Homelessness in Washtenaw County isn’t just a problem that affects the adults, drug users and the mentally ill—as is widely thought. Homelessness is also an increasing problem among the youth of Washtenaw County.
The Washtenaw Intermediate School District’s Education Project for Homeless Youth is a program that helps children enroll and attend school regularly and successfully.
Peri Stone-Palmquist is the Education Project for Homeless Youth’s program manager.
“So far, we are helping about 450 students; that’s a 40 percent increase from last year around this time,” Stone- Palmquist said, “and the year has only begun.”
In the 2009-10 school year the program helped more than 600 children in the county up to the age of 21. These students came from the 10 school districts and nine public school academies in the county, she said.
According to Stone-Palmquist, children in the program are given school supplies, clothing items, transportation and food if needed. The children are also given access to resources to be successful in school, such as tutoring.
Youth who are in the program are typically referred to the program by shelters, foster homes and schools. The program gets a lot of referrals from other districts, such as the Van Buren District, but unfortunately cannot help those outside of the district.
Although the program is funded through the Federal McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, efforts are still made to collaborate with other organizations to make sure that all children have exactly what they need to attend school successfully. The project receives help and referrals from places such as SOS Crisis Center, Safe House, Alpha House, and the Department of Human Services.
Youth who are a part of the program must meet certain criteria before receiving the help and resources. According to the program’s eligibility description, it provides services to youth who are lacking a fixed, adequate, regular night-time residence.
The program primarily serves teens living without parents or guardians, but also offers services to small children to age 5. Young adults ages 18 and up who haven’t received a diploma or GED are also offered services. The program is also serving teen moms who are in a homeless situation.
The program, through the guidelines of the Homeless Assistance Act, ensures that students are able to stay in their own district, regardless of their living situations.
“The mobility rate of the students in the program exceeds the national standards.” Stone-Palmquist said.
This means that the youth involved in the program more than likely were able to stay in their district until they finished school.
One day, as Denise Leonard brought a contribution to SOS Community Services in her hometown of Ypsilanti, she became concerned about an unsightly pile of cardboard boxes she saw outside. “So I thought, well, I’ll come and break down boxes, but they kept saying, ‘you know there is a training that’s starting,’” she said.
“I thought I had to have training to break down boxes. I don’t know. I thought it was a little strange, but it worked out.”
Taylor Stone, 21, and Tiffany Park, 23, both social work majors at EMU, load fresh produce into grocery bags at the SOS food pantry.
Her training was an intensive 21-hour series of classes making real the problems of the needy and demonstrating how to help. Instead of breaking down boxes, Leonard, 58, became a counselor and all around helper at the charity.
Leonard had had an early retirement. “I was trying to find a purpose, she laughed, “I needed to be needed.”
Volunteer Coordinator Cheryl Majeske from Livonia says of Leonard, “she is amazing, one of our best volunteers.” Majeske has a paid staff position, recruiting volunteers for the many-faceted mission of SOS.
SOS Community Services Housing Crisis Center, 114 N. River, Ypsilanti, is the place people in need go to for assistance.
SOS began at Eastern Michigan University as a 24-hour crisis hotline for troubled students. The letters stood for “Students Offering Support.” SOS eventually morphed into a community-wide charity serving all of Washtenaw County.
The goal of SOS, broadly, is to address the problem of homelessness. This not only means assisting those who have lost their homes, but also helping people avoid loss of homes by meeting their other needs, like food and child care. Counselors interview aid applicants to assess any deeper needs that may underlie the one for which they came in.
SOS Volunteer Coordinator Cheryl Majeske (left) of Livonia stands in her office with Denise Leonard, one of the many volunteers for SOS Community Services in Ypsilanti.
SOS has more than 400 volunteers a year, but this number includes many who help on only one occasion. We can never have enough volunteers, says Majeske. People are needed for crisis counseling, tutoring, food distribution, daycare, driving and many other services. SOS works out of several locations including its administrative headquarters at 101 S. Huron St. and the Housing Crisis Center at 114 North River St., both in Ypsilanti. The Time for Tots day care center is at 1819 S. Wagner Road in Ann Arbor.
For Leonard, volunteering at SOS has been life-changing. “You know they say that you get more out of volunteering than you give, says Leonard, “You really do!”
Meanwhile, SOS may still need someone to break down boxes.
For more information about SOS Community Services, visit soscs.org
Below is a brief video about the food assistance program at SOS:
To contact Cheryl Majeske about volunteer opportunities, email volunteer@soscs.org or call (734) 961-1210.
The Back Door Food Pantry (BDFP) has been a big part of the Ann Arbor community since March 2007, providing food services and other information on organizations that help the homeless.
It is a non-profit pantry that operates mainly through donations and 100 percent of the staff is volunteer, typically elderly woman. It was established by four women known as the “Founding Mothers.”
The main goal of the BDFP is providing hunger relief with dignity, according to Rachid Hatem, who is the co-chair of BDFP.
“It is important for us to provide hunger relief with dignity. That is our mission. We do whatever we can to help,” Hatem said.
The BDFP, supported by occasional community fundraisers, has many sources for help. Its main resource is Food Gatherers of Ann Arbor, followed by St. Clair’s church, Temple Beth Emeth, and Muslim Social Services, which was just added last year. In 2007 the BDFP won funding from the Food Bank Council of Michigan and the Beacon of Light Award.
The BDFP was getting bigger and bigger when Ellie and Margery began volunteering. Volunteers come from different organizations, or people may hear about BDFP from others and join the volunteer list. There about 50-60 volunteers working two shifts with the BDFP.
“On Mondays it usually supposed to be about four of us the first shift. Margery and I are on the committee so we know what’s going on,” said Ellie
“We may run into some homeless that come back to help as a volunteer,” said Hatem.
The BDFP is one of a dozen homeless organizations that do not ask those seeking help for proof of income for the need of food.
“We do ask certain questions for government purposes, but we do not ask for proof income,” said Margery.
The BDFP gives out about 100 or more bags out every Thursday evening. There are 250 people being served by the BDFP every week. Families of three to four people are given more than one bag.
“About 15 percent of the people that we serve are homeless,” said Hatem. “Every week it varies. During the year it is pretty steady. The colder months we may need more people to come by. We see a lot of people all together. We have never been closed. During holidays, the church holds special events.”
The BDFP is a little white house that sits in the middle of a church and a temple. There is a garden in the back that the BDFP uses to grow some of its produce. It is set up where people will enter through the back door of the house and exit out through the side door. It is a little compact room it has a smell of a bakery. Fresh food and some toiletries are also given to people.
Every Thursday, new people and regulars come and are always welcome with the same greeting. Many tell some amazing stories.
“There was a time I helped an elderly lady that used to work for social service,” said Hatem. “Her position was helping people in need, such as homeless people. She said to me that she would have never thought it would be her one day becoming homeless. She would have never seen herself going somewhere to get food she could not purchase on her own.”
Among the homeless served by BDFP is a man who identified himself as Clark.
“I was walking, about to cross the street and I sat down to take a break at the corner,” Clark said, “and saw people in line. Some people were walking away eating, so I walked a little closer and asked that lady talking to people in line a question and I just got in line.”
He left with food.
“Anybody who comes here will get served,” Hatem said.
The BDFP is located at 2309 Packard Rd in Ann Arbor. To learn more, or to donate, visit: www.backdoorfoodpantry.org
Many hurting people in the vicinity of Ypsilanti needing medical or dental care or short on food have found hope – literally – at Hope Clinic.
To provide all these services, however, Hope’s resources are stretched thin. They rely almost entirely on volunteers. This includes 90 volunteer clinicians and their supporting staff.
“When you work with volunteers, you work with a lot of variable schedules, the kind of variables that you wouldn’t really experience with paid staff,” said Katherine Simpson, Hope’s dynamic clinical coordinator.
Volunteers have a full life elsewhere. The time they can give to Hope is typically no more than one clinic session per week and often less.
Katherine Simpson has served as Clinic Coordinator at Hope Medical Clinic for eight years.
“And so it takes a lot of volunteers on schedules like that to staff our eight weekly 3-4 hour open clinic sessions,” Simpson said.
Hope could use many more volunteer medical professionals: general practice physicians, certain specialists, nurses, pharmacists, dentists and dental hygienists. They also require clerical workers for such duties as records retrieval, donation processing and front-desk support. Caring people with no professional training can serve as food pantry assistants and prayer ministers.
Hope Clinic’s newly renovated and expanded headquarters on 518 Harriet Street in Ypsilanti has given their mission a boost. Previously, they operated out of three different locations; now all services are provided in the same building.
On Sept. 22, Hope celebrated the opening of its new facility with an open house. Hope staff and volunteers proudly displayed their expanded clinical facilities, state-of-the-art dental equipment, a large food pantry, a laundry room, and a community meeting room.
While Hope is doing an admirable job serving its existing clients, but it has had a harder time making services available to new people. In the past, potential new patients queued up for hours outside Hope facilities hoping to be seen by a doctor or dentist. When the dental clinic had new patient days twice a year, crowds sometimes stood in line for 24 hours, even in winter.
This clearly unacceptable situation has been replaced by one in which prospective new patients are required to call in on designated days. Phone screeners determine if the service required is one Hope is equipped to provide. They also assess the urgency of the need. The number of new patients is limited; available slots fill quickly on a given day.
The work of the medical clinicians is often more diagnostic than therapeutic. While Hope can often offer free or low-cost medications, many needed medical procedures can only be provided through referral to outside agencies, typically within the St. Joseph Mercy Health system.
Hope gets additional help from the University of Michigan Health System and various specialists in the area who agree to offer free services to Hope patients. Each referral agency has its own eligibility requirements based on income, residency status, address and other factors.
For some patients, however, Hope struggles to find help. Simpson spoke with tears in her eyes about the gut-wrenching experience of having to tell a sick patient that appropriate care could not be found.
“A lot of what we do is what I call knitting together the safety net,” Simpson said. “I like to use the metaphor of a safety net, because by definition, a net has more hole than fabric, and it supports incredible loads, but there are definitely holes, and it needs to be constantly repaired and woven together. Sadly, we have our circle of resources and it has limits.”
Nevertheless, Hope Clinic has knitted a substantial care network since its start 29 years ago as a once-a-week walk-in health clinic. Now it hosts more than 7,000 patient visits per year in the medical clinic and more than 4,500 in the dental clinic. It has a substantial network of referral agencies that offer free care to Hope patients. In addition, it provides food to about 1,700 households.
Dr. Dan Heffernan, who founded the charity still works at the clinic two days a week and helps it run smoothly. He also serves as chairman of Hope’s Board of Directors. He can be justifiably proud of what has grown from his initial act of mercy.
Kirsten Wildt of Westland, a fourth-year student in dental hygiene at U-M, cleans the teeth of patient Colleen Warner at the Hope Dental Clinic in Ypsilanti.
Biting into need
Like the medical clinic, Hope Dental Clinic provides care to those who are uninsured and have limited income.
Patients who are in the system can obtain regular cleanings, check-ups and restorative care. Unfortunately, getting into the system can be a challenge. Hope’s resources are finite.
According to Alana Hedges, staff dental hygienist, about 200 new patients are accepted each year. These gain entrance on new patient days, which happen every 6-8 weeks. Patients must call in on these days, and the roster is usually filled within 25 minutes.
To highlight the needs in this area, Hedges indicated that some new patients have not been to a dentist in 20 years. And some never have.
The dental clinic has three paid part-time dental hygienists, two full-time staff dental assistants and two full-time staff dentists. These employees forgo more lucrative jobs in the private sector, but there is more to job satisfaction than money.
“I would rather work here than in private practice,” Hedges said. “It’s more rewarding.”
Still the dental clinic relies heavily on volunteers to maintain their 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday hours. One way that Hope is handling the workload is to use student dental hygienists from the University of Michigan Dental School. These students now volunteer at the clinic on Wednesdays and Thursdays including a 5-8 p.m. Wednesday evening clinic.
In January, the clinic will also begin using dentistry students from U-M on Mondays and Fridays.
In spite of all its efforts, Hope falls short of meeting the overwhelming needs of people seeking dental services. Other possible sources of affordable dental care are Community Dental Center (406 N. Ashley, Ann Arbor) and U-M Dental School.
Hope for the hungry
Volunteer Debbie Nikutta, of Novi, needed to hear an encouraging word. Her first client, Wanda, was impressed with the new food pantry protocol, allowing her to select her own food items. This “makes me feel like SOMEBODY again,” she exclaimed.
It was a “two-fer” – a win-win. Both the giver and receiver are rewarded as volunteers help needy clients obtain food and personal care items at Hope Clinic’s food pantry.
Like other services offered at Hope, visiting the food pantry requires an appointment. Clients are ushered in one at a time and a volunteer prayer minister offers to pray with them. Nearly all accept.
Those who are eligible then have the opportunity to select a half-dozen personal care items, such as a package of toilet tissue, shampoo or bath soap. Next, they are provided empty shopping bags and they peruse the pantry selecting food items with a volunteer.
Foods are arranged in categories, such as breakfast cereals, canned vegetables, beans, canned soups, muffin mixes and pasta. The clients are allowed to pick one or more item from each category. At the end they select frozen meats and all the fresh produce they can use. Fresh produce is the only category without limits.
They typically leave with about four bags of groceries. Those with bigger households are allowed a larger portion. This means extra meat and an extra full bag of assorted items.
The “shoppers” are most often women, ranging in age from 30s to late 70s. They are grateful for what they can get and are usually careful not to take more than their fair share.
Because they have choices, the shoppers can select foods that are favorites of family members, and they can avoid foods that cause allergies or drug interactions. Some reject green tomatoes, while others are excited to get them.
The staffer running this program is Melissa Burkhart. Her people skills and compassion are evident as she greets clients and volunteers with recognition, a bright smile and hugs.
Burkhart has a bachelor’s degree from Siena Heights University in Adrian and feels called to fulltime ministry. She has begun attending seminary at Ecumenical Theological Seminary in the heart of Detroit, not far from Comerica Park. She commutes there for evening classes.
The volunteers that assist clients have no special skills, but are people with empathy, people who can feel another’s pain – and joy. Volunteers and clients alike leave feeling that they have received something special.
And they do — on both sides.
Meet some heroes
A snapshot of some of the 350 volunteers at Hope Clinic
Dr. Michael O'Donnell, a cardiologist, found volunteering at Hope Medical Clinic a great way to give back.
Michael O’Donnell, M.D.
For Dr. Michael O’Donnell, offering his cardiology expertise for free at Hope Medical Clinic has been the realization of a long-held desire “to give something back for all the benefits that I received over the years being a paid physician…”
O’Donnell is a specialist in interventional cardiology. He eventually became the director of that discipline at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital in Ypsilanti, often working 10–12 hours a day. But then life intervened.
O’Donnell’s wife had her own successful business, and that business increasingly called her out of town. The O’Donnell’s three daughters would potentially be left to fend for themselves far too often. Three years ago, the parents decided that one of them would have to make a sacrifice for the family and Michael decided to resign from his position at the hospital.
O’Donnell’s resignation has allowed him to be home when the girls leave for school in the morning and when they return later in the day. In the interim, he is anything but idle. He has been teaching as an adjunct professor at the University of Michigan School of Biomedical Engineering, consulting for biomedical startup companies, and volunteering at Hope Clinic.
O’Donnell says that although his personal faith motivated him to serve the less fortunate, he did not need to volunteer through a faith-based clinic like Hope. In fact, he has long been impressed with the “Doctors Without Borders,” a secular organization that sends medical workers into under-served and often dangerous corners of the world. But that wasn’t an option.
“You can go to Doctors Without Borders and do many other things, but there are a lot of needy people that are just right here in the immediate area, so I can still accomplish my goals of being at home and taking care of family needs, but also doing that giving back,” O’Donnell said.
Hope Clinic’s work is primarily diagnostic, but O’Donnell’s connections with Michigan Heart at St. Joseph Mercy make it easy for him to send patients there for treatment and then do the follow-up back at Hope. St. Joseph Mercy has a program to provide free medical treatment to needy people within its geographical area.
Meantime, O’Donnell is enjoying the time with his daughters and the opportunity to serve the community. In the future, he said, he may return to his medical practice or continue in his roles as teacher, consultant and volunteer.
Volunteer clinician Beth Nagle, N.P., 43, of Novi, makes notes on a patient's files at Hope Medical Clinic.
Beth Nagle, N.P.
Diligently, she shuffled through medical texts in the small Hope Clinic library and finally she found what she needed: a picture of healthy spinal anatomy to show to a patient with scoliosis.
Beth Nagle, 43, from Novi, is a nurse practitioner, a registered nurse with higher-level education certifying her to fulfill expanded roles in medical care. NPs do many of the same things as doctors. She has been volunteering at Hope Clinic for about two months.
Nagle recently had a medical condition that required her to quit work for an extended period of time. Nurse practitioners are required to log 1,000 clinical hours every five years to maintain their certification, so she needed to catch up on her hours.
Nagle pointed out that many of the volunteer clinicians at Hope are fulfilling their own needs while serving underprivileged patients.
“It’s mutually beneficial for physicians and patients,” she said.
Volunteer physicians Rachel Saab, 43, of Ann Arbor (top) and Charitha Gowda, age, town, prepare to meet patients in the Clinitian's office at Hope Medical Clinic.
Rachel Sabb, M.D.
Dr. Rachel Sabb, 43, of Ann Arbor has been volunteering at Hope for almost a year. She comes in every Wednesday.
Her husband works long hours, so when her three children were young she became a stay-at-home mom. Now that her children are in elementary school she is free to work during school hours.
This is helping her maintain her medical skills.
Kevin Ryan
He sits at the clinic window greeting incoming patients, answering their questions and helping them to fill out paperwork. Kevin Ryan, 36, of Ypsilanti/Pittsfield Township is a volunteer receptionist at Hope Clinic.
Ryan, a former sports reporter for Ann Arbor News with a degree in journalism, is redefining himself. He is pursuing a career as a physician’s assistant. To prepare, he works at Hope Clinic every Wednesday morning. He hopes that his volunteer work will bolster his resume when he applies to schools in his chosen field.
Kevin Ryan, 36, of Ypsilanti, a volunteer receptionist at Hope Medical Clinic, updates a patient's records.
Ryan says that Wayne State and University of Detroit Mercy include helping the underprivileged as part of their mission statement; so they should be impressed with his work at Hope.
But for Ryan, working at Hope is about far more than gaining admission to school. He and his wife first discovered the joys of volunteering years earlier when they participated in a church program called the PB&J Ministry.
The program, sponsored by Our Lady of Good Counsel in Plymouth, entailed going into Detroit and distributing sandwiches, soup and hot chocolate to street people. The needs of the Ryan’s growing family forced them to quit, but it had been so rewarding they wanted to participate in community service again.
Ryan is happy to have the opportunity to serve at Hope.
“Even when I am done with school, I want to keep volunteering,’ he said, “either here or a place like here.”
Charitha Gowda, MD
The printer had a paper jam and the “low ink” light was on. Doctors are trained to fix people not printing machines.While some of the older clinicians seemed stymied, Charitha Gowda examined the patient, removed its ink cartridge and found the errant paper.
Charitha Gowda is a freshly minted medical doctor from University of Michigan Medical School. She recently completed a residency in internal medicine and decided a job at Hope would help maintain her clinical skills before going to Philadelphia next June to begin a fellowship in infectious diseases.
Besides volunteering weekly at Hope, she is also involved in a research project to increase acceptance of HPV vaccine in adolescent girls. She says that many parents just need more information and overworked doctors do not have time to provide that. Her group is working on alternative ways to inform.
For more information about Hope, or to volunteer, contact Connie Hallom at challom@thehopeclinic.org, or phone (734) 961-0548.
Danielle Mack cannot remember a time when she was fully accepted by her parents.
Originally from Seattle, Mack moved to Michigan when she was just 6 – only then she had a boy’s name. She doen’t say what it was, only that it never seemed to fit her. Today, she is known as a transgendered individual, which she believes has played a significant role in her homelessness.
It wasn’t always so. Mack, 31, of Ypsilanti, an elementary education major at Washtenaw Community College, remembers growing up, the son of a stay-at-home mother and a brother to three siblings. But it was never a walk over the rainbow.
Danielle Mack
Holidays such as Christmas were never quite as they should be as she tried to lead a live she didn’t want.
“As I grew older and was forced to succumb to the life and gifts of a teenage boy and later that of a young man, Christmas slowly began to lose its luster, and become more and more just another day,” Mack said in story in the December 2010 issue of Ground Cover, an Ann Arbor magazine by and for the homeless.
Kicked out
When Mack came out to her parents, she was hardly embraced for her choice, or even accepted. They did not take the news gracefully.
“It was difficult. I miss them,” she said in an interview, “But I’ve done everything I can do to make them happy and realized my happiness was more important. But I miss them, a lot.”
Since then, her life has hardly been stable. Until a few years ago, she was living on the streets of Rochester Hills, then Ann Arbor.
In 2004, Mack decided to become a pastor, attending a school in Florida to do so. Haunted by her double life, though, she quit the program just a few months before graduation and returned to Michigan. Home to an unwelcoming situation.
And she came home to an unwelcoming situation.
“When I went to Florida to study, I decided that I was going to out there and try my hardest to do everything I could to please my parents and their wishes. But it didn’t work for me,” she said. “At that point, it was frightening, but it was my goal to make it and be who I wanted to be.”
Mack’s parents never had issues of her staying with them when she fell on hard times, but they told her that if she stayed there, it would be as their eldest son.
One evening while staying with her parents, Mack came home from a transgender support group dressed as a woman.
“My parents wouldn’t let me finish a sentence when I tried coming out to them,” she said. “For them, this all seemed so wrong because I was raised in a Christian home.”
Upset by the news of their son wanting to make the transition to a woman, Mack’s parents kicked her out of their home. With no place to go, she was forced to live on the streets of Rochester Hills in a tent.
Mack decided to come to Ann Arbor at that point, because she read of the policies at the Delonis Center and how they interact with the transgendered population.
From there, she found a niche at Camp Take Notice, the homeless community, when it was located behind Arborland Mall.
“I met Caleb (Poirier) who was leader of CTN, and he knew of my situation. Everything was put together and ran smoothly and I was apart of the move when we went to Ann Arbor-Saline Road,” she said.
For two years, she would live at Camp Take Notice, try to find work and immerse herself in the community of CTN.
She eventually found work with Ground Cover, a street newspaper dedicated to helping the homeless and low-income population in Ann Arbor, as a vendor and contributor.
“Ground Cover not only helped me pay for essentials such as toiletries and food but it also helped me get back to school and go for something I passionately wanted to do – education,” she said.
In a column that would run for four months, Mack started her work in education by teaching readers about the transgendered community. She would take her own negative experiences and put them into heartfelt words for readers to understand and gave tips to families that may be experiencing disposition when it came to a transgendered family member.
“Family is something that very few transgendered people have. Those that do have the support of family are lucky, especially around this time of year (Christmas time),” she said in the December 2010 issue.
Mack not only spoke of family in her columns, but covered several spectrums of the transgender community such as transvestites, transsexuals, tomboys and cross-dressers.
And while education is her long-term goal right now, Mack notes that she doesn’t advertise.
“I’m open about it and willing to answer questions but I don’t advertise my situation,” she said. “I want to be perceived as a female, but I want to help people understand if they’re willing to listen.”
The transition
As a child, Mack continuously was caught dressing in her mother’s clothes or make-up. At family reunions, she always got along with her female cousins more than her male cousins.
“While I was working as a truck driver and trying to find my niche in life, my parents caught me numerous times trying on my mother’s clothes, getting into her make-up and doing all sorts of other feminine things,” she said.
Four years ago on Thanksgiving, Mack finally made the commitment to start her transition by taking Estradiol, a hormone that aids in the transition to a woman with large doses of estrogen. For Mack, this presented a lot of welcomed emotions and a lot of confusing emotions.
“It (Estradiol) made my emotions flow better,” she said. “I always had male hormones trying to stop tears that my mind was producing.”
Growth of breasts, softening of skin, thinning of facial hair and thickening of scalp hair also started to take place to shape Mack into the physical woman she would eventually become.
To date, Mack has had 46 hours of electrolysis to her face and chest. She also filed for a legal name change with the State of Michigan Probate Court of Washtenaw County in April of 2009 and was approved for her name to be changed to Danielle Natalie Mack.
“For me, my name was just shifting it around so my parents felt they still had a little piece of me,” she said. “It felt uplifting at the time.”
A new life
While Mack has faced tough hardships thus far, getting back to school is a huge step in the right direction for her. When she’s done at WCC, she plans to transfer to Eastern Michigan University to pursue secondary education.
“For the first time in my life, I’m doing something that I want to do and not being directed by my parents,” she said. “It’s empowering.”
For now, she doesn’t have the relationship with her parents that she needs, but finds guidance in others who have gone through the same things.
In an issue of Ground Cover published in Feb. 2011, Mack is quoted as:
“Imagine if you had no mother to tell you about things that every girl learns from her mom, about boys and changes in your body during puberty – transgender women experience a second puberty as their body changes,” Mack said in the February 2011 issue of Ground Cover. “These women have to learn all this on their own though trial and error. Unfortunately, with society as it is today, a lot of us grow up without mothers, or fathers. I encourage all my readers to find it in their hearts to open themselves up to a person who is transsexual. Even if it is just to show some much needed love.”
Her cousin, Heather Salazar, 26, of East Lansing, has seen several differences in Mack’s new personality and thinks she’s much happier now.
“It seems like she has a big community of friends. She seems to be more willing to go out and meet new people and enter new relationships,” Salazar said. “She seems more passionate and willing to do things she didn’t typically do as a male.”
Mack credits her ability to keep her sanity by knowing that she is making progress during a lonely, stressful time.
“When I left, I had nothing,” she said. “Now I have everything, a roof, education, self-understanding.”
The only thing missing: her parent’s acceptance. One day, she hopes that dream may come true.
Home, car, and everything inside them: memories. Memories to daydream about while walking perpetually in the direction that offers the most hope. This is what is called “homeless.” The walking is perpetual for some, but the hope is not. And the direction, does it lead towards salvation?
For some of those who reach the Staples Family Center, yes. The goal there is to end the cycling of people from streets to shelter and back.
The Family Center is a shelter in Ann Arbor and one of a number of services operated by The Salvation Army of Washtenaw County (TSA-WC). Other services provided by the Ann Arbor Corps of TSA-WC include a food pantry, utility assistance, eviction prevention and youth programs.
The Ypsilanti Corps includes those services in addition to a soup kitchen that serves three days a week. While other services and shelters in the area aim to ease the condition of homelessness, the Family Center aims to transform it entirely.
At first it may not seem like residents would aim to leave – with four living rooms, eight bathrooms and three meals a day the place seems almost luxurious at first. Under the surface, there is more at work here; the sofas, televisions, food and daily cooking are donations, and residents are responsible for maintaining the clean living quarters.
Still, it’s comfortable enough to consider staying homeless here. But that’s not an option for two reasons. First, residents can only stay up to three 30 day segments at a time for a total of 90 days. Second: getting too comfortable conflicts with the shelter’s purpose of motivation and progress.
Some level of comfort is a necessity, though. They provide the “bed and bread” plus clothing and clothing discounts at the Salvation Army thrift store, personal hygiene effects, and other services such as getting kids to school (through the Education Project), said Director Christina Levleit.
This place is about necessity, to provide basic needs to a person is to elevate them from the struggle of surviving to the opportunity of progress. The progress made depends on the person, but the goal is to do what is necessary for them to move directly into permanent housing: increase income enough for them to afford permanent housing, find that housing and move them in.
The thought of permanent housing is not the only motivating factor. The Center requests that “actions between staff and other residents contribute to a positive environment,” Jessica, a secretary at the Center, said. According to her, the staff works with residents’ schedules and assigns them a case manager upon their arrival. Case managers help each resident based on their individual needs, with things like: jobs, housing, legal issues, and other loose ends.
Motivation can also come from feeling empowered. With assigned chores, every member of the Center has a hand in helping others. The ability to help others can increase the sense of empowerment, and if nonresidents wish to help they can do so by donating supplies, time or money. The supplies constantly needed are diapers, sheets and towels.
Volunteered time is spent depending on the individuals’ abilities and can range from planning special events to tidying up the shelter. But “money is always the biggest need,” said Levleit. In this case “funding to shelters is being cut back at the same time as funding to services is,” she said.
Funding and for the Staples Family Center goes through the Salvation Army Ann Arbor Corps, but donations can be designated for the Family Center. There are other volunteer positions across TSA-WC listed online with the application form, which is also available from the respective Corps.
The Staples Family Center, 3660 Packard Road, can be reached by calling (734) 761-7750. The Ann Arbor Corps, 100 Arbana Drive: (734) 668-8353. And the Ypsilanti Corps, 9 South Park Street: phone number (734) 482-4700.
Foodgathers doing a pick up at Krogers on Carpenter Oct 18, 2011
Every box you open, a new surprise awaits you. It could be the sweet aroma of strawberries or the strong smell of a pepper. Searching each fruit, vegetable or frozen food for soft spots, mold or slime is the key to knowing which go into the trash, and which go into the box to be shipped out to people who desperately need it.
Any doubts, throw it out.
“I’d rather have something you’re not sure about be thrown away than to ship out any bad produce,” said Brian Weemhoff, 26, volunteer coordinator for Food Gatherers, the nerve center of the food chain for Washtenaw County’s hungry.
All the preparation to handle the foods feels like any restaurant, complete with set of gloves and sanitizer for cleanup. It can really take you back to the days of working your first fast food job. You can even listen to a little country music as you sort the items.
Food Gatherers has many other opportunities besides sorting produce, including picking up and delivering food and working as a kitchen volunteer at the Robert J. Delonis Center.
“We partner with 150 non-profit programs in Washtenaw County and a lot of those programs assist people with shelter, like the Delonis Center,” Said Mary Schlitt, director of Development at Food Gatherers. “Community Kitchen has served over 100,000 meals to people in need, and a large population that access the Community Kitchen are homeless.”
The charity was founded in 1988 by Zingerman’s Delicatessen. It is the state’s first food-rescue program and the primary emergency food distributor in Washtenaw County.
In its most recent fiscal year, Food Gatherers delivered 5.25 million pounds of food, which equates four million meals to needy families, seniors and the homeless. With need growing, it is striving for a higher goal in this fiscal: 5.7 million pounds and 4.4 million meals.
“We serve about 48,000 individuals with emergency food resources. About 14,000 are kids and 6,500 are seniors,” Schlitt said.
There is certainly a moment of astonishment when you see how large their warehouse is and the amount of people that greet each other with a “hello” and a smile.
“I always tell people I work for the best place in the world,” Weemhoff says with a smile. It’s truly amazing to think That Food Gatherers started off working out of Zingerman’s Deli.
Two hours of volunteering seem to fly by as all the boxes from the unsorted pile have been moved to the sorted pile and your shift comes to an end. You clean your area from the somewhat messy job, and more volunteers take your place. About 5,000 people make up the volunteer force and they work for around 70 percent of the hours put in at Food Gatherers, but sadly that is not nearly enough.
“It’s a tough job, and we can’t do it alone,” Schlitt said. “We need people to donate food, to volunteer and contribute money to help us meet the need and demand, because the demand is high,” said Schlitt, who said there has been a “130 percent increase in the last four years of people seeking emergency food resources and it’s staying high, it’s not budging, it’s growing incrementally every year”
Food Gatherers demographic focuses on people who are of low income and can’t afford the prices of food.
“The majority of people that we serve are not homeless,” Schlitt said. “We serve families, mostly with children.”
The charity has also seen a rise in the number of seniors which has doubled in the last four years.
“There are families that are making money, paying their bills, paying their utilities, maybe paying medical bills – and at the end of the day, when they pay all these things, they don’t have money left over for food,” Schlitt said.
To increase the amount of fresh produce getting in the hands of the needy, Food Gatherers started the “Gathering Farm” to grow and harvest produce.
“It’s fresh. It’s local. We don’t have to pay a lot of money for it because we’re growing it on our own,” Schlitt said. “Through the gathering farm, we have distributed close to 60,000 pounds of produce over the last three years.”
Among the partners of Food Gatherers is Washtenaw Community College. Its Student and Women’s Resource Center has an emergency food pantry that gets much of its food from Food Gatherers.
“We’ve been a partner with them for about 8-10 years now,” said Elizabeth Orbits, manager of the Center. “We served about 86 families last year, the age range about 20 to 59.”
About 75 percent of the students who receive this help are working, but still need help, she said.
“We’re very fortunate here at the college to be able to take some of our funding and be able to purchase to keep it stocked,” Orbits said, “and of course the generosity of people in the college community has helped a great deal.”
The gratitude in services provided by Food Gatherers is heartwarming to those who work there.
“It will surprise you how many people write notes to us who say, ‘when I am in a position where I can help, I’m going to volunteer. I’m going to donate to Food Gatherers,’” Schlitt said. “We get a lot of people that feel uncomfortable receiving services from us. They want to give back, like down the road.
“They feel so grateful for this service, so they want to pass it on.”
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