Summing up: Cincinnati Break Away

   

Today we volunteered at Stand Down. This event was started a number of years ago and was originally intended as a day of "one-stop shopping" for homeless veterans, where they could access lots of different services: social security, medical exams, eye care, and assistance in finding housing. Here in Cincinnati the event is open to all folks experiencing homelessness. It was our job to hand out breakfast (bagels, coffee and donuts) and lunch (fried chicken, "Lee's Famous Recipe"). We saw a lot of people come through, including some folks we'd seen at other agencies throughout the week.

We also saw lots of homeless veterans, including a young woman (I think I heard someone say she was a marine) who looked like she was just back from duty and was probably younger than I am. While we didn't spend much time working with homeless veterans specifically this week, it's an issue I care a lot about-- I think as citizens we need to take a lot better care of our vets.

Growing up thinking about my country, our country 'tis of thee, I always thought we were "the good guys." but now, after reading articles about how vets can't afford college on the GI bill, the poor conditions at Walter Reed and overall inadequate access to healthcare and mental health treatment, and seeing those vets today, I'm not so sure we are "the good guys." It just breaks my heart. It seems unconscionable, to be absolutely unjust and against everything I thought my country stood for, to see veterans who cannot access the education that was promised to them, who cannot find affordable housing, who do not receive adequate care-- for conditions, I might add, that are often a result of their service-- and who cannot feed themselves. Regardless of how we feel about the war, I hope we can agree that we need to take better care of our veterans, to support those who sacrifice so much for our nation. (personally, I've been against the war from the start, but I have the utmost respect for our servicemen and servicewomen) Caring for individuals experiencing homelessness, especially veterans, is a moral imperative, and I know the country I grew up believing in can do better--and we must do better.

Anyway, we'll post more photos when we're back on campus. These two are signs on the Freedom Center, the Underground Railroad museum. Unfortunately it was closed when we were walking around, but we really liked these billboards; they sum up our trip and get to the "bottom line."

Pansies in fountain square

Bill was right, there ARE a lot of pansies in Fountain Square!

Cincinnati update, Volume V

Yesterday, we spent the morning at Walnut Hills Soup Kitchen, where we made breakfast for lunch: lots and lots of scrambled eggs (150 eggs!), cheese omelets (another 100 or so?), cheese grits (12 pounds of dry grits!!), biscuits (about 100), banana chocolate chip muffin bars (from 24 boxes of muffin mix), barbecue pork patties (maybe 150 or so?), and orange juice! (maybe 11 gallons of juice?) after serving breakfast, we headed to get a tour of Bethany House, a shelter for women and children.
In the evening, we watched a film in which the filmmaker attempted to survive for 30 days on minimum wage, then had a discussion about the film and how it compared to our service experiences.
Today, we made lunch at Over-The-Rhine Soup Kitchen, which is part of the same organization as Walnut Hills (where we are going again tomorrow). We had a lot of fun making fried potatoes, mixed vegetables, pigs in a blanket, and lots of brownies. One of my favorite parts of cooking this morning-which the rest of the group can attest to and goodness I hope there's no video of this-was dancing around the kitchen a bit while we were cooking. Some great music in the kitchen- Al Green, Earth, Wind, and Fire, Marvin Gaye and maybe even a little Barry White! I always listen to music when I cook, so it felt a little like home (but the soup kitchen had bigger pots and pans, and was probably cleaner, too.)
After lunch, we got a tour of the Drop Inn Center, a shelter. The Drop Inn Center is a safe place to go for anyone. Tommy, our guide, told us that the best, most important, part of the shelter is the front door. At many other agencies, to receive services you have to fit certain criteria-have some employment or be moving toward employment, show a government-issued ID, etc. The Drop Inn Center will take you if you have nowhere else to go. It is nice to know that such places exist, that there is always that "last resort."

After dinner, we went to volunteer at the arts program I mentioned in my last post. It reminded me of kids I've worked with in my previous alternative break experiences (be they in Connecticut, in a small Native American community in Canada, or in an elementary school in West Philadelphia) and in my previous work experiences in the North End of Burlington; kids are kids everywhere, no matter what their lives are like, and there is something about hanging out with children that brings a smile and a little more joy to everyone.

As we continue our experiences in all these great organizations, I'm struck by how well-oiled this safety net is (if you'll allow me to mix metaphors), how well folks are being served [provided they want those services of course]. I know that there are some needs that are not being met, but overall I am really impressed: how wonderful that these organizations exist and work so well, and how terrible--how sad for all of us-- that they must.

Community arts!

We're volunteering right now at a community arts class co-sponsored by the Hip-Hop Congress & Over-The-Rhine Community Housing. After making paper mache covered balloons (and of course all of us getting covered in flour and water) we're playing with the neighborhood kids here for the class. Two pictures for your viewing enjoyment: piggyback rides and racing across the parking lot. More to come later!

Cinci update!

Today we worked from 9 to about 1 PM at Our Daily Bread, a soup kitchen. Every day, they serve around 400 meals! We helped set up, serve and clean up. There were so many people coming through the line that it was hard to keep up! After lunch we headed back to our apartment for a short break before moving on to service project 2 at Over-The-Rhine Community Housing. OTR Community Housing maintains & rents out over 200 affordable housing units, and relies heavily on volunteers to help prepare units for folks to move in. There is a lot of need for affordable housing (which means rent should be no more than 30% of your monthly income) in the area-and as we've learned, a lack of affordable housing is a major cause of homelessness. We cleaned an apartment someone had just moved out of, preparing it to be painted and have a few other small repairs done so someone else can move in.
After dinner, we went back to the offices of the Coalition for a presentation from their speakers bureau; we heard from two formerly homeless individuals. I was reminded of a quotation I came across the other day from Rebecca Falls: "one of the most valuable things we can do to heal one another is to listen to each other's stories." I know listening helped both sides tonight (they told me so), but the experience raised some troubling questions. (don't you just love those? They're what inspire us to take our best actions and really think!)
Having done lots of service work and now coordinating service programs, I'm pretty familiar with the questions coming up again: what is the nature of helping? How does my racial and ethnic heritage, and my relative privilege, affect that relationship between me and the person I'm trying to help? Can outsiders really help a community or does change have to come from within? Who really knows what decisions and choices regarding development will truly serve a community's needs? What is true poverty, and what is true wealth? What does my service really MEAN in light of the answers I just gave?

These are big questions, and they're still troubling to me as I start to answer them. I don't know that we'll have all the answers by the end of this trip, but hopefully we'll be a little closer.

As far as some stats and following up on my last post: Over-The-Rhine is a neighborhood of .64 square miles. At one time, 45,000 people lived here. Now, only about 5,000 do. There are 400 abandoned buildings in the neighborhood, and every night in Cincinnati over 1300 people experience homelessness. I'm glad to be sleeping in a nice warm bed tonight.

Tomorrow, we are off to work at another soup kitchen, then get a tour of another shelter. Until then!

Walking to our service site

This morning as we were walking to our first service site, a man called out to us from the other side of the street: "how do you like Over-The-Rhine?"
Hesitantly, we replied that we liked it.
He called back, "well, I don't, because all the buildings are abandoned and I'm homeless."

Cincinnati Break Away Trip: checking in

Well, after a very early morning gathering at the airport (4:30 AM if you're curious) and a flight, we are safely here in Cincinnati.
We came in to town after picking up our shiny new rental car (2800 miles on it, newest I've ever driven). It's been pretty easy to find our way around the city so far - so nice when they're laid out in a grid! We met Andy, our host site contact, at our lovely apartment for the week this morning.
We settled in a little, then went in search of breakfast. Being a Sunday morning we didn't find too much open other than BBQ, so we headed to a dunkin' donuts before going to the Cincinnati zoo. It was a lot of fun and a good way to ease our way into Break Away this week.
We're relaxing a bit before our orientation with Andy at our host site, the Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless. We'll be sure to post more later!
A special thanks to Colin, who brought some group members to the airport this morning!