Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 30, 1993 TAG: 9305280052
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-8 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: SU CLAUSON-WICKER SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Long
The director of the Montgomery County Community Shelter has heard this too many times in the year he's been in office, sometimes from the federal agencies that fund projects for the homeless.
"Just because you don't see them on the street doesn't mean they're not here," he said. "They might be living in warehouses, in the woods or in their cars. Or maybe they've just been evicted and don't know where to go. They usually aren't winos, junkies or bag ladies - they're just people who've lost their jobs and can't meet their expenses."
In 1991, the year the three-unit shelter opened, 435 individuals sought shelter - almost 10 times the number it could handle. In the past two years, the shelter has housed 30 families.
The problem of homelessness shows no sign of disappearing this spring, as the shelter celebrates its second birthday. In fact, Dodson expects to see fallout soon from the layoffs at the Radford Army Ammunition Plant as families exhaust their resources.
Some homeless people still must be turned away for lack of space after being put up for a few nights in a motel.
The shelter's first priority is to house families with children for the amount of time it takes for them to get back on their feet, usually two to four months.
The goal is self-sufficiency, not just emergency bed space.
No facility in the New River Valley provides this type of assistance for single people, a problem Dodson is using his grant-writing ability to correct.
"In President Clinton's new budget, funds for services like these will triple," he said. But the problem remains that it's hard for a rural community to compete with urban areas in terms of sheer numbers of homeless people.
Dodson and Jeanne Howard, vice chairman of the board of directors, were shocked into action after seeing the multitudes of homeless people in New York. Dodson volunteered in Harlem's Emmaus House before working in and becoming director of a homeless shelter in Boone, N.C.
"What can we do about the homeless?" she asked students in the urban affairs and planning course she taught at Virginia Tech. It was a question that stimulated students more than any other issue in the broad survey course, and they returned to it again and again throughout the semester.
Later that year, Howard tentatively offered an advanced seminar on the homeless, thinking she might not have 10 enrollees. Instead, she found more than 50 students waiting in her classroom, some of whom already had volunteered in soup kitchens or emergency shelters.
One had organized a 36-hour "Sleep-Out" in Washington, D.C., to promote empathy with the homeless. Another collected and delivered warm clothes to Washington street people each month.
Last year, her class decided to become hosts for a family in the Montgomery County shelter and took turns collecting money for diapers, baby-sitting, chauffeuring family members to appointments and providing holiday treats.
"I think they got back just as much as they gave," she said. "The guest family was about their age, and the students had no idea how many similarities they'd have."
The typical residents of the shelter are a mother and father with one or two small children, Dodson said.
Usually one of the parents has lost a job, although sometimes homeless people still are working at low-paying jobs. Sometimes shelter guests are single mothers, some attempting to escape from abuse.
"I remember one case, a teen-ager whose family had disintegrated and left her to fend for herself," Howard said. "She got pregnant, committed a small theft and ended up in jail. When she got out, she had no money and no job, so she and the baby ended up with us."
Dodson remembers the wife in one shelter family leaving the house at 4:30 a.m. to walk an hour to her kitchen job at a fast-food restaurant. When she came home, her husband would hand her the baby and leave for his night job.
"The biggest problem," Dodson said, "is lack of stable employment. After that, I'd say lack of health benefits. Families without sick leave and medical insurance can't cope with the financial blow of extra expenses while making less pay. When you have to choose between eating and paying the rent, you eat."
The Montgomery County Community Shelter is a nonprofit, tax-exempt organization governed by a volunteer board of directors and a paid, part-time executive director.
Applicants are screened by New River Community Action. The board requires that clients sign a contract with the shelter promising that, in exchange for lodging, they will work toward self-sufficiency. This may mean applying for food stamps, applying for subsidized housing and getting a job.
"We give them time to heal and the opportunity to leave the shelter in a much better state than when they came in," Dodson said.
The shelter receives funds primarily from individuals, churches and civic organizations. Montgomery County also gives the shelter a small grant.
"The local ministerial association, along with Community Action and other community members, got the shelter started," Howard said. "We also have a dozen or so churches that host shelter families by running errands, baby-sitting, helping them get the things they need and just listening to them. So often these people feel so alone and rejected. It helps to have a sympathetic ear."
The shelter still is looking for churches or other organizations willing to act as hosts. Paper diapers, towels, napkins and cleaning products also are needed, as are gifts of landscaping services and occasional maintenance work. For more information, call 382-8621.
by CNB