Journal #3 (10/27 - )
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Another departure this morning. It isn't getting any easier. Breakfast at Sharon's. Nasty hash browns. Then to the airport to send Bill on his way. 
We are down to three (Debbie, Diana, and Victoria.)
Bill added a lot to our group dynamic. He doesn't eat orange food, which we learned when he inadvertently ordered sweet potatoes instead of regular potatoes. He doesn't eat cheese either, which caused another restaurant incident described earlier. He was perversely interested in road kill, always wanting to get a closer look. Apparently it is a thing between him and his kids, and he talked about doing a photo show just of road kill. He brought a really good camera with him and took the best pictures. We are all planning to share our photos on cd when we all get home.
It was pretty quiet at work today until the very end. At 10:48 the police came looking for the shelter manager. Jamie was on a break (without his radio, grrr) so I went over to the police station (across the parking lot) to talk with the watch supervisor. Two residents, who have formed a relationship while at the shelter, were discovered in a bathroom engaged in activities that couple engage in and were also doing drugs. This is a violation of shelter policy and they had to leave the shelter. Fortunately, the police gave them time to call someone for a ride. There are always rumors of drug activity at the shelter and someone is bound to get caught. If they had just waited twelve minutes the whole problem could have belonged to the graveyard shift.
Jamie worked with the police to get them moved out and their ride arrived before we left for the night. Just as we were getting in our car, security brought another resident out in handcuffs. Apparently he had been drinking and was causing a disturbance inside so he was removed by security. He had to be moved out also, but that task fell on the next shift and we headed home.
Other than that, my task for the evening was to write numbers on the floor. When the residents were moved over from River Center, cots were set up with numbers attached to the cot frame. Originally, those numbers corresponded to imaginary spaces on the floor. Each person is assigned a cot number so we can keep track of them, and staff can find them when they receive a phone call or need medication or other help from health services. Since I have been here, everyone has been having trouble with the cot numbers. They can't be seen easily and cots get moved around. It is particularly difficult for the graveyard shift as it is there resposibility to do a bed check and head count each night. Residents who are absent for two nights in a row are not allowed to continue to stay in the shelter; if they have a place to live they do not need to live here. However, if bed numbers are obscured it is hard to tell who is here and who is not as you do not know who the empty cot belongs to.
Keeping track of people is more important now as we are trying to get residents placed before the shelter closes and need to work with them and with FEMA to get that accomplished. The cot areas and aisles are delineated with black and yellow striped tape on the floor, so I volunteered to walk the rows, locate the cot numbers and match them up with sequential space numbers I was writing on the tape on the floor, and with the names of the people occupying the cots. I got up to cot 100 before the lights were turned off at 9:00 p.m. I was able to track down many people but there are still some mystery cots, and mystery people who show up on the list but do not have cot numbers. A challenge to look forward to tomorrow.
It has turned chilly in the evenings and I did not pack for cold weather. I have an REI jacket but have been looking for a lightweight long sleeved shirt. I tried to find something on our trip to Walmart today but had to leave before I found anything. Still can't stand the place.
The chilly weather has caused a problem for the residents as well as many only have shorts and t-shirts. Logistics has been tracking down warmer clothes from the distribution center (on the other side of the police station from the shelter). There is particular need to jackets and socks, although long pants are also a premium find.
We got up this morning and headed out to headquarters for Debbie's out-processing. I checked out a store at the Cortland mall but didn't find the long-sleeved shirt I am looking for. I was going to try the rest of the mall, but Debbie set a new out-processing record of 25 minutes so we headed back to Baker instead.
We had to stop at the Sonic drive-in as Debbie wanted to engage in some nostalgia, but it had no no-meat items on the menu for Diana so we left and instead went to a restaurant they knew of in Baker for lunch. (the Buffalo Cafe) There are not many food choices anywhere for healthy eaters. I must admit to giving in sometimes to the fried food, but will be glad to get home and resume a healthy diet and regular exercise.
Then back to Walmart, and I finally found a shirt that is easy to wash and will work well on the chilly evenings.
More numbers on the floor at work. Finally completed that task and we are closing in a few days. I should have done it sooner. I got to meet some more of the residents, thought, as I was crawling around on the floor looking for cot numbers and writing on the tape. Many people were very helpful, alerting me to people who had moved or were gone. I think we have a little better handle on the population now.
We lose a few residents each day to the trailers. There is a large trailer park a long walk from the shelter and just outside the city limits (no accident that). That is where most of the people are going. We drove by it today and it is really grim, although better than the shelter, I hope. Just rows and rows of trailers: no trees, no grass, no flowers. This is supposed to be transitional housing (FEMA says 18 months) to give people a place to live while they decide what to do next. Most of the residents do not have homes to return to in New Orleans. The houses in the ninth ward are starting to fall down as they dry out and I presume the whole neighborhood will have to be bulldozed.
There are jobs in New Orleans, but no housing. There is housing of a sort in Baker but no jobs. A new bus service is starting tomorrow to shuttle people from the trailer park to the Baton Rouge transit center; then another shuttle will take them to New Orleans. I think they are running seven busses a day. It is a long trip (two hours each way iin traffic) and I don't know how many people will take advantage of it.
The trailer park is presenting problems of its own. Many residents have guns and drugs and alcohol aggravate the situation. It is FEMA's problem, which does not inspire a great deal of confidence. Although it is supposed to be a temporary solution, one wonders whether we have just created an instant ghetto. We are hearing stories of people terrorized in their trailers as others try to break in. The police are trying to get a handle on it, but it is going to be a thorny problem for the community for some time.
We just hung out this morning at the staff shelter. We heard from the staff shelter manager that God's Restoration is closing, as is the other staff shelter serving the Baker facility. We are being moved to Our Lady of Mercy, a church in Baton Rouge. Apparently we were supposed to move today but since nobody knew we were moving we have been given one more night.
Debbie had to catch her plane today so we left early to eat and take her to the airport. To celebrate her departure we at at Sonic even though there wasn't anything on the menu for Diana. Then to the airport again. 
Debbie was our interloper from River Place. She had been there for a few days before they moved the residents to Baker so had a history with them. I think it helped the transition to find some familiar staff at the new place. After a few days, she got my job of door warden as I transferred over to admin, and she was a good person to fill that position. She knows a lot of the people and can keep up with what is going on. 
At work we were told that we are going to twelve hour shifts because we are short on staff and are closing the shelter. I am moving to days because I am working on the computer in admin. Continuing to check on cot assignments to make sure we know who is there. No one evicted tonight.
Just Victoria and Diana left from the original shifties. Pack up and move to Our Lady of Mercy staff shelter in Baton Rouge, down by headquarters; in a church, nice big building with three dorm rooms partitioned off, for women, men, and couples. 
Indoor bathroom but hazmat showers outside in the back. wish we could sneak back to God's Restoration for a shower. I may shower at Baker. There is a six stall portable unit for the residents and apparently a staff shower in the basement of the municipal building, haven't seen it yet. Diana went to eat with the rest of the swing shift group and I drove back to GR for a couple of blankets as they seemed in short supply at Our Lady of Mercy (OLOM), then off to work.
Got to work and found out we got a couple of new staff people and will be able to stay on three shifts. I may try to transfer to days anyway, though. I feel like I have been separated from the rest of the second shift group. After work this evening, Diana went with the other car and I drove back to OLOM by myself and went to bed.
The Baker shelter is closing in the next few days. The original date was 10/31 but we got a small extension to November 4. The city needs the facility and is pressuring us to get everyone placed. That would be great if FEMA would cooperate. Anyway, my departure date was November 3 (Thursday) but I have agreed to extend to Sunday, November 6, to help get the shelter closed up. I will go over to headquarters in the morning and get the paperwork done, then change my plane reservations. It is just a few more days and I will feel better staying until the end. Also, I will learn about the process of closing a shelter. I hope the residents find placements rather than transfers to yet another shelter.
Some equipment problems at work are making it more tedious to get things done. The printer attached to the admin laptop isn't working and we can't even hook up another printer because no one has to codes to log on as an administrator and install hardware. I can't even use my USB thumb drive to transfer data because it will not install it without administrator privileges. To print documents it is necessary to copy them to a cd and print from the other computer. Either that or email the document and open it on the other computer. Either way, it is a pain in the behind. HQ is closed on Sundays so there is no help to be had from there either.
There was a photographer from a London magazine inside the facility today taking pictures, with the consent of the manager. However, there was a communication problem with a few of the residents and some turmoil resulted. It settled down, as it always does. We also had a former resident coming back to raise a fuss in the afternoon. No one is allowed inside unless they are a resident and this caused another interaction between the former resident and the police. Fortunately it was outside and less disruptive as a result.
More residents are leaving to transitional housing. I think we dropped below 100 today.
Woke up this morning to bright lights and noise as yet another staff shelter doesn't seem to realize that not everyone is on the day shift. It seems such an obvious thing I can't figure out what the problem is with the process.
Jamie and Larry are taking a day off and I think there are seven of us left to transport in two cars to breakfast and work. I need to track them down and see what the plans are.
I am now at headquarters to extend my stay to November 6. Just had to fill out a form and get a new id card. Now I have to change my plane reservations but will do that at work this afternoon/evening. Maybe I can find a time when the lines are not so congested.
I think the residents have finally been told that the final closing date for the shelter is November 4 (Friday). Word had been alowed to spread about the 10/31 closing but no official announcement was made. Then when the date was finalized as 11/4 it was kept from the residents under the theory that they would try harder to find housing if the closure was imminent. I have some problems with keeping information from the residents and manipulating them in this way. I addition, when you rely on rumor to spread news, it does not reach everyone. There are still a number of residents who do not know the shelter is closing at all. Things would work better if there were daily announcements and a formal communication path. Oh well. I can't imagine why they didn't ask me exactly what they should do as I have all the answers.
OLOM. Our Lady of Mercy is a very nice facility with modern bathrooms (but not indoor showers) and a full kitchen. The day shift people also get pretty good food cooked on site. There is often none left for the swing shift workers, however, so pop tarts are still on the menu for breakfast. Regular dinners are also served but I have yet to experience such a thing. I am still eating at the Baker Shelter.
Chinese Food. Did I mention my search for Chinese food a couple of days ago. I was sick of the shelter food and decided to splurge and get some combination friend rice and sesame chicken. Ha! What a fool I am. There is a chinese/seafood restaurant a brief walk from the shelter so I popped over there and placed my order. I should have suspected something when I saw catfish on the menu. What chinese restaurant serves catfish? Anyway, no sesame chicken so I ordered shrimp fried rice and fried shrimp. It was awful. Everything was overcooked and very dry. Poo. I guess I will have to wait until I get home.
Work schedule. I have been lax in updating this journal because this week I have been working longer hours. With the shelter closing it seemed like a good idea to try to work as much as possible to help out. Besides I have nothing else to do and do not really have a social group at OLOM to hang around with. I seem to have scored a vehicle so am able to transport myself. Taneitra is also interested in going in early so the numbers for the other 2nd shift van are not a burden. We have been going in around 10 or 11 each day and then working the regular shift and getting home around 11:30. Not a big problem as there is time in the morning to shower and relax a little before heading in.
FEMA trailers. There is a lot of anxiety at the shelter among the residents as there has not yet been confirmation of who is getting a trailer. The shelter manager has been working with FEMA and has a list but doesn't want to share it until the housing issues for the non-qualifying residents are resolved. People are become more and more twitchy as the days pass. In addition, promises were made about when the list would be posted and then not kept. I understand what has happened but am still not sure this is the best way to handle the situation.
New Staff. Our new staff members, Mike and Nikkie, are working in the kitchen. (Another new staff person who came in a couple of days before Mike and Nikkie, Lee, is working in the kitchen or on the floor or wherever she feels like working at the moment. Lee is a older woman who has some physical limitations that maybe should have been considered before she was sent to a client shelter.) Anyway, Mike and Nikkie have added a welcome dynamic to the swing shift group. Mike is from Kentucky (I think) and Nikkie is from Minnesota. Their regional accents are distinctive, to say the least, and it is fun to listen to them talk. Nikkie sound like the characters in Fargo and Mike is clearly “country.” Mike is an outdoor guy, spending a lot of time hunting and fishing, but is also handy in the kitchen. He put together some dinner fixins for the times when we ran out of food (most of the time lately). They both brought with them the attitude that they would do whatever needed to be done and that has been a great help on the swing shift.
Working residents. I thought I had already written about the residents who have jobs in New Orleans, but can't find the entry now, so maybe I only thought about it. One of the things we do on the swing shift is update the bed list and then let the graveyard shift know what is new. They have to do the daily bed check and also awaken those who need to get going early in the morning. There are usually four or five wake-up calls. They let me know in the evening and then I pass that info on to the next shift. The earliest has been 1:30 a.m. He has to get up then so he can make it to work in NO at 4:00. Others get up at 3:00, 5:00 and 5:30 to get off to their jobs. I think of them whenever anyone says something critical about the residents not wanting to work or just feeding off the system. How many of us would be willing to do what some of these people are doing to keep a job that probably doesn't pay that well and involves hard work in terrible conditions: some are helping to clean up the city without any protective masks or other gear. This does not seem right, particularly when the jobs are sponsored by FEMA. They should be protecting people for the toxic gunk they are shoveling around.
Chocolate Cake. After the chinese food debacle the other night, I shifted my cravings to chocolate cake. On Wednesday evening I couldn't stand it any longer and made a run to my least favorite store (Walmart) and bought a chocolate cake. It was great. Just the thing to erase the memory of nasty fried rice. I shared it with staff and the security guards and then put out the rest for the residents. I couldn't afford to buy enough for everyone so just waited until most people were down for the night and they put out the remaining pieces for the night owls to discover.
Thursday. Things are getting pretty tense around here with the closing date tomorrow and the trailer list not yet posted. Residents don't know if they should be trying to find another shelter or trying ot get their stuff packed up for a trailer tomorrow. It is particularly difficult because I have seen the list but can't tell anyone. (I finally told one resident as I was confident he would not spread the word, and he did not, but was finally able to relax and plan for the next day.)
One of the younger residents (20) had a small birthday party this evening so we got cupcakes. This is great, chocolate cake one night and cupcakes the next.
The trailer list finally was posted this evening, although no announcement was made. People were just expected to notice it I guess. Christine had worked hard to get most of the people placed in trailers so the mood considerable improved when word spread about the list. Those who were not on the list, for the most part, already knew that they were not eligible, and those who did received trailers were very happy. It was great to have good news to pass around.
We are all going in early tomorrow (Friday) to help facilitate the move to trailers and close the shelter.
