Part II Day 8: February 17, 2010 (you can have this Lent in my pocket)

Position: Volunteer

Days Officially Unemployed: 34

I've decided to stay in San Diego for now rather than run back to my hometown of Fresno. While I was in Fresno, I attended a Greek Orthodox church service with my mother, and the priest spoke about Lent (which begins today), the need for personal sacrifice, and the importance of helping others. He quoted Matthew 25:31-45, where Jesus sits on his throne of glory judging all the people, separating the sheep from the goats. He tells the sheep people, who will enter the kingdom of Heaven, "I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me." The sheep people, who had never encountered Jesus before, asked him when they did all of this, and he responds, "Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me."

The Greek Orthodox priest then encouraged members of his flock to volunteer during Lent, to help those in need, as well as making self-sacrifices (I decided to give up alcohol for forty days and am fasting until sunset today). I only tell you this because the establishment I contacted yesterday, here in San Diego, to begin volunteering this week, called me back today to say they needed an advance notice of at least a week if I want to volunteer. They also said that on the weekends they have so many individuals and groups volunteering, that they book them a year in advance. A year!

With all these people wanting to help the poor, it begs the questions: why are there still so many poor people? And why do people want to help them?

I think the first question can be answered by a quotation from Joseph Campbell's collaborative book, The Power of Myth, where he says, "People ask me, 'Do you have optimism about the world?' And I say, 'Yes, it's great just the way it is. And you are not going to fix it up. Nobody has ever made it any better. It is never going to be any better. This is it, so take it or leave it. You are not going to correct or improve it.'" It's the same response William T. Vollmann received in his book, Poor People, quoted in an earlier post, when he asked, "Why are you poor?" and one woman echoes many when she says, "Just destiny."

Sure, war and poverty are part of the human experience, but I think you can work in your town, your job, your neighborhood, and your family to make things a little better, right? 

As for the second question, I always assumed it arises for many people from what I would call Christian longing to be a sheep rather than a goat, to enter the kingdom in the afterlife rather than hell. In other words, out of self-preservation rather than a basic longing to do the humane, or right, thing. But I'm sure people's reasons are as varied as the religions of the world, so I will be posing that question to my co-volunteers at the San Diego Center for the Poor (name changed to protect privacy).

Part II Day 1: February 10, 2010 (feeding the poor)

Position: Volunteer 

Days Officially Unemployed: 27

It appears my expulsion from the Garden of Rancho Santa Fe is permanent. After two phone calls with the pizzeria owner and no definitive return call from him, I'm moving on to phase two of my project: Feeding the Poor.

I arrive at the orientation for Casa Pobre (name changed to protect privacy) in downtown Fresno ten to fifteen minutes early. When I pull up to the compound, I'm a little shocked to see the blue tarps, camping tents, shopping carts, piles of wood, and other debris along the sidewalk that denote a homeless encampment. Men stand about or sit chatting. While Casa Pobre's mission is to feed, clothe, and provide assistance––medical, dental, drug rehab, and daytime shelter––to the destitute, I didn't expect that the homeless would actually set up camp right outside its gate. Warm-clothed homeless people wander like slow-moving zombies through the street inside the open gates. Outside the fence, kitty-corner from the homeless encampment, people sit along a low wall smoking and staring at passersby.

I hesitate at the stop sign, then make the left turn into the middle of this scene. I roll through slowly, see the sign for Casa Pobre's parking around back and think of getting the hell out of here. Holy shit, I think, I've never seen anything like this, except maybe a homeless encampment in Los Angeles. I follow the signs, trying not to return the stares of the loitering homeless people, and pull into the alley behind the main building. I find the guarded volunteer parking lot and ask if this is where I park. Yep. When I get to the back door of the building, a sign says to leave cell phones and cameras in the car (they don't want the distraction nor people taking pictures and posting them on MySpace and Facebook). I return to the car and put my cell phone under the front seat. Now I have no way of telling what time it is.

I enter the building and wander around the front two rooms, which look like a mix between what you'd find in a 1970's classroom and a prison cafeteria: a series of round tables with chairs; a few bookshelves; pale yellow walls in one room, red walls in the other. A handful of men with green badges shuffle tables around and prepare for opening the front doors while a black man finishes feeding his young daughter; she holds a doll with the same skin tone as her. I'm told by a green badge man to wait on a bench for the coordinator.

I sit for ten minutes or so, while the homeless and destitute come walking into the pale yellow room. Mostly a diverse group of men (old, young, crippled, black, white, Latino, Native American––the baseball cap with embroidered, multi-colored feather's a dead giveaway), and a few women, file in and take seats at the tables before being told to stand so the green badge men can move the tables out of the way for a circle of chairs. Many people wear heavy coats and beanies or hoods. Volunteers aren't allowed to wear beanies. The people mostly sit in silence or have quite conversations with someone next to them before a woman enters the room and tells the new people they have to stand and tell everyone why they want to join the group. I stand up, getting looks from those around me, and walk over to the woman to tell her I'm here to volunteer. A green badge man walks in at the same time and tells me to follow him, that I'm the only volunteer here for orientation.

I'm walked to Esperanza's (not her real name) office and she takes me through the volunteer guide before walking me around the building.  She explains that the green badge men are "residents" who live here and are part of the drug rehabilitation program. The red badge workers are "community service" volunteers, which means they're working off court ordered community service in lieu of jail time or fines. Volunteers such as myself wear blue badges.

When we enter the large kitchen area, I notice some of the men have prison-style tattoos: not well planned or executed designs scattered around their arms and up onto their necks. They nod as we pass by. One prison tattooed guy chops white onions with deft knife movements, while a dorky, average white guy about my age wearing running shoes and a blue badge seems uncoordinated with his knife. That's going to be me, I think.

Esperanza shows me the oversized walk-in refrigerators, the donation area (all expired food is given to a farmer for his livestock), and tells me about the temporary, "hard-shell housing" out back that replaced their tent city, and how people can't live there for the long-term. She says some people are discouraged from living there because they don't allow them to drink or use drugs on the property. Casa Pobre doesn't judge people, either, she says, and they offer their services to everyone, even me. (I might have to use the free clinic services.)

When we arrive back in the red room to finish the tour, maybe a hundred people have gathered in the dark to stay out of the cold and watch a movie on the large screen TV. Pulp Fiction is today's featured film. I thank Esperanza for her time and tell her I'll be back to volunteer soon. 

As I drive out of the compound and into what my dad would call "the demilitarized zone," men across the street sitting on the low wall cup their hands in a way that makes me think they're sharing a crack pipe or weed. When I reach the corner, a person wearing a jacket and hooded sweatshirt passes by doing the zombie walk while holding a paper bag containing a 24 oz. beer can. He walks toward the homeless encampment where a large woman sits on a crate and a tall black man and a white trucker-looking guy stand before her by their wood pile and tents, talking. It's only 10:30 in the morning and will be a long, busy day around Casa Pobre.

Day 249: February 5, 2010 (armed robbery, cowboy greg, and the great big wallop)

Position: Unemployed

Days Officially Unemployed: 22 

Life looking for work isn't going well. I've applied to everything from local restaurants in Encinitas to teaching gigs in South Dakota and a beverage rep job in San Francisco. The search continues as the economy sags. I have about exhausted all my contacts and filed for unemployment. After wading through the bureaucratic paperwork of the Economic Development Department, I now find myself in Fresno, where I grew up. The bad economy has intensified the violence in this town. Right near Fresno State's campus, where I write this post, there were three cases of armed robbery in November, one on January 7, and another two weeks later. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and I think I'll be moving in with my brother in Clovis at the end of the month, where I'll squat in his soon-to-be-foreclosed house with him.

My main reason for coming to Fresno, besides dropping of a resume at Fresno City College, doing book research and testing the job waters here, is to offer emotional support to my mother, who placed her husband and mother in an Alzheimer's care facility in the past week. I spent the day over there today, and we sang songs with Cowboy Greg, an old, tall, slim country singer who is unapologetically patriotic and very Christian. 

Before Cowboy Greg showed up, we warmed up our vocal chords with some sing-along Karaoke, while the Black, short-haired, bubbly activities director bounced around the room, encouraging the residents to sing while offering them warm hugs. She's great. Once Cowboy Greg got going singing classic country songs, he told corny jokes––"I was driving with my wife and we saw a jackass out in the field, and I asked her if it was one of her relatives, and she said, 'Yeah, through marriage.' Ha"––and ended by singing hymns ("Amazing Grace" and "Can the Circle Be Unbroken?") before walking around the room and thanking each resident with a handshake or hug. It was a gesture that made up for Cowboy Greg's simplistic insistence that we "wallop" our enemies in the current wars and pay for the damage later, like we did in WWI and WWII. 

The point is, Cowboy Greg was a first-class entertainer for his elderly audience. And during the show, several of the workers circulated around the room and sat or held hands with residents. There was a sense of family and safety about the place, especially since most of the residents were homogeneously white. The world outside, rainy today, didn't exist, and we were all going to a perfect heaven that Cowboy Greg painted for us with words and obscure John Denver songs. But if you knew what the monthly rent was in this wonderful place, you'd wonder what kinds of hell on earth other, poorer people with this same disease end up entering Heaven from. I'm thankful my family has the resources for this kind of care and entertainment; I just wish everyone could hear Cowboy Greg and buy into his vision, by and by, Lord, by and by.