On Tuesday, June 22, 2007, I woke up early before 6:30 AM. It was a sunny windy day and sometimes the winds help stir life up bringing fresh breezes. I was excited about going out to Mather Community Campus (MCC) in order to meet and coordinate matters with Staff Members Paula Moltzen and Kaye Dowling about the MCC Housing List and other matters.
I myself am a former MCC student-resident and entered in the Summer of 2000 from Sally’s with some fear and hopeful anticipation. MCC is a two-year transitional housing program for homeless people with an emphasis on employment. It is not a recovery or rehab program. For me, MCC was a great once-in-a-lifetime experience and it all encouraged my self-esteem, focused my career goals and advanced my spiritual growth.
Housing Workshops ~
Our regular Housing Workshops at The Salvation Army (TSA) ‘Center of Hope’ homeless shelter are held on Saturdays @ 11 AM and on Tuesdays @ 6 PM.
As a rule, we open with a short prayer, introduce ourselves and briefly say how we got here being homeless. I believe it is important for us to know how we got into the shelter and honestly and openly discuss the issues and circumstances involved in us becoming homeless. It is not simply a matter to providing housing for the homeless, but it is more of matter of helping to produce mature, stable and responsible functional adults who can obtain housing and keep housing. Ultimately, we must address the core character issues and negative cultural factors that result in us becoming homeless in order to prevent a reoccurrence of homelessness.
We can learn from the past to help guide our future wisely and not fall into the category of being labeled ‘chronically homeless’. If the underlying problems that resulted in our being homeless are not resolved many times we are doomed to repeat our mistakes in a vicious circle until we learn from them.
As our Housing Workshops we discuss developing a general housing strategy and tactics for obtaining SAFE SECURE HOUSING. Also we discuss different kinds of housing situations, available limited resources, transitional housing programs, housing options and related matters connected to housing for the homeless. I will usually past out an updated Housing Brochure and discuss the items therein.
In relation to transitional housing programs I focus on three: MCC, Quinn Cottages and the Readiness Program along with their similarities and differences. For example, for MCC one must come direct from a shelter and stay consistently and continuously within the shelter matrix with no breaks in between and be employable; while for Quinn Cottages one does not have to come direct from a shelter, can be unemployable and can even be on SSI.
After our general discussions at our Housing Workshops I pass around a Housing Referral List and if qualified and interested our clients can sign up in order to get on the MCC and Readiness List, then, I call in our referrals and also fax it out to make sure they are received by MCC and Readiness.
For Quinn Cottages I offer tokens for clients to attend a Quinn Tour, which are held on Wednesdays and Saturdays @ 11 AM at Quinn Cottages. After their Quinn Tour clients are offered a Quinn Application and I help them fill it out in an orderly fashion in order for it to be accepted and considered by Quinn Staff.
I keep a list of those who attend the Housing Workshops to check it out for statistical purposes given to Shelter Coordinator Larry Dayton and I also keep a separate list of those who sign the Housing Referral List. At this time, any new client who comes into the shelter and goes through Orientation is allowed to sign the Housing Referral List.
The MCC Meeting ~
Our MCC Meeting was scheduled for 1 PM and was to include my Supervisor Donald Hodges, but due to him having to attend to urgent matters at the shelter I handled the MCC Meeting myself. Donald dropped me off at the Alkali Flag Light Rail by 12th and ‘E’ Streets around 12:30 PM. I called MCC on my cell phone and re-scheduled our meeting for 2 PM, then, caught the Light Rail out to Rancho Cordova and got off at the Mather-Mills Light Rail Station.
I then had to wait for a bit, talked to a Mather resident and caught the Bus 75 out to MCC that dropped me off right by the Administration-Case Management buildings around 1:40 PM.
I entered through the front door to Case Management to see my old friend the ‘P Queen’ Kay. She is the one who does the urinalysis on MCC students-residents and faxes the MCC List out to us. Kay showed me how they do the MCC List with the Excel Program and other technical stuff,
Kay D. is very precious and also known affectionately as Queen P. She helps do the urine drug tests on students who can be called in at random for tests when they first arrive and can be called in when there is a suspicion about illegal and improper drug-alcohol usage.
Then, Kay and I went into the Administration building. I met Paula and the three of us sat down to discuss the MCC List and related matters.
Paula M. works at MCC and is our main contact person. I work at the Salvation Army as the Housing Coordinator, among other roles, and I refer eligible clients to MCC from the Salvation Army. ~Peta.
The three of us mainly discussed the transient nature of our shelter clients with their comings and goings, along with the difficulty of tracking them in terms of their whereabouts after they leave the shelter. I discussed the Exit Form we do on clients, the HMIS form and how many of our people depart to unknown destinations. Plus, we discussed the confidentiality of our roster and the MCC List that is not to be posted for all to see in order to protect the confidentiality of clients in general.
Basically we decided that I would be faxed the MCC Housing List addressed to me specifically, then, I would examine it and compile a Drop Off List of those clients who are no longer at the shelter, along with any available information as to whether they are still in the shelter system. Plus, new clients would have to be TSA shelter residents for two weeks before they are called in as Housing Referrals from TSA for the MCC List. I will make the Drop Off List one of my weekly priorities as now the MCC List is clogged with a lot of former clients whose whereabouts are unknown.
I informed them that I would be the sole contact person as the TSA Housing Coordinator in order to assure a clean chain of communication and that any other specific cases would be handled directly through case management with Donald Hodges as our Case Manager.
Related Websites:
http://www.dhaweb.saccounty.net/Homeless/MCC.htm
http://www.sacselfhelp.org
Humanely Yours In Christ~
Brother Peter S. Lopez
Peter S. Lopez, Counselor
916/ 442-0331 x3051
1200 North ‘B’ Street
Sacra, California ~95814
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P.S. Written on my laptop at home last night…
Sac Works is a Job Search Center mainly for Mather Community Campus, but also anyone in the Sacramento area can attend and utilize its job search resources.
The TSA 'Center of Hope' Home Page
