VirginiaVerburg

Virginia Verburg

Reflections

Day One 3/7/09

The first day of the Alternative Spring Break Trip was full of ups and downs for me. I believe there was a mutual consensus felt by all the students of our group about being scared of the unknown. As we pulled up to the Campus for Human Development, we saw around 40 men standing outside the building waiting for it to open. That alone was unexpected for me, to see so many people at the shelter so early in the morning. Some of the men tried to talk to us as we unloaded from the vans but at the time we were too scared to move and especially answer back.
I felt bad for feeling this way as the day progressed and I relaxed more, but I realize I along with the other students in our group were only reacting based on instinct. Most of us know that there are reasons why men end up being homeless, and those reasons are frightening. Alcoholism, drug abuse, and violence do not simply disappear over night. There is still a side of me that feels bad for reacting the way that I did but the other side of me was just reacting to a scary situation. A group full of mostly women around multiple male strangers.
As we got a tour of the building we learned a lot about the CFHD and homelessness in general. At the CFHD they have a program called the Odyssey. Clients who have been chronically homeless or have been in a drug or alcohol rehabilitation program in the past. Clients have the opportunity to attend classes for a month while living out in the elements and proving that they can stay sober. This stage is Pre-Odyssey. After the clients go through an interview process they may be accepted into the Odyssey program. The first phase of the program is a 6 month period of time in which clients can move into the CFHD and learn about drug and alcohol abuse and receive counseling for any issues they may have. In the second 6 month stage of the program the clients learn about job skills and what to do in the environment once they move out of the Campus. The final stage of the program focuses on the clients actually obtaining a long term position at a business. Clients have the option of moving out in to a low income apartments away from the Campus at this time. Clients are also subject to random drug testing.
After we learned about the program and toured the Campus our group was split into different tasks. At first I helped in the storage area with cleaning and restoration because the building had caught on fire. The storage area had no electricity and a lot of the food and clothing in the building was damaged. I was sad that people that had so little to begin with had even less now because of this fire. It was also hard to have clients throughout the day come up to us and ask for things like water and food. It made me feel guilty for having things that may seem like luxuries to them.
I think that working in the Rescue Mission will be even harder for me to handle. Not only are there more people there, but there are a lot of young men there that are our age. It really hit home to see someone that could be in college with me living in a shelter.
Overall I feel accomplished by the work my group completed but I am also nervous for the days to come.