For those who aren't familiar with the concept, and haven't yet read my first post, I volunteer with an organization that is called a "warming center". According to its website, "The (warming center) is a coalition of community members representing providers, nonprofits, faith and social activists communities and local government who have come together since 2008 to ensure that homeless people have shelter during a cold spell, the warming centers mission is simple: to ensure that homeless people in (my greater metropolitan area) have a place to sleep indoors when temperatures drop to 28 degrees or below between November 15th and March 31st."
Although I've been on the roster of volunteers for quite some time, my days off haven't meshed with the days/nights the warming center has been open. Because of this I've just had my first actual volunteer experience with them and it was, well...interesting.
It began with me showing up at the location--the basement of a downtown church--at 10pm and checking in at the front desk where I met the two other people I would be working with that night. I then met up with the programs director who showed me around the cite, explaining some of the ins and outs of how things worked.
A little while later all the previous shifts volunteers left for the night and I was left with the two other volunteers and about 50 "guests". It all started pretty slowly and the three of us mostly spent the first couple of hours getting acquainted, BS-ing with some of the guests who couldn't sleep and checking new guests in.
Most all of the first night was pretty slow. There were a couple of things though that caught my eye. The first was the personalities of the guests. I didn't get to see everyone because the majority of the people "hit the sack" before my shift started and I left before most everyone got up, but there were a few people who checked in while I was there and/or couldn't sleep so they came into the lobby out of boredom.
Right up front I noticed the guys who seemed to want to be noticed, i.e., being boisterous and obnoxious. This appeared to me to be a "defense mechanism" of sorts, intended to not let people get to close, both physically and emotionally. Surprising to me was that a couple of these sorts actually seemed fairly intelligent, if not educated (some of their thoughts and opinions on subjects were way out there, but fairly well thought out nonetheless). It was somewhat interesting to talk with them for a while, but it got a little tiresome after they began to want to argue their points when I wasn't disagreeing with them.
Then I noticed the people who were obviously intoxicated in some way or another. One man was so drunk he couldn't sit up, let alone stand up. He kept falling over while sitting on the curb outside the front door. We helped him inside, got him a blanket and set him on a mat. After a while though we had to move him to a room by himself because he began to yell and scream in his sleep, causing the other guests to nearly riot.
Next I noticed the people, mostly women, who tried not to be noticed. Eyes and head down, no eye contact, soft speech, etc. Again I suspect this was a defense mechanism.
The last thing that caught my eye were the types of clothing people were wearing. Although there were a lot of people who looked like they got most of their clothing out of a "free bin", a number of them had some really nice outdoor clothing. I don't know if it may have been stuff they had before they became homeless, received as gifts from family or (in my opinion, more likely) stolen from area outdoor stores, but I would have been happy wearing most any of it.
One of the really interesting attributes of the warming center is that they don't turn anyone away. You are welcome in any state of intoxication, appearance, cleanliness, mental health, etc. Pretty much the only rules are no aggressive/violent behavior and no intoxicants on the premises. The place is really kinda policed by the guests themselves. They want to have a warm place to sleep on cold nights and don't want to loose the privilege. Because many of them are friends on the street they can talk to each other and deescalate issues with better results than perhaps if I or one of the other staff were to get involved.
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