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.
Glad to see you're still keeping the blog going, Eric.
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