End of Day One

Our evening wrapped up nicely. After the talks and activities were through a few people called home, a few walked and talked, and a few played football. No Stand Up For Kids activity is official until there has been the throwing of the football.

Some of our late comers even brought a guitar. At that moment, it felt a little like a camp out.




There were some worries about the sprinklers coming on. Unfortunately, the worries were not unfounded. About ten minutes after the camera was shut off and we were all laid down for the night, the sudden rush and sputtering of the nightly watering surrounded us from all sides. Panic unfolded as disaster blankets, backpacks, and humans were picked up and thrown to safety. A few folks got a little wet, but no one was majorly drenched.

We reasoned the city of Phoenix would not water the rocks. They did not, though the gravel bed was decidedly less comfortable than the grass.

The practice of watering the grass late at night makes a lot of sense. Grass needs to be watered, particularly in the state of Arizona. Watering at night cuts down on evaporation, which increases water efficiency. This policy does, however, make the public space less usable for the homeless.

Staying Safe

Of the three talks concerning homeless issues (staying safe, staying sane, and meeting basic needs), we thought starting with how to stay safe was a good idea.

Presented by Dustin and Sam, it outlined ten basic things to keep in mind when trying to stay safe. Many of the points were backed up with stories.

Tips included:
1.) Stay prepared
2.) Stay sober
3.) Have a weapon or come in numbers
4.) Carry some form of light
5.) Keep something warm
6.) Keep a phone nearby
7.) Change sleeping spots
8.) Sleep somewhere quiet
9.) Keep yourself fed
10.) Darkness can be friend or foe; it's all in how you use it



Following reflections on staying safe, all three of our homeless youth began telling stories. While I don't feel quite right publishing them here, they included foster care abuse, tragically lost love, corrupted shelter bureaucracy, and facing down harsh elemental conditions. Laced through the tales of darkness and struggle were glimmering threads of camaraderie, fortitude, hope, and humorous antics.

I was struck by how smoothly their storytelling went. Generally, homeless youth are somewhat guarded with their pasts. While some have a talent drawing them out, most volunteers never get the full story. Yet here in the park by the library, the stories came.



Why do you suppose that is? Did we finally ask in the right way? Was it the activities? Was it the fact that we had shown a willingness to learn their world? Or was it our willingness to sleep out in the city? Was it the receptivity? Or the fact that the context allowed for one story after another to be told, each drawing another to follow? Or perhaps is it something more primal? Do humans just tell stories when out under the stars?

Visit from Joe

Often, retreats are run on private property, away from the public eye. This offers a controlled environment, where retreatants can adjust lighting, volume, and general flow of activities.

In the park by the library, we had no such luxury. The constant din of traffic sounded from the Central Avenue bridge. Lights were as provided by the city. But we were also in public, which meant we were observed by passerbys. We also had visitors.

Our first visitor came around 9 p.m. He heralded us from the bridge, shouting inquiry as to what we were doing. We responded, shouting up back that we were on a retreat to get a better understanding of homelessness. So he heads down the stairs to meet us. As he lumbers toward us, I can tell he is probably drunk. Not a reason for outright fear, but reason enough to be wary. Besides, rule number eight is stay aware. My friend Michael and I give each other a look, and I ask him with a head tilt to come with me. He does.

We meet him midway up the stairs. Our visitor introduces himself as Joe. I shake his large hand, introduce myself and try to engage him on the stairs, but he doesn't stop. He says, "I'm not gonna cause any problems. Just wanna talk to you guys." He continues down the stairs. Michael and I shrug at each other and follow.

Joe strikes up a conversation with the group. At first, it isn't clear what he is talking about. After about 30 seconds, however, his point becomes clear. We can't get an understanding of homelessness like this. If we want to really know what it is like, we need to empty our pockets, give away our cell phones, leave our group, and live for a month. Then, only then, would we start to have an idea. It isn't until we have nothing that we will understand.

As he is teaching us, my anxiety lowers. This is a valuable experience, I think. But his insistence starts sounding more indignant and commanding. "You go that way, you go that way." I'm not sure if he is reiterating or telling us what to do. I'm not sure how long we talked to him. Ten minutes, maybe. He starts his point over from the beginning. My anxiety starts mounting again. I don't think he is dangerous. But he is pretty large, and I haven't been able to place the substance he is on. He is somewhat slurred but is either an energetic drunk or on something else. By now his point is well taken, but I am uncomfortable.

One of our homeless youth and one of the volunteers engage him in a smaller conversation, stepping away from the larger group. This works a bit. Eventually a few of us thank him. Reluctantly, he leaves. As he climbs back up the stairs, he shouts, "You go that way, you go that way, you go that way. Alone. No phone." "Thanks!" we reply. Then, with no transition, at the top of his lungs, Joe yells "Anybody want to get high?!? I got pot, acid, whatever you want!" "No thanks," someone hollers back. "Just joking," he cries.

I have no idea whether he is joking or not.

The people on our retreat had varied responses to this visit. Some of us read him as "some crazy homeless guy," while others were more influenced by his overall point. As our retreat went on, however, more volunteers started vocalizing how what Joe had said had really been impactful. I found it a important reminder: we are playing at homelessness. While staying out on the streets for a weekend seems radical to those who have always been homed, it offers similar insight as the blindfolded man gains about being blind. At any moment the cloth can be untied and the experiment is over. For us, we could get sick of our retreat, call our friends and family, and go home.

Getting that, really understanding that, was best facilitated by Joe. While there were times I wished I could turn the traffic volume down to set a different mood or turn the street lights up to get a better video, taking this retreat to some private place would have been an error. Being held in public allowed the community at large to participate and offer their wisdom.

Leadership

A critical component of community outreach is leadership. With two- to three-person teams, we won't have the luxury of doing a lot of following. Michael, always willing to help, volunteered to give the leadership talk. It took a little to convince him he was qualified and had something to say.



Michael's key points:

• Lead from your strengths. Even if you don't think of yourself as a leader, you can be.
• People act on what is meaningful.
• Leaders do their homework.

Finally: "Don't ask what the world needs, ask what makes you come alive. The world needs people who are alive."

Beginning Interviews

Let's a few of the characters introduced.

Michael
Dear friend. Michael and I know each other well from the "outside" world. He has only a handful of experiences with Stand Up, mostly within the last few weeks. I, however, am quite happy to have him along. He is funny, kind, and pretty much always a good sport. Also un-humiliatable, which is a priceless resource to a retreat leader.




Gabe
Think John Muir, but instead of camping in Yosemite; homeless in Phoenix. While Muir wrote wilderness journals, Gabe writes fantasy novels. Ok, he really isn't that much like John Muir, except Gabe once walked the 40 miles from Apache Junction to Phoenix in the middle of the summer in a day and a half. Gabe is one of our guides this weekend.




Dustin (DK)
DK is one of our two caretakers. He watches over the Youth House and keeps it clean, and in return he gets to stay there. Perhaps more importantly, he watches over the volunteers and the youth alike. Fortunately for us, his weekend college class got over last week, which allowed him to come and share his insight with us.




Matt
The youngest member of our retreat. Matt got very excited about the weekend back in August when we first started brainstorming. He is finishing up his senior year in high school and is uncertain about his future as his family plans to move this summer. Matt (and Michael) are the two members of the Pepperspray Guard.




Melissa
Undergraduate critical ethnographer. Melissa is taking a qualitative research class in the Communication department at ASU, and had everything all lined up until her research site turned her away. A few weeks ago, I get a well written email explaining her need to get 20 hours of observation before the end of the semester. I tell her that a 45-hour retreat is a lovely way to rack up the research hours.

Retreat Rules

As we arrived at our first location, we sat down and created some rules. I'm not much of a rule guy, but particularly in a high reliability situation like living out on the streets, I like to have a few solid guidelines. Gets everybody on the same page.

In the spirit of participant leadership, we each contributed at least one rule. The rules we created were:

1.) Be respectful
2.) Participate as much as you can
3.) No drugs or serious horseplay
4.) Buddy system, at least 2 people, 3 late at night
5.) No sex
6.) Limit cell phone use*
7.) Stay positive/no unwarranted whining
8.) Stay aware/try to escape danger before fighting

*A note on cellphones
Something one may not expect, but homeless youth often have cellphones. With no addresses and unreliable internet access, the cellphone is often the only form of communication. Most commonly they buy phones with prepaid minutes instead of service plans. The limited cell phone rules was suggested as a way of bettering the retreat experience, not because homeless never have phones.

Walking

Homeless doesn't always mean car-less. Plenty of people have lived out of their cars. I spent six months as a vehicle-using homeless person. But most of the youth we serve are jobless, and jobless usually means car-less.

So we walk.

Our first trek takes us from the youth house down on McKinley up to the Phoenix Library. It's only about a mile, and in the lovely weather of an Arizonan April evening, the walk is upbeat, fun.

Off We Go

Packed and ready, we head out. As of now, no one knows where they are going. Some of the volunteers and homeless youth have prepared speeches and activities, but they have only a vague sense of the order. While the youth and I collaborated on the sleeping logistics, only one knows where we are actually staying.

Uncertainty is a common theme in the lives of the homeless. Also, retreats feel more like adventures and less like meetings when the participants don't know what is coming next.

A few times during the packing process someone would ask for more details. I like to answer honestly, but I'm also a fan of strategic ambiguity. In short, these smiling wanderers are about to leave for three days, not knowing where they will go, sleep or eat. And remember, they are each carrying only one meal.

Packing Up

I'm Micheal's ride to the youth house. I swing by and pick him up, and on the way we discuss dimensions of leadership. I finagled him into giving the leadership talk a week ago. While I am coordinating this retreat, and I call my self "in charge," I've tried to get other people as involved in the process as possible.

Partly, it's because I can only stand so much of my own voice. I love speaking, and at heart I'm a pedagogue. But with seven talks and easily three times that number of activities and discussions, I want more voices. More people talking means more angles, facets, and interpretations. They call it polyvocality in the biz.



Michael has some good ideas. Not only does his mother teach business folks about the subject, but he is also a young and promising leader himself. I'm pleased.

We get to the youth house. Grab disaster blankets from the basement. Food bags from the outreach room. One of the purposes of this retreat is to give Stand Up For Kids volunteers a small sense of what their services mean to the youth. So we have one foodbag with one meal in it that identical to the kind we hand out on outreach. We have government-issue disaster blankets. The ones the kids hate. Our retreat goers show up slowly. Two volunteer to be carriers of the pepper spray. By 6:00 p.m. we are all there, I have emergency contact info, and we pack up and head out.

Shopping List

I've been on about 30 retreats in my life, probably more. It has been a rate of at least two a year since I was 15, and I am now 29. I've been in some leadership capacity for most, and I've been the coordinator for about 10.

So I've been retreat shopping many times before.

But this is different. For instance, a tried and true technique for youth retreats is candy. If you want to raise the energy level of a group of teens, Twizzlers are your friends. While I'm sure homeless youth enjoy candy as much as their homed counterparts, I feel that feasting on sugar is the wrong way to set the mood.

Other considerations are different. Audio/visual is less of a concern. We don't need or rather shouldn't have an overhead projector. There won't be mood music for activities.

At the same time, there are other needs I've never considered. I've never had to think about our methods of self defense. I'm an ardent pacifist, so I had laid down a no weapons rule from the outset. Obviously no guns and no knives.

One youth asked, "How do you feel about blunt weapons."

"What if I said I preferred no blunt weapons?"

"Then we need pepper spray."

So pepper spray makes the shopping list. The day before the retreat I call a few gun stores whose websites say they sell it, but no luck. They tell me to call sports equipment stores. I do. The only type they have is bear spray. Over the phone I ask the clerk if you can shoot a person with it. "It'd stop a pretty big person!" he says. Upon visiting the store I discover federal regulation prohibits use of animal-formulated spray on humans. This makes sense, though it is now the day of the retreat, and I am really very desperate. I call a friend to brainstorm what to do now. He jokes that it would be easier to get a gun in this state.

As I drive home from failing to procure our sole form of protection, I pass Tempe Firearms and Collectibles. Perfect.

Well-worn black steel weapons lay casually in glass cases. Four people are working, but they are all busy. Gladly, they are very attentive in providing customer service. A mother is buying a rifle for her preteen daughter. A group of young men cluster and point, discussing the merits of a particular piece with a sales associate whose large handgun (small cannon) bulges off of his chest harness.

Eventually I am helped. They have one kind: WHUPASS. Ok. I buy two.

Other shopping is less dramatic.
Eight green disposable cameras.
Twelve 100-sheet notebooks.
One package of mechanical pencils.
First aid kit.