Homelessness In Washtenaw County
"We have learned that the word 'homeless' describes the final stage of a variety of problems about which the word 'homeless' tells us almost nothing. " - Rev. Paton Zimmerman, President, The Shelter Association of Ann Arbor
In 1987 there were 3,024 homeless people in Washtenaw County. An Inter-Agency Shelter and Housing Council study showed that during the course of the year, 1,035 homeless people were sheltered at SOS Crisis Center, 747 at the Shelter Association, 688 at SAFE House, 491 at the Salvation Army, and 62 at Ozone House.
But there is an additional group that cannot be counted, known as the "hidden homeless." Cathy Ziek, Director of the Shelter Association, said these are the people who are "doubling or tripling up with people, or who are staying in parks, cars, abandoned buildings or aren't using the shelters and services designed to help the homeless." All of this adds up to a big problem in Washtenaw County.
This month , AGENDA editor Laurie Wechter interviews Ryan and Walter to let them tell, in their own words, what it's like to be homeless. Andy Burt, Director of Prospect Place, an Ypsilanti shelter for families, helps Sue, a homeless mother, tell her story.
Then, from a shelter worker's perspective, Burt describes how Prospect Place helped Sue. Wechter also interviews two Ann Arbor shelter workers, Cathy Ziek and Ann Nagy, case worKerfor the Salvation Army, to let them teil in their own words what it's like to deal with the problems of homelessness every day. (Because of space limitations, only excerpts from the interviews with Ryan, Walter, Cathy Ziek and Ann Nagy appear.)
Finally, in the Community Resource Directory (page 10) activist N. Renuka Uthappa of the Homeless Action Committee (HAC), analyzes Ann Arbor's low-income housing shortage.
Ryan's Story
What do you want people to know about being homeless?
It's not fun. It's extremely aggravating. It is depressing. A lot of people misunderstand the homeless as far as I'm concerned.
What is the misunderstanding?
That we're bums, that we don't do anything for ourselves. That all we want to do is loiter in their areas, especially stores. If you are in a place five minutes someone either calls the police or throws you out. Especially during the wintertime there are specific times when there is no cover anyplace to get out of the cold and nobody wants to let you in. That's why half the people in here are sick. Like today, if the library wasn't open there wouldn't be a place for a lot of people to go to. Unless you want to spend time in the museums all the time or take the chance on getting citations, tickets or getting busted by the cops for loitering, there's no choice but to stay outside in the cold.
Have you been busted for loitering?
I've been kicked out of a couple different places by the cops.
Have many people here been busted for loitering?
There have been a few who have received citations for being at the bus station. We have been told that if we are caught at the bus station anymore, we will be banned from the day shelter. Still there are a few people who go there every day whether or not they get kicked out because they just can't take the cold.
What would you say is a more accurate picture of the homeless than the misconceptions you described?
When I wasn't homeless, I used to think why don't they get their lives straightened out? Now that I'm in that position I can understand that it's not so easy.
How long have you been homeless?
Almost a month.
How long do you expect for that to go on?
I am waiting for something to kick in and once that does I'm going to get my own place. Until then I don't have much to do.
What do you do during the day?
Sit in the day shelter, take a walk when it gets too frustrating there. Go right back again.
What's frustrating about it?
All the people there. All the conversations. A lot of arguments go on out there. There's constantly negative emotions. If they're not expressed you can see it on the faces of the people there. There's a lot of boredom, a lot of depression.
Are there people you hang out with regularly?
Yes, my cousin is here. And there is a girl who hangs out with me once in a while. Little by little I'm making friends here and there. My cousin and another friend of mine and I went to the museums today as a little threesome. Basically if you really look, you don't have to be alone. Lonely yes, but not alone.
What has Social Services done for you?
At the present moment they've given me food stamps. And as soon as I get my unemployment paper up to them I'll get a check in two weeks, probably $33 to $37, and I'll get it every two weeks. Because of the problems I have I've also applied for disability. As soon as that check's in I'll receive a lump sum. That's going to be nice enough to get my own place.
Do you think that will be soon?
Any time from now to the next three months.
Which of the area shelters have you stayed at?
I have stayed at the Arbor Haven Salvation Army shelter. I didn't like it because they force their religion on you if you do stay there. As far as I'm concerned that's a line of bull because it's against your constitutional rights. I've also stayed here [the Night Shelter] and at Ashley [the Day Center]. Here and at Ashley the people are generally friendly. They don't like to let themselves get too close to you, but they will give you a helping hand if you need it.
What do you think of the food?
I think they water things down sometimes a little too much trying to make it stretch. We had chicken รก la king tonight. The rice was okay. It has lots of butter in it. It was really nice. But the chicken dish itself was more like soup. It was supposed to be a real thick gravy in there. This stuff was running all over the plate, not to mention the apple sauce that went with it!
A few dinners I've had, I can 't believe they're serving it to us because it's restaurant quality food, like a four star restaurant. I'm a cook myself and I know good food when I taste it. I had a spaghetti dish the other night that was better than anything I've ever had before, and some carrots that outdid anything I've made myself.
What do they serve you for breakfast? Breakfast is usually cream of wheat. This morning we had oatmeal (see RYAN, page 4)
RYAN (from page one)
which was a real nice change. I love oatmeal. They have croissants filled with apple filling or peaches, sometimes meat croissants. They have toast, regular cereal, cheerios, corn flakes, juice, eggs today as well. It's usually a fairly decent breakfast. Once in a while they pack lunches for everyone besides there being peanut butter and jelly f you want to make a sandwich for the day.
What would you like to see changed in the shelter system?
Definitely more staff. They are seriously understaffed. In the day shelter there are usually four to five advocates and one person to watch the big room. Each advocate is assigned from five to 20 people depending on the number of people at the shelter at one time.
Something I would also like to see changed would be getting some sort of partition between the beds. Up in the bedrooms there is no privacy.
Do you feel safe? Are your things safe?
Your personal belongings, if they're not watched at all times by yourself or someone you trust, will come up missing. You're supposed to have a contract to get a bin for storage at the day shelter. Even when the advocates keep them , if something is lost or stolen they don 't hold themselves responsible. As long as I've been here there have been 13 items stolen that I know of and I've only been here less than a month.
Safety, that depends. If you aren't racist, biased or prejudiced you get along real good. If you are prejudiced and make it known, the Blacks do something I think everyone should do, not just the Blacks but including them. They band together to fight a common enemy. If it's just one of you and ten of them everyone knows what the outcome will look like. Just sweep the person under the carpet and forget he's there.
I am nervous at times when I go to sleep because there are times when drunks come in. The shelter people know they are drunk and they just try to put them to bed. I could imagine them having some type of a fit and just raising heil in the bed area.
Is there anything else you'd like to talk about?
I think the public should be a little more understanding. The city should get off its lazy so-and-so and do something. They do have the funds no matter what they try and tell you. They just want to use them for other reasons to better the city . But how can you better a city if you can't take care of the people in it?
What would you have the city do with the funds?
I would like to see low income housing set up around the area. Some place enough to take care of the homeless at least, to make sure no one is sleeping on the street.
Do you know of people that are sleeping outside?
There are a few because they don't like the shelter at all. A couple people I know are sleeping in houses and the people don't know it. I really worry about them sometimes. There are a couple people who found really strange places to sleep that are warm but still dangerous.
What reasons do you think people become homeless?
A lot of people come in because they just lost their homes. Sometimes it's because they're migrating from city to city trying to figure out what city they want to stay in. One thing I can say about the Ann Arbor area, it's decent and clean.
Sue's Story
Sue and her three children - 4-year-old twin girls and a 2-year-old boy - have been living at Prospect Place Family Shelter in Ypsilanti since Oct. 8. For over two weeks during this time they were housed in a subsidized housing complex until it became an unsafe place for them to live. Sue attended U-M for one year and has worked for five years as a unit clerk in a hospital in Cleveland, Ohio. She plans to begin to study nursing or paralegal affairs at Washtenaw Community College this spring. Here is Sue's story as it was told to Prospect Place Director, Andy Burt. '
After three years of living with a man, the father of my son - and we had a house - he decided he didn't want to be responsible for the family anymore. On July 4, ironically Independence Day, he moved out. I couldn't afford the house or utilities, so I moved back to Michigan from Cleveland to be close to my family who live here. The children and I stayed with my family until they couldn't take the chaos any longer. My mother has had three strokes, has diabetes and high blood pressure. The stress of three small children and too little room were too much for them.
I contacted Prospect Place at the end of September when I had just about reached the point of sleeping in my car with the kids. Finally a place came open for me at the shelter.
In the first 30 days of living at Prospect Place I found one apartment to rent but it wasn't ready for me to move in. I continued to look and met a lot of frustration looking for housing and being turned down time and again because I had too many children. So many times I was told it would be okay for me to move in if I had a man and two kids, but not for me and my three kids. Also, the fact that I am on ADC (Aid to Families with Dependent Children) meansthere is nothing affordable in the community. To support me and my children through the winter months I receive $649 a month on my ADC grant to cover all expenses and $170 a month in food stamps. I am required to get a three-bedroom apartment in any federally subsidized housing and there aren 't many three-bedroom units, l'm told that there are ordinances in Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti regulating how many bedrooms there must be for families of my size. I was told this by landlords, but have understood from Ypsilanti city officials that no such ordinances are on the books. Spacewise, my three children and I could live in a two-bedroom apartment. It might be a little crowded, but it would be affordable.
Finally, after more than a month's search, I found a subsidized unit that I could afford and moved in just before Thanksgiving. I would have some extra money to live on, I thought, not extravagantly, just enough money for diapers, laundry soap, toilet paper, paper towels, the essential items that food stamps don't cover. I was told when I moved into the townhouse apartment that the area was not safe, but if I stayed out of trouble, minded my own business and kept my nose clean that the troublemakers wouldn't bother me.
The townhouse was nice, with brand new appliances. But after the trouble and expense of moving in, after only two weeks someone came into my house as I was taking the children into the apartment from the car and stole my wallet right out of my house. They had obviously been watching the mail the day before. My welfare check was sticking out of the box. My other mail was pushed down into the mailbox and there were two sets of footprints in the new snow on my doorstep. They took the cash from that check, all the money I had. The very next day a friend- also a former Prospect Place resident- who had borrowed my car to run an errand was forced to stop the car by someone running in front of her. She was pulled out of the car and assaulted. I had already witnessed several drug deals in my neighborhood and had been harassed while walking to and from my house. I decided at that moment it was better to move out before my children and I were victims.
I moved in with my ex-boyfriend for a few days and then returned to Prospect Place on Dec. 15. The children and I spent the holidays here and at this time I have no good leads on housing for us. Everything has a to four-year waiting period, so there's nothing immediately available. Many apartment complexes have non-refundable application fees so that it seems pointless to try when I know the wait is too long. It's not even feasible to waste my gas money to look for something that won't materialize soon. I've applied for Section 8 (federal housing subsidy program) in two local offices. I have dual preference status which puts me near the top of the list, yet I can expect it will be several months before I can get a voucher or certificate to subsidize my housing.
After seven months of being homeless, seeing no light at the end of the tunnel , suffering from abuse from my ex-boyfriend and the stress of taking care of three preschoolers, I gave up a week ago and signed myself into Mercywood Hospital before I gave up totally. I have just come back out to stay at Prospect Place, where I am trying to look for housing, put together a childcare plan for the kids, and finalize my plans to study nursing or paralegal affairs at Washtenaw Community College, I'm just taking one day at a time.
Walter's Story
What do you want people to know about being homeless? It leaves you with an empty feeling inside. You wish there were more places that you could get shelter. You wish you could feel better about yourself. It takes a lot out of you.
I wish there would be more shelters, more places that feed people and more places to go to get out of the cold all night, like 24 hours.
What's available now?
Just the shelter here and the Day Center. They're great. The workers are nice, outgoing. You hardly ever see them bummed out and there's a lot in here that could bum you out. Living with a bunch of people that you're not accustomed to, you're bound to run into different moods besides yours. Sometimes I don't feel good myself. I suffer from anxiety and depression at times when I'm really in bad shape. But I overlook that and try to find a place to myself which is hard to do when you are in a place like this [the Night Shelter].
What's the dorm like?
It's one big room with lots of beds. Accomodations are okay. They separate the snorers which is okay. It's separate because some people work and they won't get a good night's sleep.
Right here they wash your clothes for you. You can take a shower early in the morning if you want to. They give you shampoo if they have it. They usually have shampoo, toothpaste, deodorant, razors. If you have your clothes there at a certain time they'll be washed. They don 't gripe or say you've got too much stuff or you're too late.
How long have you been homeless?
I've only been on the street for three weeks.
Have you made any friends here?
Ralph, Jim - I'm a very solitary person. I don't make friends easily so I choose carefully the people I associate with. A couple guys are really nice. Most of these people are working. They're not drinking or doping. (see WALTER, next page)
WALTER (from previous page)
What do you do during the day?
I follow up leads on a room. I can't afford an apartment, even though I'm on Social Security Disability, so, I look in the paper. I try to find a room that's around $200 to $300. I only get $490 now.
They have found me a place and I hope that I get it this month. What they do is look for a nice area for you. In my case, I'm a user so I wanted to get away from bad areas and dope. I lucked out and saw a place on Thayer St. across from Hill Auditorium, I'm hoping to get in there at the end of this month. It's $250 plus Utilities and I should be able to afford that. The job carne along today.
Who looked for a place for you?
Pam from the Day Center of the Shelter Association . They are advocates. They help you get on social services and then they encourage you to look for a room so you are not just taking up space. That makes room for somebody else that's out there to come along. They do the same with them, helping them get on their feet. It's helping you help yourself.
With the meals they give you a little map. It tells you where they are serving at what time. There's nothing to eat on Saturdays or Sundays. Possibly the Day Center will have a meal or someone to come in and serve a meal.
The Day Center and the Night Shelter - there's an icebox right here - and there's usually something in there to eat. If there isn't, there might be bread or you just go without eating. You know tomorrow you'll get a breakfast. You can make a lunch there and sometimes they make you lunches. On Saturdays they make you a lunch and on Sundays I believe they make you a lunch too.
When you became homeless did you stop taking drugs?
Yes, right away. I've been straight, as they say, for a month. It feels good. I'm going to Narcotics Anonymous. My advocate Pam at the Day Center suggested t would be a nice place for me to go and get myself together. And Selma, she's real nice. She's helping me get a job. I will be getting a job as a crossing guard.
How do you feel you've been treated here? Good, real good. I'd been used to living in Detroit. I know it's a bigger city, but it seems like the people there aren't as outgoing as they are here. I know. There are some shelters there that I stayed in. The food was lousy. They preached a lot of gospel to you. It seems like they wanted you to become one of the Christians just like them and that's great too, but it seems like they were forcing that down your throat. Twice a day, before you could eat, you had to go to church. If you don't, you don't eat. You couldn't come and go. You either had to stay or have a good reason why you left. I stayed there two weeks once.
What would you change in the shelter system? Some of the people are having a harder time than me trying to find a place because they're on General Assistance. A lot of places in this city won't take it. That could change. There are a lot of places that should accept General Assistance. It's not the way you look. Who cares the way you look. I'm used to paying $400-$500 for an apartment, but not for a room. It could be cut down. It gives the students a break too. They're not rich either.
Do you feel safe? Are your things safe?
Yes, I feel safe. All the stuff is at the Day Center. It's safe. It's in storage bins. They have individual containers you can put your stuff in. There's always somebody there that will make sure nobody's getting into any other's stuff. It's well supervised. They open the storage area at 10 am and again at 4 pm. It's better than carrying all the stuff around with you.
The best place that ever happened to me was when I came here to Ann Arbor. This is the best thing that ever happened to me and I'm 40-years-old. The people here are great. I don't know what it is but it's in the air. I don't feel threatened when I walk down the street so therefore I don't have to watch my back. In Detroit you do. I'm a Vietnam veteran so I'm used to unusual happenings and always look over my shoulder. I'm a peace loving person and I feel real safe here in Ann Arbor.
What does the Department of Social Services do to help?
I don't know I'm not on DSS.
Do you think you will have housing in the long term?
Oh yes. The Sections 8s that I'm used to were all shabbily run and there were slumlords that ran them. The last place where I lived, I didn't like because they needed new windows in there. She told me that I had to pay for this out of my pocket where there should have been windows in the joint before I even got in there. It was drafty. The heat was okay. You could elevate that. But you had to pay for the heat yourself. The light, I don't mind paying for electricity. The stove was gas. It was only $90 but I don't feel that that was too cool. I know there's some section 8s here in Ann Arbor, but I'm kind of shy and scared to go into them now. They're still like projects.