Scenes from a warming center: Homelessness isn’t hypothetical for these Kansas Citians
“Welcome,” I say to a young couple. “I’ll be checking your bags for the night.” Looking them over, I notice she has a heck of a shiner under her left eye. “You OK, ma’am? Have an accident recently?”
They both look down. Then he looks at her. “Nah, I’m fine,” she responds from across the table. We talk a lot about systemic racism, the draconian wealth disparity and of course the sparse resources available, since the Reagan administration, for those living with mental illness in the United States. But for most people, it’s just talk. Theory. We know it affects people, but we don’t see much of it firsthand. We know it’s a darned shame, but it doesn’t evoke action. It’s a shame, but it isn’t an emergency.
It’s less hypothetical at the warming center in Kansas City’s Garrison Community Center. A pastor opened it up to ensure people who were being turned out at local shelters (at capacity) had a place to go on nights when temperatures dip below 20. It’s called Garrison or Scott Eicke, alternately, in honor of the homeless man who lost his life last winter when he froze to death.
Some other shelters in town will get you out of the cold and the only cost is some proselytization — a small price to pay not to have to lose a toe like D did, or the whole foot like W did. And hell, that wasn’t even their worst night. One night, after D had gotten assisted housing, the two had enough money for nine fifths of whiskey. It’s still fuzzy who drank five and who drank four that night. But whether it was four or five that got him, D never got out of his beat-up brown recliner the next morning.
D never wanted to hear about the Christian stuff they preached at him, but he went to every Bible study he could, because he wanted to know that when he died, he’d be with his mom again. I mean, he needed to know. “Are you sure I’ll see her?” he asked. “Are you sure? Is it written in there?”
“I don’t think so, D. Not per se, but God is love, man. And your mother loved you, right?”
“Yeah.” He starts bawling again.
“Then God’s gonna put you guys together, man. God is love.” D wasn’t trying to get baptized and he could never recite the sinner’s prayer. Hell, he never tried to. But he would tolerate all the commitments the religious folk asked for. It kept him warm for a while. But really, he just wanted to be with his mom again, and he was in a hurry to get there.
“Two baseball bats!” a shelter leader says, observing the protrusions from two packs I’m checking in. “Why do they have those?” asks another volunteer who is working her second night here.
“They live on the streets,” I tell her.
“So are there guns in the bags too?” Not usually. Some of the long-term, volitionally off-the-grid have done time, and they know the formula if arrested: one gun = one year and each bullet = one year. Some have guns, but for most, it’s not worth the extra time.
A new arrival is getting acclimated for her four-hour stay. She surveys the check-in bags the ephemeral residents have left in the previous four hours. They sit stacked high in numbered bins. The warming center denizens are allowed only what they can fit in a one-gallon, clear plastic bag when they go in the gym to claim their cot for the night.
“Security guards will be here all night, right?” she inquires.
“Yes, security will be here.”
At the warming centers, the effects of a society with a rampant homeless problem are not hypothetical. They are tangible. They are personified.
This is a brief excerpt from a book I’m writing. I hope it doesn’t scare you away from seeing for yourself what life is like for homeless people, of which there are many kinds. Some of their situations are temporary. Some are long-term. All are unnecessary.