Homeless at 63

Dee Dee is homeless again. My friend of 30 years has hoarded her way out of her landlord’s good graces again, and is on the street. Thankfully, several people are trying to find her a new place to live, but in the meantime she’s chalked up a few nights on KC’s streets.

Dee Dee is fearless — almost. Last week as she sat outside the gate of a shelter at 2:30 in the morning, she was accosted by four men who went through her bags, and threatened her. “I was scared,” she told me, as she choked down the Chinese food we were sharing together.

I love Dee Dee, and I want her to be safe and well. But I’ve learned in our years together, she’s going to do it her way. So those of us who love her, pray for her and hope her NEXT apartment will be ”home” a little longer this time.

One Man’s Dilemma

Jason has been staying at KCRM for almost three months. In that time, he has worked hard to get a steady job doing what he’s very good at — making gourmet pizza. He’s working as a temp in a pizza shop in the KC Crossroads District, hoping they’ll soon offer him a permanent job.  But with KCRM’s beds filling up fast every night, he often can’t get a bed here when he gets off work. Our shelter manager allows Jason to hang his work clothes  in the dayroom, where he hopes they’ll stay clean and won’t get stolen. He visits our case manager daily, goes to chapel, eats a hot dinner in our dining hall and gets encouragement from our chaplains … but must leave at night to stay in another shelter. This is just one scenario we see play out daily now as the number of homeless men increases.

So our staff has to make tough decisions about who to shelter, how to make two case managers and one nurse miraculously meet dozens of needs presented each day.  Our kitchen churns out 250 hot (and truly delicious) meals each day … they want to do more — in fact there are definitely more men and women in line along the sidewalk — but the dining hall just isn’t big enough to hold everyone and there’s a limit to how many people our limited staff can handle.

Jason’s story is true and his struggle is real.  But we could tell you a dozen more if you had the time.  And I guess our staff faces a dilemma, too, now that I’ve reread this blog.  What we need are resources and prayer … and if someone could work a miracle … a few more hours in the day!