About 50 people were gathered in the lounge area at the Interactive Resource Center on Bessemer Avenue in Greensboro at 8:30 this morning. Tiffany, a member of staff, was facilitating the meeting.
“Raise your hand if you are in need of a North Carolina ID,” she said.
Most of the guests had arrived by bus after being picked up from breakfast programs at Grace Community Church or the Beloved Community Center’s hospitality house, Director Liz Seymour said. Others had walked in when the center opened at 8 a.m. Most but not all of the people in the room were African American. A few were sleeping; some were working on laptop computers.
“In some ways, it’s just like a meeting at a collective house,” Liz told me.
Liz and I were housemates for about a month when I first moved to Greensboro in December 2004. Or more accurately, I was a brief guest at the house on Mendenhall Street that Liz once owned and had turned into a housing collective populated and operated by a multi-generational group of punks, artists and activists.
Long after I moved a block away to my own apartment on Hillside Drive, Liz and I continued to work together in at least once a week to put together a meal with Food Not Bombs. Through that circle, I joined her in advocating for a homeless day center. I attended a handful of organizing meetings in that effort. The Mendenhall housing collective has since disbanded, but the experience has clearly left its mark on Liz's approach to life.
By January 2009, following the onset of a severe economic downturn and a cold winter, the Interactive Resource Center, or IRC, had opened at its temporary location in a church on Bessemer Avenue. In late March or early April, Liz said she expects the Interactive Resource Center to be ready to open its doors at its permanent home at 407 E. Washington St.
Married life, work and other preoccupations have taken me away from work on addressing homelessness in Greensboro. So, my visit this morning was both about catching up with an old friend and completing a circle of my past.
Interactive Resource Center might sound like a euphemism to wipe off the stigma associated with the term “homeless day center.” In fact, it’s a more accurate term for what takes place here on a daily basis. Borrowing from the philosophy of Food Not Bombs, the IRC consults closely with those it serves and involves them in the day-to-day operations, in addition to drawing on the community for time, talent and treasure to create a range of services to help homeless people get back on their feet.
“One of the things that I've taken away from Food Not Bombs is to assume that the things you need are out there,” Liz told me.
A case in point is the volunteer caseworkers that come in to meet with guests at no cost to the IRC. They are interns from a joint social work program at UNCG and NC A&T University. In still another room, equipped with desktop computers, volunteers work one on one with guests to help them update their computer skills. Some have difficulty with online job applications, and employers deluged with prospective employees are quick to weed out anyone who doesn't pass this test.
Back in the morning meeting, Tiffany was finalizing the list of people who need ID cards. The IRC is coordinating with the NC Division of Motor Vehicles to get them made. Having possession of a photo ID is critical to accessing services, including emergency shelter on a cold night. Many homeless people don’t drive, and not having a permanent place to stay means that oftentimes such an item gets misplaced.
One of the guests signed up for case management, a service available to everyone who walks through the door.
The next item on the agenda was laundry.
“Everybody understand the new people go first as far as laundry,” Tiffany said.
Then she called names for showers.
Next, Theresa Hicks, a member of the IRC’s board of directors with Trailways Housing, gave a brief presentation. She said her agency would try to find housing to fit the guests’ budget and could steer those with addiction issues into long-term residential treatment. They also register people to vote and provide help with taxes.
“That’s it,” she said. “I made that quick, didn’t I?”
Liz introduced me as a reporter, and invited the guests to ask questions or share their experiences with being homeless. The meeting quickly evolved into a forum for share wisdom and expertise.
One young woman was white, attractive, nicely dressed and well spoken — in other words, not exactly typecast for the role of “homeless person” in a movie. She talked about the stigma attached to homelessness, and about how many people in society don’t want homeless services located downtown because of concerns about “quality of life.” She noted that a stranger probably wouldn’t peg her as being homeless, and she doesn’t panhandle, although some mornings she wouldn’t mind having the money to buy a cup of coffee. The only thing that might give her away, she said, is that sometimes she can be seen talking to panhandlers.
“There is a distinction between the homeless and those who are ranting and raving,” she said. “That’s mental illness. Those people need treatment.”
Liz noted, “When people talk about quality of life, they often don’t ask, ‘Whose quality of life?’”
She likes to remind people that homelessness is a condition, not an identity.
“I guarantee that for every one of you here, there are two people who had exactly the same issues, but they had a safety net to avoid becoming homeless,” she said. “There is no crime in being homeless.”
A young African-American woman raised her hand.
“When you are online e-mailing your resume, what address do you put?” she asked. “I’m embarrassed, so I just put the state of North Carolina. I guess that’s why I’m still looking for a job.”
Tiffany asked if any of the guests might have some advice on this topic.
One man did. He said that most employers are more likely to respond to prospective employees through a phone number or e-mail, but that listing a geographic address can be helpful in projecting a sense of stability. He said that local agency without a major profile — in other words, not Urban Ministry or the Salvation Army — allows people to list their address on resumes. It looks like a residential address.
Two men wanted to talk to me about the issue of veterans being homeless. Both of them told me they had been unable to find landlords willing to rent to them because of felonies on their records. One said he had a drug charge that was supposed to have been expunged when he enlisted in the Marines and went over to fight in Somalia in the early 1990s. Another had ended up in a bar fight after returning from combat.
“There’s a 23-year-old veteran who’s homeless,” one of them said to me. “Tell me why that is.”
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