On Room In The Inn

Well the weather has turned a little cooler, meaning that seasons are about to change. Autumn is coming and soon after will begin the Room In The Inn program. Room In the Inn, is a winter shelter program for the homeless in Nashville. about 150 area churches will, once a week or so, take homeless people in for the night, feeding and lodging them in their church facilities. Its a great program. Perhaps the best option for the homeless, with a great impact on everyone's lives. Both homeless people and church people are changed for the better through this program. Everyone involved talks of the blessings they receive for their participation.

Yet, it's not a perfect program, and I think it could be better in several ways. And here I will attempt to address certain issues with the program, in hopes that things become even better than they are, with Room In The Inn.

The variety of people in homelessness is extreme. Perhaps because all homeless people, despite their type of homelessness are all clumped together and treated the same. This alone is not the best situation for homeless people. Especially if the desired end result is for homeless people to become homed. All the various types of homeless people have to live in very close proximity to each other. And this can cause strife for the homeless population. It would be a much better situation if say, all the alcoholics were put together, separate from all the mentally ill, and the mentally ill were segregated from the aggressive predatory homeless. And it would be great if all the predatory homeless were all put in jail. But anyway. That's not the situation we have. And there's not much hope for that ever happening in the future.

For the homed people with the resources necessary, they naturally segregate themselves. For the most part, all the rich white snotty people live in one area of town. All the black middle class blue collar workers live in another. And you can pretty much map out any city this way, in that most all birds of a feather, flock together. They are amongst people will similar likes and interests and mindsets - which provides for them a certain peace and contentment.

Of course overcrowding alone will cause strife among any group of people. And all homeless shelters are overcrowded. One of the great benefits to Room In The Inn, is that each church or group takes only 12 or so homeless people a night. But, there is not much more done to separate the types of homeless people being sent to each church.

As it happens that perhaps only 10 percent of homeless people could be labeled, "trouble makers." in a group of a dozen, there is a good chance that one or two of them will indeed be a problem for someone during the evening. Needless to say, homeless people know not to mess with a "homed" person, as that would bring a whole world of trouble into them. So, mostly the homeless trouble makers cause problems only for other homeless people. And, of course, they will only cause trouble for the other homeless if they believe they can get away with it.

And that brings me to most important issue I can think of for Room In The Inn. There are some churches that at some time or another will leave the homeless alone to themselves. And it is at this time that problems arise.

All sort of petty and not so petty issues arise in such circumstances. Intimidation is common. Theft is another, and it can happen right in from of the person being robbed, if they are intimidated enough. But actually, all sorts of hooliganism can take place when the homeless are not properly supervised.

And most of the homeless, who are being mistreated by others will not say anything. One reason for this is the very real threat of retribution for "tattling" on other homeless people. Another reason is that proof of being wronged by another homeless person is impossible to prove. The wrong doer will completely deny it, and will even get a friend to corroborate his lie if possible. And even if the homeless person makes a complaint of being mistreated by another homeless person, the administrators will often discount or down play the events. If there is a fight between two homeless people, regardless of who instigated it, both parties involved will be punished for it. And so many homeless feel it useless to defend themselves. And this just encourages the trouble makers all the more.

There have been times when one of the administrators of the "Campus" (the organization that operates Room In The Inn) will make an announcement over the intercom, thanking the homeless for an efficient and peaceful evening. Which is so ironic, considering that the evening was only efficient and peaceful for the administrators. Such is only achieved when the predatory types are allowed to do what they do without complaint from the other homeless. There comes a point when people get so tired of being abused that they give up and allow the mean spirited homeless to walk all over them without complaint. At the Campus, during the processing of the homeless for Room In the Inn, their are administrators only at the beginning and ending of the line. Yet a whole lot of disrespecting of people happens in between - where the administrators cannot see it. Of course over the many years of Room In The Inn, the homeless have attempted to say something, to educated the administrators of what's really happening, but they don't respond. And this too discourages the homeless from making formal complaints about important issues to the people in charge.

In years past, this was not such a big issue, but there seems to be a certain complacency on the part of the administration - and a bit of burn out too. Perhaps they just don't have the energy for it anymore. Dealing with homeless people and their issues is very exhausting work. Burn out comes quickly, which is why I and others always advocate term limits for people working in the homeless industry. It seems to be that after two years of working with the homeless, most people lose their enthusiasm for the job. They become cynical and spiteful and actually become more of a problem than a help to the homeless. Only a handful of people, that I have seen, have been able to maintain a real spirit of hospitality and genuine concern for the homeless, without waver. Father Charlie Strobel, who created Room In The Inn, is one such person. But he's semi retired and the people who have replaced him just don't have the dedication to service that he did. Of course these are good an caring people, wanting to do well for the homeless, but it's easy to see that this kind of work is more of a struggle for them. To them it's more of a job than a calling. And they are must less willing to go the extra mile for the homeless.

A lot of the problems that arise could easily be diminished if not completely abolished if there were more people on staff during Room In The Inn - both at the Campus and at the area churches.

Most of the churches involved in the program do an exemplary job, and certainly all are adequate to a degree. But still problems arise that only the homeless are privy to. And these problems arise when the homeless are left to themselves. Sometimes a church just won't have enough volunteers to watch every thing that happens with the homeless in their care. Sometimes the homeless are just neglected.

Some churches, after bring the homeless to their facilities, and feeding them, will sequester the homeless into some basement or back area of the church. And the church people are not seen again until the morning. Well, between dinner and breakfast, while no one is watching the homeless, something unpleasant usually happens. This is completely unnecessary, and certainly detrimental to the homeless. And all it would take to fix this problem is for someone, or some group of volunteers from the church to actually spend the night with the homeless, in the same room, if not within earshot, of the homeless. Some hosts at churches will say that nothing ever happens with the homeless, but that is only while they are around the homeless. And so they will justify staying at a distance from the homeless. But just because they don't see things happen, doesn't mean they didn't happen.

Some churches have a reputation among the homeless as being unpleasant places to stay. And the homeless, if given the choice would actually stay at the rescue mission than at some of the Room In The Inn churches. And you know, the rescue mission isn't very favored among the homeless either. And these churches are easy to spot. just watch as the homeless are being called to a particular church. The homeless will hesitate in coming forward when there name is called - will excuse themselves to the restroom in hopes of being passed over for that church. And once the call for the 12 homeless for that church is concluded, a cheer will go up among the homeless, happy that they did not get called to go there. And certainly the administration is aware of this. And yet over the years, they have done nothing to address the problems at some of these churches.

Safety is just one issue that needs to be addressed. Other issues will be discussed in future posts here.