Story time. A friend on Twitter was advertising a volunteer opportunity a week back for The Mad Housers, a non-profit charity in Atlanta that builds small, basic shelters to keep the homeless off the streets and out of the elements. I'm unemployed now so I figured I should do something with my time and went on down at the scheduled meet. I was introduced to the organizer, and jumped in with helping organize tools, putting drinks in the cooler, and loading things onto the truck for transport out to the Virginia Highlands, aka a ritzy neighborhood.
Now the panels that create the walls and ceiling of the shelter are actually pre-assembled at Nick's home. Thus, when we arrive to a site the noise and time spent on building it is kept at a minimum. Hammer the walls together and the roofing down, set the flooring down, pop on the ceiling, and you're basically done. It's an in-and-out job.
Well, a structural issue in the panels and door's alignment set us back just long enough for some white lady behind the fence of the yard we were already preapproved to build on to start a fight. She was yelling over the fencing- difficult to make out details from the ambiance and distance- then left. About ten minutes later, she came to the front of the yard to continue screaming at us. The organizer handled it and we were quiet as previously instructed. Eventually I heard her threaten to call the cops, and within a few minutes one arrived. The cop was cool; he admitted to not wanting to take the call at all because he knew the gist of what we were doing, but did his duty by responding and taking pictures, then left us alone. We figured that was the end of it and continued work.
After about another hour, we'd fixed the structural issues and had it painted. All it needed was the ceiling and inside flooring. We were once interrupted again, this time by two black guys. It was quiet enough now that I could make out the talker's passive-aggressive argument:
"Why can't you do this in your own backyard? Why don't you buy houses instead? Why don't you have these people move in with you? Why don't you do this? Why don't you do that?"
The organizer batted the bullshit away with his own rep sheet and the sheer logic. A man who has such a shelter in his own yard and his home currently occupied by a schizophrenic homeless man was being talked down to as not doing enough. If I was livid over it I could only imagine how he was feeling. Eventually the cops were called again and two cars arrived this time. While they were as understanding as the first there was murmuring about a building permit and whether or not the property owner who had given us the okay had one, or whether or not our building violated any code due to its size.
In the end we were forced to abandon the build, which was apparently a first in the organization's 22-year history. We were allowed to store the roofing and put on the ceiling by topping the home with the panel and covering it with a weighted tarp. After that, we gathered up our tools and bailed.
As we were figuring out rides and regrouping, we apologized profusely to the homeless man, who was there the entire time. But he excused us, saying that the people calling were the real problem. We looked down the street as he complained and saw the lady still ranting at the police- four officers in total now- who could be doing something more valuable with their time, all because she and the other guys didn't want to see or hear or coexist with a small structure for a homeless man being built in their neighborhood.
But that's life; property values trump the needs of the homeless. However, what really boiled my blood was the neighbors' hollow empathy. "We agree with your cause, but..." "I get what you're doing, but..." "I support you, but..." There was always some terrible excuse, some little addendum, that prevented these people from having just a little bit of a conscience and a little bit of empathy for this poor guy, who ironically now has to continue sleeping in a rinkydink tent which is honestly far more of an eyesore.
And just for an example, here's what the final product would've looked like had we finished it:
It's basically a fuckin' shed. You never would've been able to tell the difference if I told you otherwise.
tl;dr-- I tried to help build a homeless shelter with other volunteers and the rich neighbors told us to go fuck ourselves.
Now the panels that create the walls and ceiling of the shelter are actually pre-assembled at Nick's home. Thus, when we arrive to a site the noise and time spent on building it is kept at a minimum. Hammer the walls together and the roofing down, set the flooring down, pop on the ceiling, and you're basically done. It's an in-and-out job.
Well, a structural issue in the panels and door's alignment set us back just long enough for some white lady behind the fence of the yard we were already preapproved to build on to start a fight. She was yelling over the fencing- difficult to make out details from the ambiance and distance- then left. About ten minutes later, she came to the front of the yard to continue screaming at us. The organizer handled it and we were quiet as previously instructed. Eventually I heard her threaten to call the cops, and within a few minutes one arrived. The cop was cool; he admitted to not wanting to take the call at all because he knew the gist of what we were doing, but did his duty by responding and taking pictures, then left us alone. We figured that was the end of it and continued work.
After about another hour, we'd fixed the structural issues and had it painted. All it needed was the ceiling and inside flooring. We were once interrupted again, this time by two black guys. It was quiet enough now that I could make out the talker's passive-aggressive argument:
"Why can't you do this in your own backyard? Why don't you buy houses instead? Why don't you have these people move in with you? Why don't you do this? Why don't you do that?"
The organizer batted the bullshit away with his own rep sheet and the sheer logic. A man who has such a shelter in his own yard and his home currently occupied by a schizophrenic homeless man was being talked down to as not doing enough. If I was livid over it I could only imagine how he was feeling. Eventually the cops were called again and two cars arrived this time. While they were as understanding as the first there was murmuring about a building permit and whether or not the property owner who had given us the okay had one, or whether or not our building violated any code due to its size.
In the end we were forced to abandon the build, which was apparently a first in the organization's 22-year history. We were allowed to store the roofing and put on the ceiling by topping the home with the panel and covering it with a weighted tarp. After that, we gathered up our tools and bailed.
As we were figuring out rides and regrouping, we apologized profusely to the homeless man, who was there the entire time. But he excused us, saying that the people calling were the real problem. We looked down the street as he complained and saw the lady still ranting at the police- four officers in total now- who could be doing something more valuable with their time, all because she and the other guys didn't want to see or hear or coexist with a small structure for a homeless man being built in their neighborhood.
But that's life; property values trump the needs of the homeless. However, what really boiled my blood was the neighbors' hollow empathy. "We agree with your cause, but..." "I get what you're doing, but..." "I support you, but..." There was always some terrible excuse, some little addendum, that prevented these people from having just a little bit of a conscience and a little bit of empathy for this poor guy, who ironically now has to continue sleeping in a rinkydink tent which is honestly far more of an eyesore.
And just for an example, here's what the final product would've looked like had we finished it:
It's basically a fuckin' shed. You never would've been able to tell the difference if I told you otherwise.
tl;dr-- I tried to help build a homeless shelter with other volunteers and the rich neighbors told us to go fuck ourselves.
