House of Charity Episode 3

One of the nicknames of the House of Charity is the House of Chaos, and with good reason.

I've never really appreciated that nickname myself. When it's brought up, I joke that it ought to have been called the 'House of Love.' Either works, really.

One of the staff members that worked at the House before I did keyed me in on this one--one of the most important aspects of our job working at the shelter is to let people know what to expect. We need to be consistent, to provide clear and fair boundaries, and to explain why things are the way they are, so as to help the people we serve to know that the system is designed for them, not against them, that everything that is done at the House of Charity is designed, through experience, to be the most effective and efficient way of serving the people that visit us. A House of Stability.

Because there's really no telling what might happen when someone leaves our building.

When someone leaves our sanctuary, there is no guarantee except their reputation and their strength of arm (or appearance of it at least) that someone won't attack them--for their backpack, their wallet, maybe even their coat. Maybe worse. It's a far too common occurrence for the homeless population in Spokane to 'get rolled', or have their belongings 'lifted', including their I.D.'s, clothing, sometimes their savings.

This is too much of a reality to ignore, in two parts. It makes the stability portion key--when someone has been victimized, there's got to be something to fall back on. A lot of times that's us. The second part is tricky.

The second part is what we might call 'street justice', or 'saving face', or 'cred'. I'm sure all have been used. It's partly a way to feel like you're able to protect yourself from other people on the street--because they know that you're not someone to they want to upset. Lots of times after someone has been rolled, we hear about how they're going to get them back, or get even, or, a quote I heard last night, "you take from me I'll take from you."

It's like Jr. High. If you're known as the person people can push around, they will. But it's not just some small-scale getting pushed around on the playground at this point. Sometimes, what might be taken is your savings. Or your ticket home.

So people take good care of their reputations, which means for those of us working in this environment it pays dividends to not be calling people out among their peers, since, sometimes their reputation among them is the only reputation they have.