Jack London Square

After work last Friday I decided to bike a few blocks down Broadway and over to Jack London Square and do a little reading down by the pier. On the way there, I was stopped at underpass next to a guy holding a sign that read “Homeless, anything will help. God Bless.” He showed all of the cars at the intersection his sign and then he turned to show it to me, I diverted my eyes slightly, and then I heard a laugh come from the man, and he said, “Hey, I know you!”

I was slightly caught off guard and it took me a second before I recognized the man and I said, “Hey, I know you, too!” We’d read the paper and drank coffee together at the same table in the men's center earlier in the morning.

I sat there, propped on my bike seat, and we shot the breeze (as the kids say) for a few minutes about things down at SVdP. I will openly admit that I’m not a huge fan of panhandling, especially at intersections, and as we continued to talk I kept thinking, “Why are you here?”

And then I caught myself. It was a reminder that homelessness can’t be summed up in numbers and statistics, and that it can’t simply be legislated away. There are drunks and addicts and many are mentally-ill and smell unbearably bad—but, there are also guys who are funny and likeable and can talk intelligently about sports and politics.

It’s scarier to think about them. It’s so much easier to think of the homeless as a population that can be easily boxed in--who’ve made decisions and done things that we would never do. It is disconcerting when you look at a homeless guy and you legitimately wonder, “Are we really that different?” Maybe there is a big difference, and at that point you can ask, “Is there really any difference between him and my crazy uncle that shows up to random holidays every couple of years?” Probably not.

Homeless Court

Homeless Court submissions are due today. It reminds me a bit of college finals as people scramble to get their applications in before the deadline. Oh yeah, I really should’ve read all eight books assigned this semester…Oh yeah, I should really get that misdemeanor cleared up. Very similar.

For the second time I’d like to say good-bye to last year’s SVdP JV Mike Tyler. After helping us out at the men’s center for a few more weeks he’s leaving on Friday and moving on to bigger and better things in San Fran and I wish him well.

Currently, we haven’t yet secured a new men’s center director, so starting Monday I’ll be taking a slightly larger role.

Speaking of roles, the Seldom Seen Acting Company that is comprised entirely of homeless men is heading to Kentucky over the weekend for an acting competition. So break a leg, guys. No, break two!

Speaking of really bad jokes, as the ultimate sign of respect for Mike Tyler I’ve prepared a short little roast:

What can I say about Mike? Well, he’s a pretty trustworthy fellow…for a guy with two first names!

We really hope he has time to come back and visit us at the men’s center from time to time…for a shower!

Mike Tyler’s so stupid it takes him two hours to watch 60-Minutes and 13-months to complete a JV year…

As a token of our appreciation we’ve prepared a special little 1,000-plate farewell luncheon in his honor…so Mike, walk around the building and get in line for the dining hall!

Best of luck—you’re going to need it—and don’t let the door hit you on your way out…because I like you too much and wouldn’t want that to happen.

Numero Uno.

After the initial first few days at the center I have been surprised at how comfortable I’ve felt while interacting with clients. Mostly I stay inside of the visitation center and the men’s center, and in the morning I ride my bike from the Lake Merritt area to SVdP, located on the corner of West Grand and San Pablo Avenue, which is right at the edge of where Oakland really becomes Oakland to use a slight euphemism.

However, yesterday after coming back from lunch in the dining hall, the door to the main center was locked and I was forced to walk outside of the caged parking lot and around the block to get back into the main entrance. It was a reminder that I am still a visitor in a foreign land. There were stray dogs and more than a couple of guys carrying on loud conversations to nobody in particular and I’m pretty sure one of them yelled, “Hey, white boy” at me. Rather than stopping to explain my ethnic makeup, I thought it prudent to keep walking and avoid eye-contact, figuring the v-neck cotton-cashmere blend sweater I was sporting was already more than enough provocation for any one of them to justify commencing a Jets-Sharks style rumble.

The other news at SVdP is that we’re implementing web-based software to track our clients more efficiently. As a drop-in center with many different functions it has been hard to accurately track the clients and progress of the center using various Excel sheets dispersed throughout the different departments. The software will also supposedly allow us to compile over 1,000 different reports based on demographics and other info we gather.

I’m hoping there’s a report that will allow me to say, “Oh, well I helped seven more clients this month, which according to this web-based software report I just ran, I’m 53.5% closer to heaven and eternal salvation.” Because as we all know, when it comes to helping people it’s all about what’s in it for numero uno, right?

Uncertainty.

If last year at this time you told me I’d be living in Oakland and spending a significant amount of my time working with homeless men, I wouldn’t have believed it. I was comfortable in Colorado, it was familiar and there also wasn’t a 15-year-old high school drop-out smoking and chilling in my suburban cul-de-sac at all hours of the day and there definitely weren’t drug deals occurring within earshot of my window. With that said, I have truly enjoyed my first month in Oakland and JVC in particular. There is great uncertainty, but the flip-side of that is the excitement of new opportunities and experiences.

There has also been a level of uncertainty at SVdP, after my first week here the decision to change the men’s center director was made. Currently, last year’s JV in my position is running the center in the interim. We also decided to shut down the center for about a week to refinish the floors, which also allowed us a chance to clear out the old clutter and only put back items that were essential to the functioning of the facility. One of the volunteers informed us that the stuffed armchair was covered in a sheet because two years prior a man had vomited on it and it had been too difficult to clean up—we decided that it was no longer an essential item.

In addition, we rearranged much of the furniture in the center and so far the changes have been received with an overwhelmingly positive response. The guys thought the floor was “sharp” looking and appreciated that we had moved the TV to a part of the room with less glare from the Sun. I’ll go out on a limb and say that the room now has phenomenal feng shui! Though, I don’t actually know any principles of feng shui, but in any case, the energy has been greatly improved. I'm guessing there's a correlation between the new changes and the abnormally large number of guys requesting bottles of our free “Man Power” vitamins.

Another thing we’re trying out is purchasing a couple of newspapers each morning to leave out on the tables for the guys to read as they drink coffee or wait in line for the showers or laundry. So far it looks like the guys are enjoying the papers and we’ve even had a few informal discussions about various news items, mostly homicides, in the Oakland area. We might try to make it into a more formal thing in a couple of weeks, or we might just keep it casual, either way it will be nice especially as the election approaches.


“It is no use walking anywhere to preach unless our walking is our preaching.”
-St. Francis of Assisi

A Wealth Beyond Measure.

Each week I hold a short orientation on Mondays at 10 a.m. for the Homeless Court in the visitation center at SVdP. The first couple of ones were lightly attended, which was actually a nice chance to get my spiel down, but this week about a dozen people showed up. As last year’s JV warned me, there are always a few people who with legal issues that we don’t handle and are slightly perturbed, often times at me, when they realize they have wasted a good portion of their morning. Beyond that, the thing that has stood out is the inability for people to deal with their legal problems, many having let fines and citations spiral out of control to the point that, aside from Homeless Court, jail time is their only option.

Later that afternoon as I sat in my office, my mind drifted to the party my housemates and I threw on Saturday. About 20 people from local JVC houses showed up, I won’t bore you with the details, but let’s just say we set the bar pretty high for future JVC gatherings. It amazed me that in just over a month’s time, we had already created this large network of friends and lifelines scattered all throughout California, a place where few of us had spent extensive time

Then, I thought back to earlier in the day, one man stayed after everyone else had left and asked me if I could provide him with additional assistance. He was on disability due to a brain injury and he was also illiterate. I helped him as much as I could, walking him through the instructions several times and helping him figure out the areas in his life he could document as progress and offering to help write his letter to the public defender the next time he comes in. I’ll be honest and admit that I have my doubts whether he’ll actually return, but I’m hopeful. I’m hopeful because he was genuinely grateful that I had attempted to help him, and because it was clear that he has few other options.

On Monday night, the temptation of watching my Denver Broncos play the Oakland Raiders on national television was too much, so I grabbed my bike and headed to a little sports bar on the other side of Lake Merritt. The Broncos pretty much dominated the Raiders in every single aspect of the game, but I was careful not to get my hopes up too high for the rest of the season—the Raiders are really just that bad.

As much as I enjoyed watching the game, I also felt a level of homesickness that I’m not sure I’ve experienced since freshman year of college. It was lonely being the only Broncos fan in the entire bar.

The next day, I made the connection between the loneliness I felt watching a sporting event to the isolation and hopelessness many of our clients must experience on an every day basis, whether it’s dealing with court fines or simply finding a safe place to sleep at night.

I realize that it may seem shallow, and it probably is, to think that I have even the slightest idea about what our clients deal with, especially since my struggles involve cable television and a cold beverage or two that may or may not have left me red in the face—but it’s the best I can do for now.

One tenet of JVC is simplicity, which is sort of enforced through the $85 per month stipend we receive for personal expenditures. But what I’ve come to realize is that this year is not about pretending to be poor--that task has already proved impossible. Trite or not, the value of friends and family and the ability to turn to others in times of need is a privilege and a blessing and a wealth beyond measure.

Facing adversity with dignity and honesty.

This week really seemed to fly by. It could have been that it was only four-days, or maybe I’m settling into the daily routine around here. For those that haven’t been into St. Vincent de Paul, it’s a bit of a maze, so simply not getting lost every five minutes this week has had a calming effect on me.

The men’s center shut down on Thursday and will remain closed until Wednesday while a few of our maintenance men renovate the floors--because you know, men without roofs over their heads are real sticklers about a decent floor.

Probably the highlight of my week was putting in Mighty Ducks II for the afternoon movie. I thought it might be inspirational and provide some light-hearted fun. I was wrong. There were a few laughs here and there, but for the most part it didn’t seem to satisfy their daily appetite for action and violence. I left the men’s center to take a phone call and when I returned fifteen minutes later they’d already put in another movie, but I think it was a good learning experience for everyone involved—I figure that they test my boundaries on a daily basis, I should at least make them uncomfortable every now and then. For all of you reading in West Oakland, spread the word, SVdP men’s center will be showing The Notebook next Friday!

Looking back at some of the blog posts of former JV’s here, I’ve realized that there can only be so many epiphanies about social justice, poverty, addiction and homelessness. With that said, each day at work there’s been a moment where I’ve been struck by the openness and willingness of clients and volunteers to talk about the struggles and adverse situations they are facing. They speak with dignity and honesty, and it’s refreshing, other times jarring, but most of all it’s something to be emulated. It’s not a joke when one of our volunteers takes home a heaping pile of food from the dining hall and openly admits that they don’t have any other food in their refrigerator, but it’s also not something to be ashamed of or hide. It just is—and that’s all life can ever be.

Turning on the light.

The other day as I went into the backroom of the women’s center about an hour after it had closed down for the day to get a glass of water, I flipped on the light switch and heard an alarming noise—it appeared to be a grumbling pile of clothes. In fact, there was a woman trying to sleep beneath the clothes—a pregnant woman who was also an addict. It was disturbing to think of the unborn child that is to come into the world to be cared for by a mother who can’t care for herself, facing a life of poverty and great uncertainty. It was also another reminder of the difficult circumstances many of our clients are facing.

One thing that I’ve really noticed since joining JVC is how out of touch with the world you can become in just a couple of weeks. My constant checking of e-mail and news has nearly ceased due to the lack of Internet in our apartment and the terrible reception that our TV receives. At home I was a bit of a political junkie, watching commentary on MSNBC and CNN for hours on end, but here I’ve realized that the world goes on without my reading of every John McCain “senior moment” and apparently “Alaskan teenagers gone wild.”

Also, the other day one of the volunteers in the dining hall asked if I’d seen one of the college football games over the weekend. I shrugged and said that I don’t get ESPN, but still he recounted the game—I apparently missed one of the greatest games ever.

Though, I got my revenge afterwards when he launched into a story about his recovery from alcoholism, and I said, “Oh really, well let me tell you this great story about the amazing six-pack of beer I drank over weekend…” Actually, that’s not true. Though, I think that’s about the only way he could’ve experienced the mixture of jealousy, rage and sadness that was momentarily coursing through my veins.

Joking aside, it has been useful for me to realize that most of the things that I concern myself with will continue on without me and how easy it is to build-up your own little world of pop-culture and politics and even derive great satisfaction from all of it—but none of it is real. It’s not real at least in comparison with the human connections we can make. It’s more important for me to eat a donut and talk with some of the guys in the men’s center than it is for me to have an encyclopedic knowledge of sports. Though, I am planning to get a digital box for our TV in hopes of attaining a slightly more watchable picture, you know, so I can talk sports with the guys and make more meaningful connections…


“Men are beginning to realize that they are not individuals but persons in society, that man alone is weak and adrift, that he must seek strength in common action.” –Dorothy Day