Update on the Haven Winter Center

By Patricia Morales Cano

As I write this update, I am feeling defeated. The idea of having a warming center to help those who are living on our streets is a wonderful concept. Last season, two wonderful ladies, Kathryn McCarroll and Tiffany Lindsey made it happen. We are missing Tiffany Lindsey this year, and personally, I cannot do what she did last season to keep the warming center going. Tiffany was the only person who was paid last season and it wasn’t even about the money for her. The warming center was her dream and she kept it going for 63 nights, while travelling back and forth from her home in Glenwood. She would plan the meals, send her husband for supplies, see to the guests’ needs, distribute clothing to those who needed it and schedule showers. If there were new guests, she would set up additional cots and select bedding for them. She chose not to do the same this season, and now I understand why.

This season, Kathryn McCarroll, Jared Gándara, Guadalupe Cano and I tried to keep the “winter” center going and we were later joined by my good friend, Paolo Veltri, who stepped in once he knew I was having a hard time. Kathryn and I would alternate days so that we weren’t having to stay overnight every night. Guadalupe would stay with me most nights for as long as she could and overnight on Friday nights. When it was our turn, we were responsible for setting up, which meant getting the coffee and drinks ready, filling the sugar and creamer containers, putting out plasticware and coffee mugs and putting out light snacks and fruit. At 5:00 we would open, get the guests checked in and scramble to get dinner out by 5:30. Not all the guests arrived at the same time, so we would see who was coming in and get them a plate. We were fortunate that a few nights, dinner was provided by one particular community member who would stay long enough to serve the meal and wash dishes.

During dinner we would be washing dishes and keeping an eye on whatever was going on. Sometimes there would be squabbles over cot assignments or guests would want their own food warmed in the microwave, or their dogs would be running around without a leash. Some guests would be talking incessantly and had to be reminded that this was a quiet space and that other guests were trying to sleep. Each shift was 15 or sometimes 16 hours long and required us to be awake the whole time. The building had to be cleaned before we left so that it would be ready for other groups to use. We tried to provide something light for breakfast to get the guests on their way so that the cleaning could be completed.

It didn’t take long for me to realize that at age 72, I did not have the energy to do this every other day. The Town of Silver City put out position announcements for a Coordinator and four Warming Center Attendants and we thought that we would finally get help overnight. I suggested to Kathryn that we apply to be Co-Coordinators. I submitted my application and one for Jared to be one of the attendants. I received a message from town staff that my application was incomplete. I had not included a copy of my ID or a copy of my high school diploma. I was told that without a copy of that diploma, my application could not be forwarded for review. It was a shock to me that submitting copies of my BA and MA diplomas did not make my application any more complete. Kathryn couldn’t be hired either, in spite of having a Juris Doctorate.

Kathryn was having to purchase all the food and supplies that were not donated with her own personal credit card. The Town had sent a check for $20,000 to The Commons to order food for the Winter Center, but there was a mix up regarding how the funding was to be used. The Commons was under the impression that the money was to be used for Alimento de los Niños. The Commons agreed to buy some of the food we needed; however, we had to go through long lists and decide how much we needed. The ordering of the food through The Commons meant that we had to order large quantities, and we didn’t think that was cost effective. Kathryn is an excellent shopper so instead of resting she would go check out sales and purchase everything for the meals.

Another complication was that we were expected to cook in a commercial kitchen. That meant taking all the groceries, cookware, etc. elsewhere and then bringing the prepared food to the Old Rec Center. This was too much work for Kathryn to handle on top of covering shifts every other night, but we thought that when the positions were filled, we could make everything work. We wanted those who applied for the positions to come shadow us at the center, to make sure they were a good fit and that they really wanted to do this type of work. Frankly, $14.50 to stay up all night and serve and monitor the unhoused is not really a good deal. It takes a very special person to do this and that is not the type of thing that you expect volunteers to do.

I was feeling that I couldn’t continue doing so much, night after night. I would go to the center when it wasn’t my shift, just to lend support and it was starting to affect my health. I asked for a meeting with the Acting Town Manager and the Business Operations Manager joined us. My daughter also attended this meeting. We were told at that meeting that the Town did not have the funds for the five positions for The Haven Winter Center and that the only position that could be filled was that of the Coordinator. At that point we expressed to the Town administration that the winter center was not sustainable without paid employees. The decision was made to close the center and plan better for next season. The interesting thing is that we did submit a plan to the Town, and it was a good plan that would have allowed us to recruit persons to stay overnight and to train them to work with the population to be served. It was decided that Sunday, January 19th would be the last night that The Haven Winter Center would be open.

It was heartbreaking to tell the guests that we would have to close because of a lack of staff, funding and volunteers. It was sad because many of them had settled into a nice routine. We gave them a few days’ notice to find someplace else to go. Some could go to SPIN, but most of them would have to sleep on the streets or in encampments. The temperatures are going to be below freezing and we can only hope that no lives will be lost.

I am so tired of hearing that homelessness is a problem all over the country. Yes, it is, but a warming center or whatever you want to call it, is the first step in getting to know who the unhoused are in our community. A warming center is the best place to put a face on homelessness and learn that there are people living in their vehicles that need a place to shower and use the restroom, that there are senior citizens who are trying to make their Social Security checks stretch and they cannot afford housing or eating in restaurants, that there are people on the streets with traumatic brain injuries that cause unwelcome behaviors, that there are unhoused persons with chronic medical conditions and medical problems caused by being homeless and that there are persons living on the street that are experiencing severe mental illness, and the police cannot even take them to the hospital unless they are a danger to themselves or to someone else.

My plea to the community is to come together and learn what being unhoused is all about. There is funding at the state level that can help, but we have to apply for it. We have comprehensive plans for everything, why not work on a comprehensive plan to combat homelessness in our own area? It is a very complex issue, but if the Town, the County, other municipalities in our county, the faith groups, the civic organizations, the schools, the University, elected officials, health care professionals, behavioral health professionals and some of the unhoused themselves work together, we CAN come up with viable solutions. I would even go so far as to suggest that homelessness needs to be an area of specialization in majors such as social work, nursing, psychology, and criminal justice. A warming center is the perfect place to witness homelessness with all its complexities. We can’t solve something that we don’t understand. What is our community going to do to help our local unhoused population survive this winter while we formulate a plan for next season? If you want the winter center to open again, we all have to step up.