lockers. He adds that there are exceptions when such items will not be thrown out, such as when a resident is in a substance abuse program, in jail or going through a personal crisis that has prevented his or her return to the shelter.

Daniels attests that most of the people who come into the shelter are not used to following rules. He uses the example of a resident being humiliated when asked to remove his hat for grace.

At one point in his life, case manager Mike Collins would have reacted the same way. A 10-year veteran of the Marine Corps, Collins left the armed forces with an addiction to pain killers, which led to other drug and alcohol addictions. He was on the streets of Durham for three years, but never approached the shelter for help because he had too much pride-he predicts that he would have raised hell if forced to live under the somewhat stringent rules.

Collins' former home was next to a tree near the Veteran Affairs Hospital. When he ran out of money, he checked into the hospital. There, he had a place to stay, food and even a little extra money when he left, since the VA gave him a traveling stipend. Little did the hospital staff know that Collins' "travel" was just outside the door.

Eventually, Collins fought back against his drug addiction. He sought counseling, and has been clean ever since. He was working at the hospital as a nurse when Daniels, the shelter's assistant manager, offered him the chance to be a case manager. When Collins received the position, he thought it would be easy. Instead, he has a love-hate relationship with his job. He loves helping people, but hates the frustration and the hassles.

"We can't make them stop getting high," he complains. "When they decide to stop getting high, their lives will change dramatically. Drugs ruined me. It's frustrating when you cannot give someone something you've got."

Collins says that when he entered the job, he may have had too much sympathy for the residents, and perhaps been too lenient. Over time, however, he's realized that there is more than one side to every discussion. Nevertheless, he emphasizes that rules are made to be bent or perhaps even broken. Thus, the case manager should treat each person on a case-by-case scenario.

Case worker Norwood agrees, saying that on the first offense, a resident may be able to escape without a punishment-how the person reacts to the gratitude will determine how he or she is treated in the future.

Even when punishments must be handed out, Collins is often fairly easy on the residents. Oftentimes, residents receive "extra duty" as punishment for breaking a minor rule. Such is usually Collins' choice as well, for cleaning up is a task all of the residents must undertake at some point in their stay at the shelter. Sometimes Collins will tell a person to show up at the shelter at a random time, say 2 p.m. on a Sunday afternoon, just to see if the person is willing to remember. If the resident does make the meeting time, Collins might give him five minutes of clean-up duty, then allow him or her leave.

Collins says his biggest goal is to get the residents help and that he is constantly on the phone, trying to place people with substance abuse problems into local programs.

"We can get [them] into rehab," he says. "If they will be patient, it is better off in the long run. The shelter offers a lot of good things."

Many of those good things are mentioned on the walls of the shelter. A yellow bulletin board in between the locker area on the far wall posts daily job offerings. Just overhead the list is a sign that says, "Do you want a job? Are you ready?" Other posters offer a direct challenge, such as "Get a life."

The shelter offers a substance abuse program, literacy enhancement programs and is in the process of implementing a job program. But the job program isn't offered to every resident. Daniels said there is a screening process that is based on how well a person follows directions. But he emphasizes that if a person enters and completes the program, they will have a job waiting for them.

Daniels adds that all of the residents know about the programs because of the posters on the walls. If the resident can't read, then he or she is told about them at weekly in-house meetings and at orientation.

Some people on the street claim they never knew about such opportunities. Juanita Mitchell says that the last time she stayed at the shelter nobody told her about the programs.

"They never told me about employment, substance abuse [programs]," exclaims the 41-year old woman. "They didn't tell me nothing."

Yet another resident, Sammy Barton, counters Mitchell's statement. He says he knew all about the drug addiction support groups, Alcoholics Anonymous groups, and other such groups. He proudly declares that the shelter helped him receive social service benefits.

Daniels says that while the shelter provides numerous services for the homeless, its up to the residents to take initiative and accept the help. He compares the opportunities at the shelter to his experience in the military, claiming that these are two places that go unrivaled in providing services for no cost.

"[There's] no basic criteria except that you come in, you access it, and you use it," he contends. "We provide housing. You have to want it. You have to ask for it."

Daniels suggests that the shelter must provide the services in a manner that doesn't offend a person's dignity or respect. He qualifies his remark, however, by saying that sometimes a staff member has to get to the bottom line and be firm in order to solve a crisis. Still, even in those circumstances, Daniels claims that no member of his staff has used obscene language or obscene gestures when dealing with the residents.

That claim is refuted by various former residents of the shelter. When discussing the staff, Daniels' name is one of the first mentioned among people who treat residents poorly. One resident says that Daniels treated residents like inmates. But "Joe," a 23-year old man who recently spent a night in the shelter, saw things in another light. He placed the responsibility on the residents to act responsibly.

"If you want to act like an asshole, you will get treated like an asshole," he explains. "If you want to act nice, you will get treated nicely."

Several staff members admit that Daniels has a style of his own-one that some people don't like to follow. Collins said he once threatened to write up a staff member for treating the residents too harshly.

"I don't think they need [rough talk]," he asserts. "I try not to do it myself. I don't think that people need to be yelled at. I've seen staff do it. These people are people. There's no difference. These people's dignity-that's all they have left."

While Collins says he has often bumped heads with Daniels concerning decisions, he says that the assistant director has been good for the shelter on the whole. Collins tells an anecdote that spoke to the caring side of Daniels-the assistant director has dragged in people off of the streets to provide them help, he says.

"[Daniels] makes demands, but he has to," Collins adds. "He's good for these people."

Norwood says that she does not enjoy yelling, but that some of the coordinators believe that is the only way to get their point across. She mentions that if she could change one thing at the shelter, she would encourage the coordinators to try to handle tension-filled scenarios with a little more tact. Still, Norwood explains that sometimes a staff members' patience can be tested too much.

Norwood sometimes interrupted her interview to go into the women's side to check on her residents. While bedtime is around 11 p.m., some of them were still up and about at 1 a.m., with the lights and the television on. In these situations-in which directions are not followed-that Norwood finds reason to act harshly. If she does not do so, she says, residents tend to believe they can take advantage of staffers.

By midnight, the men's side of the shelter is completely still. Many of the men, sleeping either on military cots or on floor-mats, will awaken as early as 4:30 a.m. to walk to Labor World, a nearby facility that hands out day jobs but during that same morning, some residents will be complaining about getting up so early. Someone will be demanding to get in when they are on suspension. And the staff will face a few more of the difficult decisions it makes every day.

Despite the impending distractions, a peace seems to hover over the shelter while the lights are out. The only disturbance is a phone call from a woman asking if the women's section still has openings. A half-hour later she arrives with her four children.

Collins says such disturbances will probably remain a constant, that a harmony between the staff and the residents will never exist-at least as long as most of the residents keep fighting the rules, or as long as the residents see the shelter as a temporary place to stay, not a place to start changing their lives.