It's going down to 45
degrees tonight in Santa Fe, 44 tomorrow, and by mid-week, 40. Brrr,
and brrr again.
Most of us will pull a
loved one closer for body warmth, snuggle under an electric blanket
or throw another log in the kiva. But for the unhoused in Santa Fe, Saturday night, thankfully, is their last night of roughing it outside in
the chill of the high desert night. On Sunday October 18th,
the Interfaith Community Shelter will open its doors at 6pm (though guests line up beforehand) and commence its
shelter season at the former Pete's Pets on 2801 Cerrillos Road.
Santa Fe has a shockingly
high number of unhoused people for a small city (population under
70,000), around 1500 on any given night according to Joe Berenis,
Executive Director of the shelter. “In 2014 we served 250 discrete
women, many of them between the ages of 45 and 65, many with mental
health issues. When the shelter season ends our guests are dispersed
to the many informal encampments all around the city and in the
arroyos. The women have one of two choices—go it alone, which is
scary, or end up under the 'protection' of one of the guys, which can
be an iffy proposition. How he will treat her will depend on how
drunk or sober or drugged or not he is at any given time.”
To be clear: during the
season there is no length of stay limitation, but Pete's Place is not
a year-round shelter; it's open October to May to prevent death from
hypothermia (tragically, there were dozens of instances in the years prior to the shelter's opening in 2008). “One of our guests, a 65-year-old extremely smart
woman was all anxiety about having to leave the shelter last spring,”
Berenis remembered. “She was rattled, understandably, at the
thought of being out there on her own. Before she left she offered
this insight: 'The most powerless men in America are homeless men,
and the only people they have power over are homeless women.'”
Rather than enter into
these precarious partnerships, or risk the hazards of living in
forests and open desert spaces, Berenis explained that many of the
women defy the Santa Fe law which prohibits camping within the city
limits, and pitch their tents not far from Cerrillos Road where they
can get help if they need it. I asked Captain Marvin Paulk,
Operational Commander of the Patrol Division of the Santa Fe Police
Department how that is handled. The answer seemed to be, delicately.
“My officers are
compassionate,” said Captain Paulk. “If there is no immediate
threat to the public safety or to the safety of the women camping,
we're not out there looking for defenseless homeless women to roust
from their tents. Our department is 18 officers short at present, and believe
me, we're busy answering service calls. Of course if there are
children involved, then we take control right away. We call the
Children Youth and Families Department and they find the children a
safe shelter. It may take some time and the kids are often here with
us for a while in the offices while those calls are being placed, but
I've never seen CYFD not come through for the kids.”
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| The women's dorm (partial view taken a few weeks ago) |
Captain Paulk estimates
that around 75% of the unhoused people making their way in Santa Fe
are from around the immediate area—Santa Fe itself, Pecos,
Espanola—and his sense is many remain without homes for a very long
time.
Last year at Pete's Place
during the seven months the shelter was open 1,097 people were served
for a total of 17,570 bed nights. 39,000 articles of clothing were
distributed. Year round 54,000 hot meals were served, sometimes 2, 3
or 4 helpings per meal. “Homeless people often come very hungry and
one serving isn't enough; at Pete's Place they can fill their
bellies,” Berenis explained.
This is all accomplished
by three full-time staff, and a small army of 2,400 volunteers drawn
from 40 faith and community groups. The volunteer teams register the
guests, photograph them as they come in, cook the hot meals in the
commercial kitchen, serve them in the dining hall, and bed folks
down. “We also employ our guests,” Joe explained. “We feel if
we're going to ask other organizations and businesses to employ our
people, then we need to hire them too. Several of our current
employees in the kitchen and maintenance were former guests.”
The facility is housed in
a city-owned building, so there's no proselytizing allowed in
accordance with the principle of separation of church and state. 20%
of the budget is provided by the city and the remainder is raised
from individual donations, community groups and grants. Pete's boasts
4 showers which is one more than the Vatican dedicates to homeless
Romans, Joe informed me. 135 of last year's guests were veterans of
the U.S. Military, 25% were women. Guests are able to bring their
pets who are housed in insulated outdoor kennels, and a warming
center with heat lamps is being constructed so those waiting to come
into the shelter before it opens aren't frozen in the process.
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| The kennel is the yellow shed; warming center under construction |
As we toured the facility
Joe opened a door to one room that's being fixed up as a “family
suite.” “That's so if a mother comes in with her three kids they
can be sheltered together apart from the women's dorm,” he
explained. The room was freshly painted white and was spotlessly
clean. There are storage lockers, as well as a laundromat facility
where the blankets and sleeping bags are frequently laundered.
A panoply of services is
available daily—housing, employment, addiction, legal—and now
dental services are offered on site every Wednesday from 9am to 4pm.
St. Elizabeth's is there on Fridays to help guests apply for state
id's, the Food Depot comes monthly on the first Wednesday to enroll
guests in SNAP (food stamps), haircuts are available every other
Tuesday, and so on.
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| The art room |
Pete's is a “come as you
are” shelter. Inebriated guests are admitted later, between 9 to
midnight. They're given a hot meal and a space to sleep on cushioned mats
on the floor, “so they cannot injure themselves falling out of bunk
beds,” Berenis explained. “We rely on the Santa Fe Police
Department, and we especially prize our relationship with Marvin
Paulk, who is fabulous.” Paulk explained that he intervenes if
there's a felon, or a child molester, or someone known for causing
trouble, on, or hanging around, the premises.
“I'll check out the
situation first,” Paulk told me, “and send officers quickly if
need be. I also participate in their orientations for new employees
and volunteers, explaining law enforcement's role in what is really a
societal issue. But society keeps shrugging its shoulders at these
problems...we can't arrest our way out of them. Nor can we give up.
We use our critical thinking, and we relate to people as individuals
with compassion and understanding.”
Law enforcement services
can entail taking people to the sobering center, or the hospital, or
Pete's Place, or if they're frequent violators, jail. “We don't
have a single solution, this is a very sensitive matter,” Paulk
explained. “People have rights, they have civil liberties, we have
to adhere to the U.S. Constitution, to the New Mexico Constitution.
We do what we can to assist people who have been failed by the
system. Sometimes we provide food, I've seen officers pay out of
pocket.” So has Joe Berenis. “One officer brings doughnuts when
he comes by, or burritos. It's terrific.”
Captain Paulk tries to
make it over to Pete's about once a month. Berenis said that when
Paulk comes in the guests invariably will line up to interact with
him. “Yes,” Paulk admitted, “we talk, there's a caring aspect
to this. If I see they have injuries I inquire about them, but 99% of
them won't tell me how they got hurt. They're in fear to file a
report; they may have issues themselves, warrants against them. On
the street among homeless people there's a caveman
mentality—whoever's bigger, stronger, wins out; many of them are
dealing with powerful habits. Part of what I'm doing there is looking
out for the department's image, making sure there's no excessive use
of force by any of our officers. Because if there is we take it very
seriously.”
I asked Paulk if he
thought the James Boyd scenario might have gone down differently in
Santa Fe. He looked pained at the question. “Can't say, that would
be Monday night quarterbacking. But the bottom line is if you master
Time, you master all. If you can wait someone out, wait him out. That
would be the preferred method.”
Albuquerque Police Department has paid out a
$5,000,000 settlement to homeless “illegal” camper James Boyd's
family in a wrongful death action, and two if its officers—retired
Detective Keith Sandy and now-fired Officer Dominique Perez (both
have been booked but are not being held)—have been charged with
murder in the second degree, which carries a recommended sentence of
15 years. They shot Boyd in the back just 15 minutes after arriving
on the scene.
“In the end we're public
servants,” Captain Paulk said. “We want people to be safe, not to
be victimized; we want to see them get the services that will help
them get through the day, through the night, and hopefully off the
street.”
To celebrate Opening Night at Pete's Place guests will be given a pair of new warm
socks. I plan to stop by and see if I can learn if the 65-year-old
woman who left so fearfully last May has made it through the five-month shelterless season, intact. I'll report back when I know.
