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It's an emergency shelter so we're not allowed to stay in it. It's not really shelter-- it's psychological battery. We're called residents but most of the time we're treated like inmates. It's called a family shelter but the little kids get the least consideration.
Things have definitely improved overall since I came here last July (2009, after spending a week in Franklin Square Hospital after trying to kill myself and getting evicted at the same time) but I often think I'd be better off just packing up a few pieces of clothes and important papers and just walking out of here, although I have no place to go where I'm welcome to sleep or eat, even if I buy and cook food for myself and everybody else.
MISERABLE:
- Can't find a fairly quiet comfortable place to read or nap;
- Getting stopped up poop because of the shelter food;
- Bag lunch or arranging where to eat lunch when going out if it's raining;
- "Job Readiness" in the shelter Computer Room if it's crowded;
- Personal bathing amongst hostiles (previously; it will prolly flare up again);
- When my radio batteries run down and I can't afford new, esp. on weekend evenings;
- Hearing "your F-wording A-word" used day and night because the kids don't understand it and it doesn't leave marks. Actually I haven't heard it quite as much in the past couple of months, but still day and night;
- Missing good shows/series (There must be some good ones out there), PBS, satire, and live news video of important stuff like the Gulf oil leak, Pakistan flood-- because there's NO LIVE TV HERE!
- Getting all sorts of ideas for my website when computer access is available, e.g. on weekends, and pencilling notes which are hard to organize; and then when I get online, getting so totally bored and cramped or glitched...
- (Most of these don't concern most other shelter residents.)
All they're doing is packing bodies into buildings, the bunks really dint make it any better, or even allow many more bodies to be packed in.
In the past 11 months there have been 3 or 4 shelter managers (one was shorttime assistant/interim), all of whom have had both good and bad points. In my opinion, problems are caused about equally by residents and staff.
KIDS All the staff want is for parents to keep them under control; occasionally the manager have reminded parents in "community" meetings that they have a right to use physical punishment on their children. The social workers give excellent advice on talking to kids but seem annoyed when you report verbal abuse.
In a normal home a small child has the expectation that if he walks anywhere in a room, he can play with the objects or people he encounters. In the shelter dorms, a child has at most 4 feet to toddle before he or she encounters another person's bunk, which, altho it's at just the right level for a toddler's table, holds a stranger's or another family's possessions.
Once in a while, about 1/2 hour after everything has finally quieted down in the bedroom, you'll hear a smack, and then a kid will burst into tears, and THEN you hear "Shut UP, go to SLEEP" etc.
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Some documents
My Aug == 2010 email reply to Tyra Howard, CAN Shelters Director and Acting Manager of ----Side ShelterActually less than visitors so far.
© 2010.