ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, December 23, 1996 TAG: 9612230103
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
SOME HOMELESS PEOPLE CHERISH memories of better Christmases, while others search for the good in this year's celebrations.
Robin Jones remembers her children's faces last Christmas, how their mouths widened as they stepped into the living room, how their eyes were "the biggest" when they found the battery-powered kid-size Jeep and the toy kitchen that took Jones and the children's father hours to assemble.
"We spent about $1,000," said Jones, 26. "Everything my kids asked for, they got."
Christmas last year was the first that Jones, her three children and their father spent as a family. The chance for another as memorable won't come until 1998, she said.
The children's father - Jones' boyfriend - was jailed on a drug conviction in July. He is five months into a 40-month sentence.
Without his income, the family's bills mounted. Jones fell behind in the rent payments on their Southwest Roanoke home and in utility bills.
"They were going to evict me, so I decided not to go through all that and went ahead and left," she said.
Jones and her children spent a week at the Rescue Mission in downtown Roanoke, then moved into the Transitional Living Center, a Total Action Against Poverty shelter in Northwest Roanoke that gives the homeless not only a place to stay but the help they need to get back on their feet.
It has been home for Jones and her children for four months.
"The closer it gets to Christmas, the more I think about last year," she said.
There is a Christmas tree in the corner of the Transitional Living Center's living room and another against a wall in the children's play room. Residents have trimmed the doors of their small rooms with wrapping paper, lights and bows. Businesses and churches have dropped off wrapped packages - gifts donated for the 14 families who live at the shelter.
It's not the Christmas that Jones said she had hoped to give her children this year.
"They see something on television and ask me, `Mama, when you get some money can you get me that?''' Jones said. "It just tears me up."
Living at the shelter has allowed Jones time to finish her courses at Dominion Business School. She expects to complete training as a computer operations specialist next year, then get a job that pays enough to allow her a place of her own.
Just any place won't do, Jones said.
"I want a big ranch house, with lots of land and a fence and horses," she said. "I want to have another never-forget Christmas."
* * *
A few days after Christmas last year, Roy Barton Jr.'s apartment was destroyed by fire.
He had no money to move to another one and no family who could take him in.
He was 20 years old - a young man who graduated from Vinton's William Byrd High School with good grades in 1994, who was selected to perform with the Carolina Crown Drum and Bugle Corps that summer, who had attended Catawba College in Salisbury, N.C., but dropped out.
And now he was homeless.
"I was jumping from place to place, between the [Roanoke] Rescue Mission and the Salvation Army," said Barton, now 21. "One of my buddies told me about a program the Salvation Army had where I could work and in return, get a place to stay."
Barton now does volunteer work for the Salvation Army Roanoke Corps in exchange for long-term housing at the Red Shield Lodge, the corps' shelter for homeless men.
This summer, Barton started driving the Salvation Army truck that is used to pick up and deliver large donations of furniture and other goods to the corps' thrift stores. He's also cleaned the corps' church and helped with daily meal preparations.
This Christmas, Barton is working as a bell-ringer, collecting donations of coins and folded bills in the red Salvation Army kettles.
Maybe this kind of work was his calling, he said. Maybe this is what he was meant to do, he said.
"This place has opened up a whole new world," Barton said. "It's turned my life around. In the Bible it says it's better to give than to receive."
Barton knows the pain of doing without the things you want, or need. And he knows the generosity of others, particularly at Christmas.
"When I was 12 or 13, I wouldn't have had a Christmas if it wasn't for the Salvation Army," he said. "My dad got laid off. He didn't have money to get presents. The Salvation Army gave us presents."
Barton said he has no plans for Christmas this year. He hasn't yet accepted a friend's invitation to spend the holiday with him and his family.
The Red Shield Lodge will be busy on Christmas, with hundreds expected for the Salvation Army's big holiday dinner, Barton said. The shelter will need as many helping hands as possible, he said.
"When I'm out bell-ringing, people come up to me and tell me what a wonderful thing they think I'm doing, standing out in the cold doing this," Barton said. "I tell them this is for a good reason. If it wasn't for us and everybody pulling together, a lot of children wouldn't have Christmas.
"Just think what it would be like for a kid who didn't have Christmas. I just don't want to see that happen."
* * *
The Roanoke Rescue Mission was quiet Tuesday morning. There was little of the flurry of activity that comes as the sun begins to set and the temperature drop.
Barbara Gately enjoyed the peace.
"Sometimes you have no time to yourself, unless you get out of the building somewhere," said Gately, a 47-year-old Boston native. "There's no place to just be. But at least there's a roof over my head."
This is Gately's first experience with homelessness. She has been living at the Rescue Mission since Nov.11, after traveling from Oregon in search of a place to settle.
Gately is college-educated, a former teacher and psychiatric nurse's aide. She has lived on Social Security disability benefits since poor health rendered her unable to work.
"I'm educated, worked over 20 years. I'm opposite of the stereotype," she said. "I've never had a drink or done drugs. Being homeless has nothing to do with any of that. Not everyone who is homeless is down in the gutter.
"It's just that every now and then we need to reach out and ask for help."
Christmas will not be easy this year, Gately said. There will be no traditional family gatherings or potluck suppers or gift exchanges or parlor games, she said.
"For Christmas, I always brought home children and developmentally delayed adults to my family," Gately said. "There was plenty to eat and plenty of money to buy gifts or give to charities.
"This is difficult. It's difficult every single day, holiday or not."
LENGTH: Long : 125 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ERIC BRADY Staff. Robin Jones and her children Antowanby CNBWilliams, 4, Anissia Copeland, 3, and Jade Williams, 5, are staying
at the TAP Transitional Living Center this Christmas. color.