Shelter Beat #5

pstrongSo I left with no socks on…br / The day the “rules” stood stillbr / /strong/p pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TDIMG SRC= "../sites/default/files/arch_img/542/photo_1_supplement.jpg" //td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby Micheal Morgan/p pI spent the day of Friday, October 19, 2001 writing at POOR Magazine, along with staff writer Joseph Bolden, who can attest to the fact that while over there I was not doing any drugs, drinking, wielding knives or screaming (at least not while he was watching)./p pAfter returning to my shelter (Episcopal Sanctuary) from POOR Magazine—I had been up since 6am, the time the shelter staff wake us up for breakfast, and had worked at POOR all day long—I took a shower, ate dinner, and was lying on my bunk reading. At some point a monitor started yelling in the hall (they don't know how to talk in a regular voice) that there was an AA meeting upstairs. I yelled to them, "Is this a meeting for the hearing impaired?". /p pThen, with no warning, a small, very hyper, young woman burst into the men's area and said, "There's an AA meeting upstairs". She completely invaded our privacy and broke the rule that says that women have to announce themselves before entering the men's area. But, she was probably trying to set me up since I'd gone to the Human Rights Commission concerning the Sanctuary earlier that week. /p pI said: "You aren't supposed to come back here without making an announcement first. Besides that, we already heard the announcement."/p pShe said, "I did announce myself". All the men in the area responded that she had not made an announcement. Then she noticed a pair of scissors I had lying out which I use to trim my beard and said, "It's against the rules for you to have those and I'm going to write you up." /p pI said, “Go ahead, but get out of the men's area because you aren't supposed to be here unless you've announced yourself, which you did not, and now your business is over here.”/p pSo, an otherwise peaceful night had taken a bad turn due to an overzealous child who perhaps just wanted to have a glance at the men in states of undress. For, you see, even if she had made an announcement, she rushed into the room, without attempting to get a reply from the men that it was okay to come back there (which is the reason for making the announcement. Making the announcement and then just barging in would render the announcement meaningless)./p pIt was either a set-up or it was a violation of the Rules of Conduct in relation to women entering the men's area, or it was the result of an overzealous young staff member. The scissors had very little to do with anything. It is a rule that you are supposed to check in scissors but staff has seen me cutting my beard with them many times and the scissors would not have been lying out on my bed if I had intended them as a concealed weapon. The scissors were not a concealed weapon since they were: 1) not concealed, and 2) used for beard trimming (not stabbing people)/p pThen, I was told to go outside the shelter because violation of the rules regarding a weapon was grounds for expulsion for the night. So, I went outside. /p pWithin a few minutes the young woman came out there and said something to me. I said, "You didn't announce yourself on our floor"./p p/pPTo which she replied, "I did." I started to tell her something and she just walked off./p p So I said, “I'm not through talking to you,"./p pAt the same time she was saying, "Well I'm through talking to you". I guess contrary opinions are not worth their time./p pThis kind of walking away while a client is talking is rude but is part of their modus operandi of not having to listen to "us" because they are supposed to do all the talking. Later, I said to her, “You are not above the law."br / She replied, "I am the law.”/p pTo which I replied, "You aren't the law. You're just a worker here. You're a slave"./p pAfter stepping outside of door next to the front desk of the shelter you find yourself in a sort of waiting room where you can address the staff through a plate glass window, which is where I found myself standing, talking to the supervisor on duty, Mark Watkins. He asked, "What happened in there?" /p pI said, "This woman burst into the men's area unannounced, saw my scissors and wrote me up." /p pMark: "What did you say to her?"/p pMe: "You aren't supposed to be in the men's area without announcing yourself. Go ask the men, Mark, they'll tell you that she didn't announce herself.”/p pMark: "Okay, I'm going to ask them.”/p pWhen he came back he didn't mention the fact that the men backed me up, instead he said, "You threatened the woman."/p pMe: "How?"/p pMark: "You said to her, 'I'm not through with you’”./p pMe: "You can interpret that in any way you want, Mark, but the fact is that I said to her, "I'm not through talking to you," and it's obvious what that means. After this exchange, I went outside the building to wait for Mark to come out and talk to me. He came out holding my scissors, which he had defined as "a weapon", so he came out of the shelter with a weapon, holding it the way you would hold a knife if you were going to stab someone. /p pWhy did he bring the scissors out in front of the shelter where I was standing except to threaten me? He either wanted me to react, which he could have framed as an attack on him, or he just wanted me to know that he was being threatening and that they could be threatening in that place. In either case, it was totally wrong from him to bring the scissors out there. I have a witness who saw that he held the scissors in a threatening manner and stood over me with slit-eyes./p pAfter Mark talked about the "weapon" for a while he suddenly asked, “Do you feel alright, Mr. Morgan?" This was the same question they asked me through the plate glass window a week before. I had been asked to go outside because I was asking them to be quiet so the men could sleep. Again, I will get the men to testify to this because they were being kept awake though some of them had to work the next day, unlike the staff who sit up at the front desk and laugh and party all night. It takes no brains to do their job and they show it). /p pMark: "Do you feel alright, Mr. Morgan?"/p pI asked: "What are you talking about?"/p pHe asked: "Have you been drinking or doing drugs today?"/p pI asked: "why are you asking me that?" /p pMark: "Because someone said you were acting strange"./p pMe: "Who?"/p pMark: "Someone inside."/p pMe: "Who exactly? Name one person." I can name five people for every person you bring up who will testify that I am the same person tonight that I always am." And, I demand that you have a drug/alcohol test done because you are way out of line here. I have had nothing except penicillin for my tooth./p pMark: "I'll make that evaluation"./p pMe: "Your evaluation is worthless because you can't tell if I've had drugs by looking at me, obviously, because you are saying I am on drugs right now and I am not"./p pMark: "Your eyes look red." He was lying and I knew he was lying and he knew that I knew he was lying and he knew that I knew that he knew that I knew which means that he wanted me to know he was lying and that he was violating my rights. What he failed to comprehend was that it was wrong to do what he was doing and that I was able to go out and do something about the situation and was going out to do so. After getting thrown out, I went downtown and had several friends of mine look at my eyes and they said they were clear as the sky, which, of course, they had to be, given I had done nothing that day or the day before or the day before. However, my eyes could have been red due to lack of sleep because the staff was so loud at night./p pAt any rate, Mark eventually made the decision to let me back into the shelter. I went back inside and told him that I was going to take him to the Human Rights Commission and he said: "You have to get out". /p pI asked, "What did I do?" /p p He said, "You have to leave". Again I asked for what and again he said, "Get out.”/p pOutside at the window he said, "You're under the influence and have to leave for the night.”/p p I said, “If I am under the influence, drug test me. And, you are throwing me out because I made a statement to you so you are violating my right to free speech, not for the stated reason. I am offering to take a full blood test and you know and I know that it will come out negative"./p pSo, I left with no socks on, sandals, the wrong coat (a light coat), and went from the shelter at 8th and Howard to 7th Street where I ran into two guys I knew, one from Ireland, Joker, who had been in the shelter with me and another guy who was staying in the shelter and working with me in the kitchen. We had a good laugh about what had happened. One of them was a security guard and he went back to the shelter to get his uniform and came back to the bar reporting that they were saying that I was running around the shelter with a weapon./p pAfter staying in the shelter for over 90 days, doing volunteer work in the kitchen (the director said, "We couldn't run the shelter without you volunteers; you give more than we do"), landing a job, breaking no shelter rules, on the day I got my housing OK'd I was thrown out for something I did not do and had a night of wandering the street and spending my money sitting up drinking coffee at Carl’s Jr./p pI sleep downstairs in the men's section, which is next to the women's section and a woman was yelling at the staff: "You aren't probation officers and you aren't prison guards. You're just workers.” This was the morning following the night when I was asked to stand outside because I had gone to the front desk and asked them to hold the noise down so we could sleep. I was asked to go outside because "it looked like I was about to get loud" (what does that mean? Intent to get loud?). Now, this woman was yelling at staff and did not get thrown out, but I was suspected of being "about to be loud" while simply asking them to give us our right to sleep (they were partying and yelling at the front desk all night). This was the incident I took to the Human Rights Commission about a week before I was taken outside the Sanctuary and accused of things I did not do (can you say retaliation?)./p pThis morning, October 22, 2001, I told the director of the Sanctuary, Lynn Armstrong, that I was very unhappy about the situation in her shelter and she said she would meet with me about it. I told her I had been trying to get some kind of response from them for years and now I'm not going to talk to just her but to a lot of people. Then I left the place and went out front and gave a speech and told my friends to get ready to march on the place, hold a press conference, write letters, etc. /p pSure Lynn, I'll meet with you to discuss my issues, but I don't expect much from that. If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem. How will a person who is part of the problem do me any good except by agreeing to remove the blocks they are throwing up in front of me? If it is not in their interest, why would they help me, compromise with me, work with me? /p pMs. Armstrong, since you are the one who is supposed to oversee how your monitors, supervisors, and staff members treat clients, you are responsible for each and every injustice served out by the brutal and uncaring, manipulative people you allow to police the shelters (of course, this does not apply to all people employed by the Sanctuary, but it does apply to so many that the homeless have frequently asked me if a complete lack of sensitivity is a pre-requisite for obtaining the job of monitor, etc)./p pI was served with the following noticebr / Ibr /3 Notices of Shelter Rule Infractions:br / br /Name of client: Michael Morganbr / br /Date: 10/19/01br / br /Time: 8:45pm/i/p pExplanation of Notice #1: returning to shelter while under the influence of drugs or alcohol. (1B)/p pExplanation of Notice #2: Threats to cause emotional or financial harm to staff or clients (80)/p pExplanation of Notice #3: Possession of a second degree weapon in shelter (6B)br / /p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p