A couple of weeks ago, right after Dinner, when there was a crowd hanging around outside the doors, sitting on the concrete steps smoking, chatting, laughing, I took this picture.
It's very us.
As often as they can, when the weather is good and not about to change for the worse, K and R join us for Dinner.
It's quite a trek for them, on their wheels. On roads, sidewalks, across the train tracks, cutting through the grocery store parking lot, another couple of blocks, through the potholed parking lot and up the home stretch to the Sherwood Room. They don't stay long 'cause they don't want to have to do the reverse trip in the dark.
Every week that they come, somebody brings out this table. A big white plastic one, big enough for 6 adults, and sets it up with a couple of chairs and sometimes a candle. I'm not sure where the table lives the rest of the time. It must be somebody's.
R. is able to wrestle his walker up the steps into the room and sits at the front of the line on its seat waiting for serving to start. He recruits someone to help him put together a plate for K. and together they gather what the two of them will need and carry it back out and down the steps. Drinks, napkins, salt and pepper, cutlery... So K. and R. can dine alfresco.
K. waits outside, smiling and chatting to whoever comes by. She can't do the steps in her chair, obviously. There was a time when the handyman at the Motel tried to build a ramp for her. It was made of plywood and an old table top that got slippery when wet...
I wouldn't want to wheel up it either.
So the solution we've got now is the best so far.
It's too bad, though. They miss out on the hubbub and conversation of the meal and, as I said, the weather dictates everything.
Last night was a happy night. Not sure why, exactly, it just was.
I'm sure the turkey dinner with all the fixin's followed by homemade apple and pumpkin pie had something to do with it. But every now and then the place is just in good spirits and there's that good natured, light conversational popcorn going off all around you that makes you feel like everything's warm and ok and you're where you're supposed to be and nobody cares that there's no background music because we're each other's background music.
At the same time, you know there are voices missing, because you're listening for them. Voices that were there last week, but not this week. Laughs that aren't laughed. And you miss them, but you trust they'll be back.
There've been a lot of rumours lately about the end of November. That "the small rooms" will be closed.
We worry about the people who live in the small rooms. Some genuinely, and quite literally, have no where else to go. No family, no friends who can accommodate them. The only place they could go is to one of the big rooms and whether they can afford that, who knows. Not to mention the stress of moving.
But there's a growing sense of concern in the larger community, among people aware of the Motel in particular, and the housing problem in general. More and more educated, effectual people are asking more and more questions about the "what if" of the thing.
Questions about what the municipality might do to help, about what spaces are available for emergency shelter if the worst happens.
It's very exciting to see that happening. I don't know whether anything can be put in place before the end of November, if those rooms were to be closed, but still. We all know the Motel can't stay what it is forever. Its condition is deteriorating and the thought of one more spring's thaw on the roof of the front section is worrying.
But no matter what happens at the Motel in the next month and a half, these people will continue to exist. To live. To be human.
People who need not a ghetto, but a neighbourhood. Not a development, but a community. People who need a place like the Motel where they can find each other and find hope.
We'll see what happens.
r
It's very us.
As often as they can, when the weather is good and not about to change for the worse, K and R join us for Dinner.
It's quite a trek for them, on their wheels. On roads, sidewalks, across the train tracks, cutting through the grocery store parking lot, another couple of blocks, through the potholed parking lot and up the home stretch to the Sherwood Room. They don't stay long 'cause they don't want to have to do the reverse trip in the dark.
Every week that they come, somebody brings out this table. A big white plastic one, big enough for 6 adults, and sets it up with a couple of chairs and sometimes a candle. I'm not sure where the table lives the rest of the time. It must be somebody's.
R. is able to wrestle his walker up the steps into the room and sits at the front of the line on its seat waiting for serving to start. He recruits someone to help him put together a plate for K. and together they gather what the two of them will need and carry it back out and down the steps. Drinks, napkins, salt and pepper, cutlery... So K. and R. can dine alfresco.
K. waits outside, smiling and chatting to whoever comes by. She can't do the steps in her chair, obviously. There was a time when the handyman at the Motel tried to build a ramp for her. It was made of plywood and an old table top that got slippery when wet...
I wouldn't want to wheel up it either.
So the solution we've got now is the best so far.
It's too bad, though. They miss out on the hubbub and conversation of the meal and, as I said, the weather dictates everything.
Last night was a happy night. Not sure why, exactly, it just was.
I'm sure the turkey dinner with all the fixin's followed by homemade apple and pumpkin pie had something to do with it. But every now and then the place is just in good spirits and there's that good natured, light conversational popcorn going off all around you that makes you feel like everything's warm and ok and you're where you're supposed to be and nobody cares that there's no background music because we're each other's background music.
At the same time, you know there are voices missing, because you're listening for them. Voices that were there last week, but not this week. Laughs that aren't laughed. And you miss them, but you trust they'll be back.
There've been a lot of rumours lately about the end of November. That "the small rooms" will be closed.
We worry about the people who live in the small rooms. Some genuinely, and quite literally, have no where else to go. No family, no friends who can accommodate them. The only place they could go is to one of the big rooms and whether they can afford that, who knows. Not to mention the stress of moving.
But there's a growing sense of concern in the larger community, among people aware of the Motel in particular, and the housing problem in general. More and more educated, effectual people are asking more and more questions about the "what if" of the thing.
Questions about what the municipality might do to help, about what spaces are available for emergency shelter if the worst happens.
It's very exciting to see that happening. I don't know whether anything can be put in place before the end of November, if those rooms were to be closed, but still. We all know the Motel can't stay what it is forever. Its condition is deteriorating and the thought of one more spring's thaw on the roof of the front section is worrying.But no matter what happens at the Motel in the next month and a half, these people will continue to exist. To live. To be human.
People who need not a ghetto, but a neighbourhood. Not a development, but a community. People who need a place like the Motel where they can find each other and find hope.
We'll see what happens.
r
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