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People said I was going too far. My mother is a psychiatric nurse and a former Drop-Inn Center volunteer. Her advice was biased: “You’re not mentally prepared for something like that, and it’s dangerous.”
“Homelessness is not safe or convenient,” I say. “It’s spontaneous and devastating.”
Bleach and poverty
At 6:15 p.m. Oct. 28, I bum a cigarette from a guy in front of Media Bridges to calm my nerves as I walk northbound on Race Street toward the Drop-Inn Center. Standing outside under the brown awning, several people block the entrance, puffing on cancer sticks.
The first time I went to the Drop-Inn Center was years ago to pick up my mother. I was terrified, trying not to make eye contact.
Entering the shelter is like walking into a vacuum that sucks the joy out of your spirit.
The walls are a blue institutional color, and it smells like bleach and poverty. The desk by the front door is always staffed with someone answering the phone and residents’ questions.
I’m instructed to have a seat on one of the long cafeteria-type tables in the back. On long, wood, train station benches close to the front, some men sprawl sleeping. Others stare at the large-screen television with green tint and bad audio. An older gentleman sits rocking back and forth, talking to himself.
Clueless of the rules, I sit down. I’m immediately asked to move. The men and women have segregated seating areas.
The shelter hosts a wide range of races, personalities and ages. An older white lady sitting across from me reading a book smiles and asks if I’m a college student.
“No,” I say and go back to reading the newspaper. Several women make small conversation before dinner is called.
Women eat first. Everyone’s names and ages are written down before getting in the serving line. The volunteers serving food are friendly. The menu is beans, choice of onions, macaroni salad, red “juice” and bread. The beans are good, the bread is stale and the macaroni salad tastes like Elmer’s Glue and noodles.
After a couple bites I ask where the bathroom is. A young black man asks if I’m OK, unlocking the door to the women’s area.
“Is this your first time here?” he says.
“Yes,” I say.
“Well, talk to me when you come back out,” he says. “I will make sure it’s your last time here.”
The conversation never takes place.
The ladies room is in the back of the ladies lounge, where the TV is tuned to a court show. In order to get to the bathroom, you pass though a smoking area that looks like a jail holding cell. Three women are smoking. Sheila, a black woman with a thinning mustache and ugly blonde hair, is holding court and talking shit. She pauses and says hello. This won’t be the last time her annoying, boisterous voice brings me to laughter.
The bathroom is clean. I’ve peed in restaurant bathrooms that weren’t as clean.
I bum a light from Sheila. A toothless, mentally ill elderly woman sits down next to me and repeatedly asks if I like her hair. She’d gone to the beauty salon earlier in the day.
“It’s fabulous,” I say.
Curfew looms. Women slowly begin filing in. Brenda, a pretty, petite, fair-skinned woman, sits behind me eating a peanut butter sandwich. She’s elated after seeing her mother and children.
Most of the women know one another. There is a cordial sisterhood vibe. A young black girl comes in, sits down and makes an announcement.
“I have a meeting tomorrow with a housing agency,” she says. “Hopefully when I come back I will be able to say bye to y’all.”
Women gossip and recap the events of the day, waiting for bed check. A counselor with dreads enters the room to take a head count and assign beds. Some women have been here for a long time and get their regular beds. Others beg and plead for certain beds. Brenda wants bed 45. She gets bed 32. I get bed 45.
The wide open sleeping quarters look like an army barracks with rollaway beds. A bathroom and shower are on the first floor near the community ironing table and stairs. On the way to my bed, women play music, go to the showers and iron clothes for the next day. My bed is upstairs in the corner, across from Brenda.
In a window, a radio is on tuned to KISS (107.1 FM). The Ying Yang Twins’ “Get Low” is playing.
The ladies who are indefinitely staying at the shelter have the space around their beds decorated with photos, hygiene products, suitcases and bags.
I’m sitting on my bed reading, Brenda says hello and asks my name.
“I know you wanted to sleep in this bed,” I say. “If you tell me your story, I will switch beds with you.”
I tell Brenda — and everyone else I converse with during my stay — that I’m a journalist trying to experiece homelessness first hand.
‘Down here with everyone else’
Holding a maxi pad in her right hand, she sits on the bed next to me and pours her heart out.
“I’m homeless by choice,” she says.
The mother of two began smoking crack six months ago to numb the pain of losing her job and apartment. She assures me that she’s quit smoking because of her participation in the 50/50 Drug Treatment Program and renewed faith in God. For four days Brenda has been at the Drop-Inn Center, trying to stay off the street and away from her habit.
“This place is a better environment than the people I was staying with,” she says.
Her former roommates spent most of their time scheming on illegal ways to make money.
“How have you been treated since you have been here?” I ask.
“What kills me is some of the advocates use to be residents here,” she says. “It’s not like they haven’t walked a mile in our shoes. You would think they would have empathy.”
Brenda is aware that being homeless strips you of your pride.
“I don’t consider myself better than anyone else,” she says. “I’m down here with everyone else.”
We finish talking and I tell her she can have my bed now.
“I don’t want your bed,” she says. “If God wanted me to have your bed, he would’ve gave it to me.”
In bed 18, Shanna tries to fall asleep amid the loud music and voices. Arriving at the Drop-Inn Center, I had noticed two white girls sitting on the ground smoking a cigarette. Later, in the lounge area, only one of them, Shanna, was present. Quietly she sat waiting to be assigned a bed. She immediately went upstairs and lay in it.
I gently tap her on the shoulder and ask if she’s OK. It’s her first time at the center, and she’s nervous. Shanna, 22, is a heroin addict. Five years ago her father introduced her to heroin. Two years later he and several close friends died from an overdose.
“The first time you get high, your body gets warm and you melt,” she says. “You’re relaxed and calm, then you itch and puke.”
Years of drug abuse have turned her skin gray and tainted with acne. In order to secure a bed at a drug treatment center, she must spend the night at the shelter to be declared indigent. Her 8-month-old son is inspiration for her recovery. But she’s pessimistic about sobriety.
“I’m scared that stopping won’t work,” she says. “I don’t want to go through this for nothing.”
When I return to my bed, a voice from across the room inquires about my name. Doris sits down and introduces herself. She is dark-skinned with unkempt hair, short and has fidgety body movements. She speaks in a fast, barely audible voice.
“I wouldn’t wish this place on a dog because of the residents and workers here,” she says.
The 48-year-old began smoking crack in 1999 and became homeless three months ago. For several weeks she has stayed at the shelter while trying to get into a treatment program for addiction and bipolar disorder. For the past two days she has been roaming the street.
“The people who live here drive me crazy and make me smoke,” Doris says.
Resisting the fix
At 10:22 p.m., eight minutes before “lights out,” the women are far from winding down. Someone is smoking a Black & Mild cigar, the radio is still on and the girl in bed 22 is rubbing her ashy feet together, writing her name on the tag in a new winter coat. She describes herself as the troublemaker of the second floor.
Brenda is lying in bed reading and Sheila is beginning her first comedy routine for the night. A roommate asks her for a sip of her pop, but the woman hesitates before drinking.
“Drink it, damn it!” Sheila says. “I haven’t sucked any dick in 23 days and I brush my teeth four times a day.”
The room breaks out in laughter. A counselor enters the sleeping quarters and calls, “Lights out.” She tells everyone to quiet down. As soon as she leaves, chaos resumes. Sheila and the girl in the bed next to me start talking and eating something in foil. Sheila’s medicine makes her hungry.
“At night I’m like a rat in a bag,” she says.
The lights are off. That doesn’t stop Sheila. The lady in the bed next to me asks Sheila about her ex-boyfriend.
“Fuck him,” Sheila says. “He couldn’t help me with my addiction, he can’t help me with my recovery.”
The food she ate is cramping her stomach.
“I have gas bad enough to kill the president,” she says, repeatedly proving it. Finally she goes to the bathroom and returns silent.
Except for several people snoring, the room is calm. Unfamiliar surroundings, snoring and an uncomfortable bed keep me from sleeping. The faint yellow security light through the window is just enough for me to write in my notebook. I furiously make notes, trying to absorb everything I hear and see. Unable to stay awake, I drift off to sleep.
I’m awakened by Brenda gathering her clothes. She hurriedly gets dressed and goes to the bathroom. Several minutes later she’s back upstairs, putting on her coat and shoes. She lies in the bed and begins crying and talking to herself. She doesn’t want to leave and get a fix. I ask if it’s time to wake up.
“Go back to bed, sweetie,” she says.
Wake-up call is at 7 a.m. Brenda is nowhere to be found.
The woman in bed 28 wakes up and turns on the radio. A request to hear Nellyville comes from the young girl in bed 22. People straggle out of bed.
Sheila comes over to my sleeping area and starts dancing with some other women to Nelly’s “Hot in Herre.” The camaraderie between residents makes the shelter seem like a sorority for indigent women.
Dawn is quickly approaching and breakfast is being served. The room is already packed as people sit down to oatmeal and coffee. A majority of residents at the Drop-Inn Center have jobs but don’t make enough money to afford rent, utilities and food. Several women sit to eat dressed in career clothing.
‘We are not a solution’
Tired and stinky, I walk back to the newspaper office and call my mother to tell her about my night.
“I told you not to do that and you disobeyed me,” she says. “I have nothing to say to you.”
She hangs up.
I brush it off and prepare for my next step in my homeless experience. On a piece of cardboard, I write, “Homeless reporter — will write sentences for food.”
Sitting at Sixth and Walnut streets across from the Contemporary Arts Center (CAC), I read Susan Orlean’s The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup and wait for donations. A white man in a business suit gives me a dollar.
“Stay out of trouble, OK?” he says.
Another white man in a suit stops and offers me his bagel and soup.
I feel invisible and my pride hurts, sitting outside begging for money. Children on their way to the CAC point and stare. Most people try not to make eye contact. Reading a book helps take my mind off the disgusted stares of business people on their way to lunch.
An elderly man slows to read my sign. He reaches in his pocket and pulls out a dollar. Before handing it to me, he asks if I’m really homeless.
“Yes,” I lie.
“If I don’t give you some money, regardless of whether or not you’re homeless, that would make me an unjust man,” he says.
“God bless you,” I say as he walks away.
Another white man stops and gives me a dollar.
“God bless you,” he says.
Seconds later a security guard approaches and instructs me to move.
“You can’t sit here,” he says.
I made $4.96 my first time panhandling.
At 2 p.m. I return to the Drop-Inn Center, this time to interview shelter director Pat Clifford. It’s raining outside, and the day area is crowded with men and women trying to escape the inclement weather.
The smell is nauseating. There’s a lot of confusion as women line up to receive free clothing. I recognize several of them from my last visit, including Sheila, who’s still rambunctious.
Clifford, wearing a sweater, khakis and large framed glasses, appears calm and comfortable in this sometimes-chaotic atmosphere. He greets residents and promises to answer their questions after our interview.
Buddy Gray started the Drop-Inn Center in a storefront in Over-the-Rhine in the early 1970s. In 1978 the shelter moved to its current location, the former Teamsters Union Hall on 12th Street.
Clifford started volunteering at the shelter in 1990. Around that time, the men’s sleeping area was remodeled to accommodate more people.
The shelter’s operating budget is $1.8 million a year. It receives a small federal grant through the city; the funds are allocated for operating costs only. On any given day seven staff members work to accommodate 250-300 people during three meals a day.
“It’s amazing that we do so much with so little that we have,” Clifford says.
Volunteers from churches and social and students groups are the center’s biggest asset, according to Clifford. The Greater Cincinnati Foundation recently donated bunk beds; before that, men had to sleep on floor mats. Now the large gymnasium can accommodate 185 men. During the winter and hot summer months, floor mats still get used in case of overcrowding.
The whole right side of the building is devoted to men. A bright yellow hallway and staircase lead upstairs to another floor that houses classrooms for drug and alcohol treatment.
“Recovery has always been a big component of the Drop-Inn Center and what we do,” Clifford says.
The substance abuse program is six months long, and the men in it are housed separately from the general population. That kind of time is necessary, Clifford says, “if you consider a lot of guys have been using for 10 to 15 years.”
The center tries to support residents in the transition from rehab, including educational and job readiness services through referrals to other government and nonprofit agencies.
The women have similar substance abuse programs. Detox programs in the city often operate at capacity.
“If you want to detox, a lot of times you are put on a waiting list,” Clifford says. “Addicts keep using until there’s space available.”
After rehab, some residents have problems getting permanent housing because of criminal records, delinquent bills and past evictions. Clifford thinks the city should move to the next step in preventive methods.
“If we did not exist in the way we do, you would see more people in the street panhandling and sleeping under bridges,” he says. “We are not a solution to the problem. Permanent housing is a big need.”
Clifford thinks society and the media portray homeless people as a separate race and blighted community. He challenges citizens to step outside their comfort zones and volunteer at the center.
“It’s not just a homeless problem,” he says. “More than likely they have the same problems as you.” ©
For many, a bed at the Drop-Inn Center is home.
This article appears in Nov 19-25, 2003.
