This is a verbatim transcription of the interview from a digital recording, so please understand it is a bit choppy.
2/25/15
I interviewed a seasoned staff member at Logan Place, who
previously worked at Preble Street. Logan
Place is a supportive housing facility for chronically homeless people. After a
few minutes of explanation regarding the purpose of the interview request and
clarification of the two questions being asked, she was enthusiastic to share
with me her ideas.
What Works? What Doesn’t Work?
We’re providing housing for people who have been chronically
homeless, so our community members experience mental health problems, they
experience, um, addiction issues, there’s a lot of alcoholism, um there are
people who have had a lot of struggles, a lot of broken relationships in their
lives.
So, what works? Um, number one, each person has their own
apartment, so, um, I think that’s essential.
I think that people in the space have way too many personal issues
to grapple with to be able to share a
space easily with someone else, so having an independent apartment is very
helpful.
Number two, it’s very helpful for people to have the support
of staff. We learned that early on that
without some sense of; we can establish boundaries in their lives that are more
complicated for people to establish for themselves.
Here’s a good example: Most of the people living here have
tried to live in other apartments and have failed over and over again because
they can’t figure out how to follow the basic rules of tenancy. One basic rule
is you can’t have permanent guests who aren’t on the lease. When you have been
homeless for a long time, you can end up with indebtedness to the people who
you shared the outdoors with. You can end up with a sense of guilt that you
have a safe and warm place to be and you have an understanding of how hard it
is to be out in the cold. So you have
the sense that you want to pay friends back by providing them or sharing with
them the safe space that you have. So
it’s very difficult for the people to set a boundary that says, “No I can’t
have you staying with me”, but to have staff at the front door saying, “Who are
you? Are you being invited as a guest of one of our tenants, and do you know
the rules saying that you can’t have more than five overnights in a month. The
rule is you have to stay with your guest so that you’re not just wandering
around our building, sleeping in the nooks and crannies and making other people
fell really unsafe, right, this is a very safe building”. So, so the supported
living is helpful in that the social work staff that keep people, um, that help
people set strong boundaries to the outside world is really, really helpful.
Um, it’s very helpful to have Avesta managing the building
and to have a strong relationship with the housing company, if you will, that
really don’t have a social work understanding of the people that we know that
do have good hearts and want good housing to happen for people.
They are the people who own the building, they built the
building and they manage the building.
It’s with them that the lease is established and they have
to write an eviction. So the lease is with Avesta, they pay their rent to
Avesta, and Avesta can evict people who don’t follow the rules, so what’s
lovely is that we have this beautiful working relationship with Avesta, so that
when things, when relationship with a tenant is complex, we can run
interference and help, help it, help make it work.
So, for example, you saw in yesterday’s newspaper that there
are some number of people on the streets who have, who are sleeping in the
shelters who have, that actually have bank accounts. So when we have a tenant who, mental illness
interferes with their capacity to understand the needs for paying rent, um we
can help problem solve with that person with mental health problems and with
the Avesta housing. How can we care for
this person and have enough time with this person to work the tenant to get to
the place where it works. Do you know what I mean? So if Avesta was left to
their own devices, they would have evicted some of our tenants a long time ago,
but because they have confidence in our skills as social workers, they work
with us to help people get to a place of functioning, um, in a way that helps
them keep their housing. Um, does that
make sense?
Um, I think it’s, um, another thing that works is having a front
desk. Um, and having the front desk staffed twenty-four hours a day, and also
having a community room that has a kitchen, and a, um, television and tables
and just a gathering space. But what
works about having the staff here twenty-four hours a day is that we have some
people that have a hard time sleeping and are lonely, and so they can get up in
the middle of the night and go to the front desk and engage in
conversation. Um, and that provides
someone an alternative to staying alone, being lonely, or grabbing beer. You know they can come and engage in
conversation and there are often activities happening at the front desk, so
there’s a way out of the loneliness, if you will, because the staff that are
here, the ten of us, are openly interested and engaged; it’s a skilled group of
people.
Um, what else can I tell you that’s good? I don’t know?
Let’s move over to the things that don’t work as well, that if I could
redesign this program, what would I do? Um, many of our people are food insecure. They don’t have the skills, um, for shopping
and eating or eating healthy foods. So,
um, if I were to create another program, I would recommend that it come with a
food program; that there is a way to help people get access to healthy foods
for three, three meals a day. That
doesn’t happen here and so, um, I think that people here act in unusual ways
because they are malnourished, and we can’t get a handle on that, so that,
that’s complicated.
Um, what else would I change? ____ and I talk about this all the time.
I think that maybe, I would make some apartments, or maybe
even have a big shower set up in a common area. Um, we have people that get, um
have body lice, we have body lice issues right now with some of our tenants who
have a hard time with hygiene because of their mental health problems or
because of the brain injuries that they have. Um, and so we don’t have an easy
way to help those people with taking showers; it’s not something we do anyway,
in anyway, but, um the outside support people are people that come in don’t
have an easy way to help people with their hygiene issues and it’s a really
common issue. Um, a lack of an understanding of a hygiene, of staying clean, so
I would have a big shower in the building.
Um. Another pro,
because we have staff twenty-four hours a day, we can run a one a.m. art class,
which we do. Um, so, so, stepping into
the pro side again, staff have created the,
all of the ten people here are not all social workers, per say, so we
have some artists, for example, on staff, and that’s how we have an artist
environment, especially on the overnight shift and so that has actually
inspired some of the, um, tenants to focus their artistic abilities and that’s
been a big plus. Ya, art is amazing. Ya.
So Avesta on March 6th is a, ahh, Art Walk Night. We will have an opening at the Oak Street
Loft which is a building that the Avesta, um, created, um I think it’s mixed
housing, um that Avesta has built. So
they have an art gallery there and it’s open to the public for art night, the
first night, and ah, and the show is ours. Logan Places’. We’re very, very excited about that.
What else would I do differently? Um, um, I think what’s
good about, another good thing is that we have, um, we’re not only men, or only
women, so, we’re integrated that way. That’s very helpful, I think. Um, What
other things would I fix?
I think because the homeless population, there are so many
that are medically compromised, um I would think about that. I think there
needs to be some apartments set aside because people have various health
problems. We have a lot of um, people who, we have people who have lost limbs,
lots of stuff going on out there. There are not bathtubs in the apartments;
they have a shower stall and they will put bars and seats in showers when
they’re needed. Um, but I think I would… to be honest, Logan Place is, Avesta
is building another Logan Place. Um, and so, in Portland, so that’s something
people have, and they’re acknowledging that the homeless population is very
medically compromised. And so there is some thinking about how do we, how do we
accommodate the medical needs.
I know that we have, have, it’s sometimes complicated for
us, for our community to get the medical help they need because they are… when
an alcoholic needs to go to a nursing home, they don’t have dementia, they
still are actively drinking, that’s very complicated. Nursing homes don’t want
our guys, um, because they’re afraid. Um, so that’s a big problem. We have to think about, “do we become a
nursing home setting for some of these guys, or what?”. Ahhh, but we don’t
have… obviously; we don’t have the staff to provide the level of care people
need. Typically, we have two people per
shift working, so, so if we could re-do Logan Place, I would redo it with
spaces and provide space for support staff to meet the needs of these
tenants. For example, we have a guy
that… um we can’t meet those needs, because you can’t live independently…. And
that doesn’t mean a nursing at this point, but if there’s enough in-home
support, then that’s fine… so I’m all about that. But it would be helpful, as
the medical issues are more complicated, to have to have maybe bigger rooms, or
just, or just a closer collaboration with the medical world so that we can uh..
Recognize the medical stuff that’s going on for people. Advocate for them.
What else… I didn’t give you many things that I think we’d
need…
In the winter folks are bottled up when the weather is very
cold or stormy; a greenhouse type area would be a great idea. Most people I
know, I mean in this horrible winter we’re having are pretty depressed, so –
and there’s a number of people here who are prone to depression and seasonal
disorders anyway, so it would be wonderful to have a greenhouse area. We have a small garden, where success comes
and goes with the level of time and energy the staff can put into it as well as
tenants, so different tenants have interest or not, um in creating a garden,
but um, a greenhouse is a great idea; a greenhouse is a great idea.
I guess that’s all I have right now… I mean, ask me again in
an hour…
END OF TRANSCRIPTION
Here are some links I found that were of interest regarding Logan Place and the chronically homeless population.
As I spend time at Logan Place for service learning for another class, I see this food insecurity with people. It makes me very sad. I see tenants meandering in and out of the common area, looking towards the kitchen. When myself and another student made popcorn one night, I saw how people came in and looked to see what was going on and then declined the offer of popcorn. The staff say how tenants really love when volunteers make meals.
I am a bit stressed over this myself, because I am there to make connections with tenants and learn from them, and desire to make huge meals to serve them, but my budget does not allow for me to spend money in this manner. I find myself spending more time wrestling with how to do that than how to make connections with tenants at times. I make a point now to eat before I get there instead of bringing my evening meal there to eat. It distresses me, so I can imagine how much more so that it does to social work and support staff that work there.
Even if there was a way for a facility such as this to provide at least one nutritious meal per day for tenants that desired it, would be a huge thing for this community.
I made a connection with a male tenant who invited me to his apartment to show me his celebrity signed photograph collection. I was in awe of the one he had amassed!! As I expressed interest, he continued to pull out more to show me. As I was there, I noticed that his bed was covered with stuff, like stuff constantly stored there. Underneath the high bed frame, I was a large pillow or cushion and a blanket that were looking rather in dire need of cleaning. This is where I presume he sleeps. I guess because of his past experience, this might be where he feels most safe to sleep? I'm not sure. But the floor was pretty covered with "road gravel" that had been carried in from footwear from the outside; it really needed sweeping. Maybe that's how he liked it? Maybe he hasn't managed to figure out how to keep this problem taken care of? Regardless of this, I consciously overlooked those things as well as the overwhelming smell of cigarette smoke and focused on the time that he was sharing his awesome collection with me. I felt honored that he trusted me enough to invite me to his home and show it to me.
Observations:
Over break 2/16 – 2/20 on facebook feed
Noticed how people were posting lots of stuff about the
weather and how it was adversely affecting their lives; specifically the
struggles many older people and single women were having a difficult time
managing to do what was necessary to take care of the snow and the problems
brought on by it at their homes (frozen pipes, leaking places because of ice
jams, clogged areas because of no place to put snow or snow banks so high they
can’t throw snow over there any more)
2/25/15 At Logan House, conducting staff interview
Noticed the downcast spirit of the staff member as she
described tenants being food insecure and malnourished and how her countenance
changed as she expressed that if she could change things so that Logan Place
could supply daily meals for tenants, she thought some of the undesirable
behaviors of tenants might change.
