(Apologies to John Cougar Mellencamp.)
Things are different right now from a year ago.
Late 2022, our unsheltered friends in town were provided with motel rooms in the town next door. The local cops provided transportation and the rooms are funded by the county's only shelter.
That means that, as far as I know, no one is living out in the cold in our little town. Not sure how long the rooms are funded for, but every night is a night not out there.
I've written before about the challenges of life with the shelter. There are many people for whom it just really really doesn't work. Like my friend Enola. Even though she has some distance from the actual shelter house, I hope she can stick it out until the spring.
When she was out in the cold, she was daily fighting to survive. Every day she built and maintained a fire on which she cooked the food that she'd hauled from the foodbank. She looked after Ned and the tents they called home. She searched for electricity to charge phones, affordable D cell batteries for the radio, and water. Life on the fringes is not for the lazy or the stupid. It's a constant exercise in creativity, self-reliance, and work. And purpose.
Going from that to the motel is like being abducted by aliens and caged.
She has electricity and water. She has a roof over her head and a door to lock.
The room is rundown and grey. There are no pictures on the walls, no radio, no TV, no wifi. It came provisioned with a bar fridge (too small for fruit and vegetables) and a microwave but no dishes (perfect for pre-packaged insta-"food" but nothing else). The big window looks out at (and in from) the parking lot and the office building next door. The motel itself is on the outskirts of town, equidistant from the foodbank (east), the shopping district (west), and downtown (south). Half an hour on her bike to get anywhere.
The shelter's rules prohibit having any visitors in your room, or going to visit anyone else in theirs. The only common area is the parking lot. It's winter, and even if the weather were decent, it's not legal to sit outside and drink a beer except on private property which the motel is not. Neither is it legal to smoke anything within 9 metres of the building.
Over the Christmas break (smh), Enola had the chance to go to a friend's house for a couple of days. Because it's Christmas. But she was told that the shelter's rules say that if she spends a night away from the motel, she's out. Apparently it indicates a lack of actual need. Heartless. Even the Grinch could do better.
Enola has been told by shelter staff that she needs to be available for spot inspections and drive-by checks. Several times she's been told they're coming at a particular time, only to wait for a couple of hours for nobody to show up.
So the people housed in the motel all sit in their rooms texting each other, and asking who's got some data on their phone to find out what's going on in the world and what the weather will be tomorrow.
For someone who is working hard to drink less (doorstep beer delivery is cheap) and smoke less (ditto ciggies and pot, but not food or books), it's not a helpful situation. I get together with her for coffee or lunch whenever I'm in town, but that's not often. Once a week max.
At the church, we've started a drop-in warming space one week per morning for 3 hours. Doing what we can. It's too far for her to bike. Frustrating.
I almost think she was better in the tent. Not safer, but perhaps healthier.
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