The Mayor of the Shelter
Dispatch from a shelter volunteer
I show up on Monday and all the normal faces are gone. Chris doesn't saunter in and say "Hey Hollywood! You got a movie for me?" Dennis doesn't stammer beautifully vulnerable details about his routine or crack strangely sophisticated inside jokes with John. There isn't that paranoid older woman who is taking history courses in Queens. The New York Department of Homeless Services (as part of their "restructuring plan") have closed down the drop-in center which, for the past year, has sent guests to our shelter. And so today, strangers walk in the door.
Except for Leslie. I know Leslie.
Like every city, every Shelter has a Mayor... someone who, by consensus or by force of personality, takes a position of authority and responsibility. People might be surprised by the fact that anyone in a shelter would have "power" or "initiative" or "responsibility", but I've found these "mayors" time and time again laying down the law and getting the job done.
So as soon as this new crop of guests settle in, Leslie, a limping Jamaican man with graying dreadlocks clears his throat. "Listen you need to go to the bathroom, you do it in the toilet, not in the hall. You keep the bathroom clean. We share the bathroom. You need to smoke you go outside." He hobbles over and produces an ashtray (from where I'm not sure). He holds it up like a trophy, gravely displaying it. Everyone watches.
People I've known in the shelter have woken each other up in the morning. They've made sure the sign-in sheet is complete. They've diffused fights and consoled sick friends. They've reminded the volunteers it was laundry day. They've even found the peanut butter. Richard, the most legendary "shelter Mayor" somehow knew the security code to the building. One night when the alarm went off for no reason... Richard came to my aid and helped me turn off the blaring sirens. He just winked at me and then went back to bed.
We are trained to think of homeless people as desert islands, lost in the seas of city streets. But the truth is these folks have just figured out how to live on the same island together. Even amidst crisis, people maintain responsibility for their own community and that's evidence to me that within every homeless person grows something valuable, something worth working hard to preserve. Every time we let homelessness define a person, we lose another great candidate for mayor. So I say: LESLIE FOR MAYOR!
COMMENTS (3)