It's Cold Outside and Crowded in the Shelter

And there are not enough choices

“Where you been?” Deena asks me when I come in the shelter’s front door this morning. “Playing hooky,” I say. “Aw,” she says, “okay.”

It’s been about a week since I have been at the shelter. It was closed a couple of days last week for a staff retreat, and then I had to take care of some things that kept me away from my usual shifts. “We glad you’re back,” Deena says. She opens her arms for a hug and I settle right into them.

It's a plush, warm landing in the small entrance area, busy and crowded with men coming and going, other staff opening the door as quickly as possible to keep in the heat and keep out the cold. It takes me a moment to get around Deena in the congested space. That’s okay. It gives us more time to welcome each other. “You wearin’ your glasses today,” Deena says. “"I know,” I say, “trying to look smart.” “Can’t fool me!” she says.

Once I am through the entrance area I stop by the volunteer room to pick up my name tag and then I join a volunteer named Helen at the front desk. She’s answering the phone and handing out water, hand warmers, socks. We are all out of hats and boxers. I am doing sign-in, checking men in with the online roster.

When a man comes in, I ask him for his last name, scroll through the roster, and then check the box next to his name. If a man isn’t in the roster he needs to do an intake with a staff member. That doesn’t take long, just a quick interview in a room next to the front door.

Men need to be in the system in order to use the shelter’s services and facilities, such as receive mail, use the phone, take a shower, apply for housing. When a man checks in, we sometimes also ask where he spent the night and enter the information from a drop-down list by his name—Outside, Jail, Other Shelter.

It’s a little after ten. The shelter is full already. It’s one in, one out, and there is a line of about a dozen to fifteen men down the front steps and trailing to the curb.

“Don't anyone say the Q word,” says a man named Jacob who's helping with security today. Q word? I wonder, is there some kind of safety code I don't know about? I think, Queen, Quit, Quite, and then I say, “Quiet?” Jacob jumps back from the front desk. “No!” he says, “it’s the jinx word!” He explains that the second someone says it, or sometimes even thinks it, something is sure to go down.

But maybe we will get lucky today and things will stay loose and light. I have brought in a magazine with an article on how weight-loss drugs may be diminishing sexual desire. “That’s got to be the death knell for a medication,” I say. Helen offers another angle. “What woman wouldn’t give it to her man?” she asks. “Shew!” says Deena, “ain't that the truth!”

With a few men going out all together we have a few men coming in all at once, creating a small jam at the front desk for sign-in. “Last name?” I ask the first man. “Williams,” he answers, “Tony.” “Gotcha, Mr. Williams,” I say, “thank you.” Same routine for the second and third men.

“Last name?” I ask the fourth man. He doesn’t say anything. He’s a big man, solid, wearing a hoodie under a Carhartt work coat, his face and hands reddened and dry. I ask him again, “Last name?” He still doesn’t say anything. Has he heard me?

I try once more, a little louder. “Last name?” “So . . . . cold,” he says finally. He closes his eyes. “It feels . . . . so good in here,” he says, his eyes still closed. “Benson,” he says at last, “last name, Benson.” I find his name in the roster. “Where did you spend last night?” I ask. He sighs. “Preston Street? Highway?” he says. Outside, I choose from the drop-down list. “Thank you,” I say. He moves around the front desk to the tables and chairs in the main area.

A little later a group arrives with a couple of boxes of sack lunches and a few cases of water. Ready—Helen and I put one box of lunches on the counter by the phone. Set—I move the second one nearby and open a case of water. Go! Helen starts putting lunches on the counter as fast as she can and I am following with bottles of water.

The men take one of each as they go past and then once the first box is empty Helen moves it to the floor and we heave the second box into its place. We empty it in about a minute. We store the boxes under the front desk for staff to recycle later.

Another group arrives a few minutes later with boxes of bananas and large bags of clothing but it’s more than we can accommodate at the front desk so Deena directs them to the storage room where Annette has been organizing supplies. The men line up at the storage room door but it moves much more slowly for clothing.

After the lunch rush, I go to the laundry room. No volunteer has been there since the first shift this morning, and things have slowed enough at the front desk that Helen can handle it on her own.

I am not really in the mood for the laundry room. It’s a lot of work, almost non-stop laundry from all the towels the men have used to take showers, and trying to bring some order to the redundant toiletries tries my patience—four kinds of shampoo, seven kinds of body wash, three kinds of toothpaste, five kinds of body spray, and so on.

As I am folding a towel and wondering if there’s any way to streamline this excess, a man comes to the window of the laundry room. “Do you have any after shave?” he asks.

On top of one of the washing machines I see three small bottles, clear plastic with black plastic caps, each holding a colored liquid. I can’t see the labels, just the colors.

“Red, blue, or green?” I ask the man. “Let’s take a look at the red one,” he says. I hand it to him and he turns the bottle to see the label. “‘Chivalry,’” he says, “let’s go with that—that's how I feel today.”

He unscrews the top and sprinkles some on the palm of each hand and pats his cheeks, moves his hands down to his neck, takes a deep breath, and recaps the bottle. I have put away the towel I folded, and I have reconsidered my need for fewer options in the laundry room. Maybe we need more, many more, than just red, blue, or green—or Outside, Jail, Other Shelter.

If you would like to learn more about my experiences at the shelter, please see Angels, Fire Here and Angels, Fire Everywhere.

You may also support my work at Buy Me a Coffee.