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I spent 24 hours in the “Albuquerque Oval” of homeless shelters and aid services to live a day in the life of a person experiencing homelessness.
Early Friday morning, I headed toward St. Martin’s Hospitality Center, a day shelter on Third Street and Mountain Road.
On the way I met Ron, who was sitting at a bus stop. He said he had stayed at the shelter.
Ron said he steered a nuclear powered submarine in the Navy and was laid off from an oil drilling company in Lafayette, La. when the recession began.
He told me about a man who had once picked him up to work for the day. He said he completed the work in a third of the time expected; the man asked “Boy, can you count?” and Ron said the man assumed he was experiencing homelessness because he couldn’t count.
Then I met the director at St. Martin’s, Linda Fuller, who explained the center’s protocol.
She said the center, which opens at 8 a.m. and closes at 2 p.m., serves food and offers services including haircuts, personal storage, mail boxes, laundry, showers and rehab programs to anyone who needs it. She said some of the patrons have been coming to the shelter for more than eight yearas.
Then I met the doodler, who wouldn’t tell me his name; he just wanted me to call him the doodler.
“Ya know, JFK was known to be a great doodler,” he said.
He said he wasn’t experiencing homelessness, but still receives his mail at the shelter. He said he enjoys coming in once a month to pick it up.
He said he takes his envelopes, sits in a chair by himself and doodles the afternoon away as he watches the people come in and out of the shelter. He said he used to teach fourth and fifth grade in Santa Rosa.
Then I headed Downtown to get a spot at the Good Shepherd Center, an overnight shelter, for the night. Registration for the shelter is at 5:30 p.m.
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There are a few shelters in town, and diligent and sober clients can almost always find a place to sleep, but Good Shepherd is the only one I visited without cockroaches or heroin junkies in the courtyard.
I was guaranteed a spot because it was my first night at the shelter. The other people experiencing homelessness had to be chosen in the shelter’s lottery to get a bed.
I was assigned to bed 13 and was handed a towel, a bar of soap, a toothbrush, a shot of shampoo and pocketless hospital pants that I was required to wear for the entirety of my stay.
The staff noticed I was taking a lot of pictures and told me I had to store my camera in a locker. I tried to weasel my way out of forfeiting my camera for the night, but eventually confessed that I was a photojournalist.
The staff said I could keep the camera on me, but that I couldn’t photograph anyone’s face.
The other clients and I all shared one tube of toothpaste, and to keep the water in the shower running I had to hold down a button.
Everyone in the shelter waited for dinner at 8:30 p.m. Some people played cards, read or watched the Celtics on TV, while the rest sat and smoked.
Dinner was mashed potatoes, chicken, green beans, punch and doughnuts. The food wasn’t bad; it was comparable to the food they serve at La Posada.
Lights went off at 9:30 p.m. We slept in bunk beds with divider walls between us. The beds were comfortable, but I didn’t sleep well because I was too worried about losing my only pair of contacts.
We were woken up at 5 a.m. by the staff. Everyone gathered their belongings, folded up their sheets and waited for breakfast, which was oatmeal, toast, coffee and a doughnut.
We were kicked out at 6:40 a.m.
I met up with Jerry, a man I had talked to the night before, for an interview. He told me his life story over a pack of cigarettes, two coffees, an orange juice and a roll of doughnuts. I talked to him for three hours in six different locations, while he told me his dad was the only family he had left, but had kicked Jerry out three weeks ago.
We finished talking around noon and I walked back to Lobo Village while Jerry stayed on the streets.
