The Paul Lee Loft Shelter is a unique program of the Homeless Services Center. Serving as a 30 day emergency shelter the “Loft” is a safe, warm place where those in immediate need of shelter can find services and solace.
One of the participants staying in the Loft wrote this creative piece and it beautifully offers insight into the experiences of those seeking a home.
Loft Life
6am comes early and 5pm comes slowly. As a resident of the Loft I am just a potato in a kettle of personality stew. We sometimes boil and sometimes simmer, yet the worst is when we burn on the bottom.
The life here can be as simple as you make it. Yet we tend to excuse our way out of everything, except for our comfort foods, television, showers, laundry, coffee. Gratitude is not a condiment.
It’s winter now, and being housed is the crème brulee of comfort. Sheets and blankets, BBQ tri-tips. Showers with free soap and shampoo, mashed spuds and gravy.
The people who protect us are the vegetable dish. Some of us may love vegetables and many leave them on their plate or feed them to the dogs.
The safety provided us has no food equivalent. No price. It’s invaluable and priceless. As is the whole thirty-one day stay here without this shelter, we are fish swimming against the tide. Some may make it up the river, and some may beach and die.
–Anonymous Participant, 12/2011
