A Visit to the Somerville Homeless Coaltion

  

In Rosa Lee, Washington Post reporter Leon Dash follows the lives of one family enduring intergenerational trauma and coping with extreme poverty. She sits dignified in a jacket photo, holding a military portrait of a son.

“Rosa Lee—that name made me—Wait she’s black. She looks like my mom,” said an unhoused person taking refuge at the Somerville Housing Coalition Engagement Center.

The supportive housing search person three times looped back to asking about his housing search, adjusting, acknowledging, offering help right there. He was waiting to hear a definite about the Y. It was just too much, a hundred dollars a day.

“Oh, yeah, the hotel,” the Mets fan said.

“How long is the wait in Somerville?”

Two years.

As indicated by the subtitle, Rosa Lee is a mother in urban America. I brought it with me to an appointment with Hannah who had facilitated a conversation in May with Tracy Kidder and Dr. Jim O’Connell of the Boston Healthcare for the Homeless, the subject of Rough Sleepers.

On the way into Davis Square, I took the bike path and almost walked through a parking lot to avoid a couple who looked unhoused. Mike was veering, holding up his jeans, worn looking, and offered me a crushing handshake, then apologized. Erin had with her a library copy of a bestseller, explaining how Janet Evanovich, her favorite author’s series, advances by number. “This one is about” explaining this hapless heroine’s accidental discoveries.

Wishing me well for my talk with Hannah, Erin mentioned she'd be there soon to see her case manager. “See I went away for a while.”

I reached the basement by an elevator and was buzzed in. In the waiting room a gentleman in a wheelchair and scally cap was draining the last of the coffee. Two sat at a table with laptops open in front of them, one making conversation about the Padres and the Mets, showed the picture of a baseball field a friend had sent handing the gentleman his phone.

The man was saying he would get a chain to attach himself to his phone, if he ever got another one. “This time I won’t let no one make a phone call and then walk away.” One episode slid into another: Three female officers were running intake at the jail. They told him to strip. “Really?" he said, looking at the female housing supporter. “This is awkward. I Let me spare you the trouble.” And he pulled out a gram he had in his underwear. He’s definitely a talker, said the Padres fan, when he had left. 

I sat with Rosa Lee open, craving coffee, thinking of Diesel cafe. It reads dated to an era of welfare backlash, acknowledging "Reforming welfare doesn't stop drug trafficking."

"Our hours up" said the baseball fan. The housing search supporters packed and left as another man with a towel on his shoulder came in.

"So is the bathroom still broke?" the man beside me asked. "Better I just go outside."

A third man with muscled white calves dressed in shorts and a shirt was pulling out a bag from a locker after a shower and began putting on layers of warmth.

"How do I get one of those?" the man beside me said.

A tray of hoagie sandwiches in a tin container waited on a table. “A woman brought them saying she has been every week for years,” said the female housing search supporter. "I think I'm going to have one."

Hannah points to the red chair. "Take the hot seat," and tisks. She explains that the position involves motivating people who may think 'Okay, living with three people in a room isn't so bad.' What would I do to combat complacency?

"People that are sensitive and compassionate can sometimes have difficulty enforcing rules. Can you?"

"So, why now?" Hannah asks.

"What's your communication style? Direct, or indirect."

"How do you take feedback? Negative in a sandwich?"

"A scenario. You're all alone at the shelter, and it looks like two are getting into a fight, what do you do?"

"But if you've done all that and they have their fists out and are coming to blows what would you do at that point?"

Hannah escorts me to the door, "It can feel like a maze in here."