BERKELEY — Endurance and honesty are key to success on the Dorothy Day Home, a Berkeley nonprofit that has been targeted on offering providers to town’s unsheltered inhabitants for the reason that Nineties.
Tons of of Berkeley’s roughly 844 unsheltered residents entry providers by means of the Dorothy Day Home every day – providers similar to heat meals, showers, clear garments, storage lockers, housing help, job coaching and a secure mattress to sleep.
Along with its principal shelter within the Veterans Memorial Constructing downtown, the nonprofit additionally runs Past the Horizon, a resort turned transitional shelter on San Pablo Avenue. The mannequin was born out of the COVID-19 pandemic as an answer to offering unsheltered residents non-congregate locations to stay.
“We had to find creative ways to make people safe,” mentioned Dorothy Day Home Govt Director Robbi Montoya. “Hotels and motels were struggling too. … This idea to master lease them to an organization and help solve multiple problems was just the logical way to go.”
Final month, the Dorothy Day Home was awarded a $5.3 million contract to run a shelter on the Howard Johnson Motel, funded partly by a state Encampment Decision Fund. These 27 items are anticipated to accommodate residents of an encampment on 2nd Avenue.
Only a block away from the principle shelter, 25 beds have been opened on Dec. 1 on the Berkeley Previous Metropolis Corridor as a part of the Berkeley Emergency Providers Shelter, a seasonal program to get individuals off the streets and out of the chilly.
The Dorothy Day Home has operated the emergency winter shelter out of assorted areas since 2003, and out of Previous Metropolis Corridor since 2019. The shelter solely takes up a wing of the primary ground however the nonprofit may doubtless fill all the constructing, mentioned Daniel Garcia, a program coordinator overseeing the emergency shelter.
“These shelters save people’s lives,” Garcia mentioned, noting temperatures typically drop to close freezing through the area’s coldest months.
The location is each a “blessing and a curse,” Montoya mentioned. Oftentimes, shoppers who discover refuge within the emergency shelter are these most immune to going indoors completely, she mentioned. Recognizing that actuality, Montoya mentioned workers work to handle pressing wants and produce individuals nearer to a want for change.
“The good news is after people feel we’re sincere, most who go into the winter shelter don’t want to go back to the street,” Montoya mentioned. “We show them what we’re about, a glimpse of what we promise.”
Seeing success
It’s the Dorothy Day ethos of offering judgement-free, compassionate care that’s led to the group’s success, Montoya mentioned.
Reasonably than push options onto individuals, Montoya mentioned she and her workers take a sluggish and regular strategy. They supply their shoppers with the providers they ask for, enable them to expertise these advantages and present them what else is feasible. If visitors want to settle for extra assist, workers are prepared to help.
It’s not about reinventing the wheel, Montoya mentioned. As an alternative, she mentioned she attracts from many years of expertise working in social providers and witnessing firsthand what works.
“We don’t have to create everything and that really is a lesson for us in social services. There are things that worked in the 1990s that are very applicable to now,” Montoya mentioned.
Understanding a group
Gaining belief requires being trustworthy and never overpromising, Montoya and Dorothy Day Finance Supervisor John Gaona mentioned. If going into shelter means somebody’s further belongings are more likely to be thrown out, workers tells them that. When hygiene practices begin to slip, they don’t shrink back from a mild nudge.
Most significantly, when talks about discovering everlasting housing come up, workers set real looking timelines, they mentioned.
“It’s hard to say yes when you’ve been told no over and over,” Gaona mentioned. “People know when they’re being bulls—d.”
Unsheltered persons are people with distinctive tales however in addition they make up a group with shared experiences, Gaona mentioned. Leaving that recognized help system for a brand new setting is difficult, particularly when guidelines and social biases make it tough to mix and even straddle the 2 worlds, he mentioned.
Gaona is aware of that on a private degree. The Modesto native briefly lived in Folks’s Park, a former activist hub now being developed into college housing, in his early 50s after shedding his job in promoting in 2016. Volunteering had at all times been part of his life, so he typically lent a hand whereas ready to take a bathe.
His volunteer efforts ultimately led to a job supply. Gaona was resistant at first to a part-time gig to assist arrange, monitor and break down short-term shelters, however he accepted after persistent requests. Years later, Gaona now oversees the nonprofit’s funds and human assets.
Gaona’s story is consultant of numerous unsheltered individuals who stay their day-to-day lives undetected, Montoya mentioned. He’s additionally integral to a corporation that always hires from inside and gives on-the-job coaching, together with at Dorothy’s Closet, a thrift retailer opened downtown in August.
Mark Dutillieul, 56, additionally discovered a house and work at Dorothy Day. The previous building employee turned supply driver had by no means skilled homelessness till a few 12 months in the past.
“It was kind of a shock, but then again it wasn’t,” mentioned Dutillieul, who was born and raised in Fremont.
Dutillieul had labored in building for a few decade. The work was onerous on his physique, he mentioned, so he ultimately turned to delivering meals as a strategy to make ends meet. When automobile troubles left Dutillieul with no job and unable to pay the lease on his Fremont residence, he turned to the web the place he discovered about Dorothy Day’s providers.
He now works half time for the nonprofit and lives on the principal shelter the place he mentioned he’s made pals and has grown extra understanding.
“I’m grateful for it,” Dutillieul mentioned. “It feels good to give back.”
Filling gaps within the system
Regardless of all that the Dorothy Day Home already does, Montoya remains to be searching for extra programming. Her dream, she mentioned, is to seek out one other warehouse just like the one which housed the Horizon Transitional Shelter, an open house that allowed unsheltered residents to stay freely in tents.
“We need more of the warehouse model. I’ll fight for that until I have no fight in me,” Montoya mentioned, noting the strategy was profitable at connecting individuals to providers earlier than being closed to make manner for a growth undertaking.
The final word objective is to get individuals indoors and ultimately into everlasting and secure housing, Montoya mentioned. That course of sometimes takes a few 12 months and a half, and happens on a a lot tighter timeline on the emergency shelter, provided that the shelter is barely open for about 5 months.
No matter how somebody finds their manner into everlasting housing, Montoya mentioned shoppers from all native companies are handled the identical – left to fend for themselves with little to no aftercare.
Stopping recidivism is the following huge battle, Montoya mentioned. She’s at present engaged on a proposal that, if backed by Berkeley officers, would allow the nonprofit to offer providers and check-ins through the first 12 months of a consumer’s transition into everlasting housing with the objective of decreasing the quantity of people that fall again into homelessness.
