As so many of you have shared your love with me in prayers, thoughts, encouragement, and financial support in preparation for my participation in Covenant House's Sleep Out on March 20, allow me to take a moment to share with you some of my reflections on that evening on the one month anniversary of that event.
But first: I thank my God in all my remembrance of you! It's incredible for me to reflect on how many generous people supported me along the way. THANK YOU! I'm very humbled. Every time I sit down with one of my new residents to hear her stories within her first few days of coming to our door, I am reminded of how easily I, too, could find myself at the door of a shelter. It's still a mystery to me that I haven't ended up in that situation--I can attribute it only to an unexplained divine grace (which is not to say my residents have been denied that grace... that's why this thing is such a mystery to me, because to invoke grace here seems to lopsided and cruel) so often manifested in the support I get from such people as you. Whether you contributed anything tangible to my Sleep Out efforts or not, know that I am grateful for your support.
As I begin, I should like to note that it was not without hesitation that I began my efforts to fundraise for the Sleep Out. Having worked at Covenant House for seven months, I have been working during at least two other Sleep Out events, which occur about six times per year. I see the event from behind the scenes: As participants are gathering in the lobby downstairs for presentations and discussions with a few of our youth, I'm usually upstairs with everyone else, hearing my residents' reflections on the inverse Sleep Out experience when all the excitement is happening downstairs. I wrote a lengthy email to the organizers of the Sleep Out expressing some of my concerns, but maybe they're best summed up by this excerpt:
[T]he fact is that for most of our youth, the Sleep Out is experienced as little more than an inconvenience: they are not permitted to use their normal stairs or elevator, they are served dinner on each floor because the cafeteria is used for the Sleep Out, and some of them have expressed to me that they feel hidden away because they are not "presentable" to the Sleep Out participants.
I haven't fully wrestled though that. These are not questions unique to the Sleep Out, but to so many instances of donating and "helping." It's my hope to share a little of my experience, and a few stories from my residents, so the focus is not on the grand, mundane gesture of sleeping outside, but rather rightfully redirected to the young people the Sleep Out intends to serve.
I continue to ask myself how it's possible to help outsiders begin to understand the young people we serve in such a short amount of time as they participate in the Sleep Out, and I don't know how to put our residents' needs first when there are logistical problems such as where to hold discussions for a large group of visitors in a place that my residents call home. However, much to the credit of this Sleep Out's organizers, the bulk of this event was actually held at another location a few blocks away, which created fewer disruptions for residents and staff. After several hours spent learning about Covenant House from the perspective of some of the organizers and hearing stories shared by our youth, we returned to the shelter to (try to) do the actual sleeping out.
By midnight we were settled, insofar as that was possible, into our sleeping bags, strewn across cardboard, some of us with trash bags tied around our feet in a feeble hope for out toes at least to stay dry. This picture is from that night (my sleeping bag would have been just to the bottom left of this frame). It hovered around 30 degrees with a mix of frost and snow, and despite implementing years' worth of cold weather layering expertise and folding my sleeping bag over my head, I'm not sure I slept at all. I checked the time frequently, and with each passing hour the balance between my wishing that time would slow down so that I could stand a chance of sleeping when my exhaustion overcame the cold and my praying that time would speed up so that I could finally crawl out of my icy nylon cave into the defeated sleeplessness but welcome warmth of the indoor debriefing sessions lilted more decisively to the latter.
I made it to 5:30am before the sounds of other participants rousing themselves and dragging their bedding inside convinced me that I, too, would be justified in leaving the cold and calling it a night. Inside, we ate, chatted, and cleaned up chairs, finishing around 7:00am. I was scheduled for a morning shift to begin at 7:30am, so I packed up, changed into my work clothes, and headed to the females floor.
It was in many ways an unremarkable shift. And yet there were two interactions that left me at home that night, sitting on my kitchen floor, my face masked by tears and snot while my roommates and I prayed.
When residents leave our shelter, they do so on their terms (a self-discharge) or on ours (for reasons like persistently refusing to follow their case plan, fighting, being absent without an acceptable reason during overnight room checks, etc.). Typically in the latter case, former residents are expected to complete certain things, like a writing letter of reflection on non-violent ways to resolve conflict, attending anger management classes, completing our week-long job readiness workshop, or meeting with our psychiatrist for a psychiatric evaluation, before they are eligible to come back. We can hold their belongings for them for a set amount of time, but our space is limited and so former residents come back from time to time to pick up their belongings. Some come back from better places, having used our shelter as a place to reestablish themselves and returning for their belongings so that there's nothing to keep them looking backward at where they were. Some come back from worse places, maybe just to get a change of clothes while they figure out what to do next. It's these trips to our storage room that wring my heart.
On the day that I crawled out of my sleeping bag and into the Cov for my shift, two of my former residents came back to get their belongings.
The first, an intelligent and wryly irreverent young woman, T, who had often made me laugh at myself with her winking remarks about class or race. Early in her pregnancy, she'd asked me, "Miss lady, do you have any kids?" "No." "Oh, that's right, white people always wait to get pregnant." A quick flicker of her eyebrow to see how I'd react. Hanging out in the common area, she'd remarked, "Hey miss, do you know you're a hipster?" "Why I am a hipster?" "It's those glasses. And your scarf." All of which, as I recount it, I could imagine might seem inappropriately cheeky, but which I found part of her charm and laughed about with her. She was discharged when our services were no longer able to help her.
The second, a young woman named M who is scrappy and driven and a jokester, but whose hot temper and occasional disregard and disrespect for staff placed her stay with us in jeopardy several times. I'd sat down with her for an hour to learn about her and her story when she'd first arrived, and concluded that there was more going on inside of her than she was quite sure how to manage. But despite some other struggles, she had secured a job at a local fast food place, and was steadily earning money. But she had been discharged too, for some youthful foolishness and bad decisions one night.
T came back to pick up her things after lunch during my post-Sleep Out shift. She stood in the office, her face red from crying and her cheeks covered in tears, mascara streaked, just standing for a moment. She was supposed to have picked up her belongings yesterday, but her boyfriend had called to tell us, in a pinched voice, that she was sick and so could they please wait until tomorrow? We closed the door to the office and asked her if she was okay, asked her what was going on. "I lost my baby. My baby was the reason I even ended up here, and I don't have that anymore." And I took her to the storage closet to her get things to bring downstairs where her boyfriend was helping her carry them, and I just looked at her and said, "I'm so sorry." Because what else? She collected her things, wiped her face with her sleeve, and left silently.
It was only a few moments later when M came to the office in a state of equal emotion and disarray. She, too, wanted to pick up some things, and again it was me who took her to storage. She rummaged through the black plastic bags containing her possessions, looking for some clean clothes to change into. I asked her where she was staying: "I don't know. Outside. The trains." And I thought about how my aching neck and how cold my feet had been, and once again there wasn't much to say. "I work til 2am and then I just find a place." We talked for a long time, trying to figure out if she had completed all the things required of her before she could come back, speaking to my supervisor and calling other shelters to see if they had beds in the meantime, having her sign consent so that my fellow staff could explain to her supervisor at work why her break today had taken so long and hoping that she wouldn't lose her job. By 4:30pm, holding back blinkings of tears but wearing a face of resolve, she left to go back to work. For my part, feeling relieved and grimy, I shrugged into my coat and trudged to the subway on my way home.
I have no neat ways to tie this together, and even this first attempt at synthesis has taken me a long time to hash out. I had no way to tie it together that night, either--hence tears and prayers on the kitchen floor. But day by day, I remain grateful to be where I am, and to work with the extraordinary people I do. Keep us in your prayers.
Since that day a month ago, M was welcomed back, but soon had to leave again for the same reasons she'd had to leave the first time; she's still away, working slowly to try to come back again. One of my residents, who had participated in the Sleep Out panel, told me that she'd learned through her participation in the event that she is much more courageous than she ever knew, and told me that she thought being at the Sleep Out helped to erode the low self-esteem that has persistently plagued her. Another, who had left a month before the Sleep Out, returned a few days ago to visit, cradling her two week-old daughter. One got accepted into transitional housing, and when she came returned to pick up some belongings, just beamed as she encouraged my other residents to work hard to get to a better place, because the effort would all be worth it.
One thing I do know: it's a privilege to be present to someone in both her happiest and her saddest, and her proudest and her most despondent, moments--to see someone at her best and at her worst. Maybe the Sleep Out gave me a reminder to continue to seek the best even when someone is expressing their worst--that we all deserve patience, because even if the battle is not having slept outside, we are all fighting a hard battle.
Thanks for your love and support. We're not there yet, but we're working for the redemption of our groaning world. Awurade Yesu, bra b3tie. Lord Jesus, come and listen.
