A homeless night

It's hard to believe that I've been here for more than two months now. Time flies...

Last time I talked about some of our attempts at Andre House to live similarly to our guests. I wanted to take it one step further, go beyond the expectations. Here’s how.

The Central Arizona Shelter Service (CASS for short) operates shelter in the same area that Andre House is located. The very lowest quality of their shelter is known as the overflow. CASS will basically let anyone stay at the overflow, pending I’m sure that the person isn’t drunk, high, or violent. Most times, this is the only place someone can stay if they are new to the area and didn’t have a chance to get higher quality shelter with CASS during the day. Often times a new guest will come to us at dinner and ask where they can stay the night. Every time, we tell them to walk north on 11th Avenue, turn left on Madison, and the overflow shelter is the building with tons of people and a cop car out front. I’ve only heard stories about it, but I wanted to know firsthand what happens when someone new goes to the overflow.

What better way than to spend the night myself? So last night, I emptied my pockets except for my keys, ID, and cell phone, grabbed a blanket from our donation pile, and took that walk north on 11th and left on Madison. People start lining up for beds around 6PM, but I was walking in about 7:30. I just walked in and asked for a bed. They asked me some standard questions- name, social security number, how long I’ve been in Phoenix, employment, how long I’ve been homeless, drug addiction, alcoholism, SMI, health problems. I was able to get through that without them knowing I worked at Andre House, and they let me into the building. What I walked into I was not quite expecting. It was simply a large room. The were about 200 mattresses on the floor, mostly full, and then bunk beds all the way around the walls. The mattresses were all right next to each other, with a few foot-wide spaces here and there for walking. There was an outside area where there were probably another 50 people sleeping on the ground. There were also portable toilets outside, which were quite gross.

I grabbed a bed, put down my blanket, and just sat there and watched the goings on. My first observation was that nearly every person that was there comes to Andre House for services. My attempts at going semi-incognito failed miserably, as many of the people there recognized me, mainly as one of the guys at “that soup kitchen.” One dude had done some work for us during dinnertime and received a sack lunch for his help- he was selling the pieces of that lunch in the overflow. Another guy walked by me and asked if I knew anyone looking to buy some beer. In other words- did I want to buy some beer. This guy obviously didn’t recognize me, as we chase anyone off our property with any sort of alcohol.

There are always a lot of horror stories floating around about the overflow, but I can’t say that I feared for my safety at anytime during the night. But then again, if it is anything like Andre House at the overflow, there are good days and bad days- last night could have been a good night. I kind of half-slept, waking up occasionally to see who was up and at ‘em. Most of the people were sleeping peacefully. The one guy I was sleeping next to (literally next to) kept rolling over onto me, so I kept pushing him back onto his own mattress. I woke up at about 4:15, gave my blanket to someone who looked like they needed it, and came back to our building to make myself some breakfast.

I think I gained the knowledge I was looking for last night. I now know what exactly happens when we refer someone to the overflow shelter for the night. I also have a CASS ID card, so I can go back and do it again whenever I want to. I’m not sure that I will, I kind of like sleeping in my own bed.