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Ruby Rivera, 41, (right) poses for a photo at the Food and Shelter dining room Nov. 30. The dining room turns into a make-shift sleeping area in the winter at nights from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m.
A WARM WELCOME Minutes from campus, refuge for Norman’s hungry and homeless MIA CHISM • @MIA _CHISM13
H
ead north on Jenkins Avenue from Gaylord Family-Oklahoma Memorial Stadium — past the ongoing $160 million construction project to make more luxurious the palace on the prairie; past the bronze statues of Sooner football greats; past the $50 million Sarkeys Energy Center. Three minutes and less than a mile away, the campus bubble bursts. Here, near the railroad tracks, is where Norman’s often hidden hungry and homeless find temporary comfort : Food and Shelter for Friends. Of Norman’s 44,637 households, roughly 18 percent is living in poverty, according to the U.S. Census Bureau in 2015. The nonprofit offers short-term and long-term housing options and breakfast and lunch seven days a week, executive director April Heiple said. However, as temperatures drop and people try to stay warm, more people seek shelter and the dining room is opened up to be a make-shift shelter, she said. The organization gears up for the transition every November, and although the make-shift shelter is temporary, it is necessary because there are some very vulnerable people on the streets, Heiple said. “Even temperatures as low as 45 to 40 degrees overnight can be very dangerous for them, especially if they are in it for an extended period of time,” Heiple said. The beginning of December is projected to hit lows between 21 and 41 degrees Fahrenheit, according to The Weather Channel. “Food and Shelter is the only place in town they can go where they won’t be run off,” Heiple said.
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On any given day, 10 to 15 new people show up to Food and Shelter who say they have nowhere to go, Heiple said. Food and Shelter does not own an emergency shelter for people who need a place to stay on short notice, so the organization refers people needing it to Salvation Army, Heiple said. Heiple said if they cannot find a solution there or through someone’s personal contacts, family or friends, then Food and Shelter provides motel stays. “This is a very expensive shelter
option, but right now that’s our only option because we don’t allow (families with) children to sleep outside or in their cars,” Heiple said. People dealing with an untreated addiction, mental illness and other problems can rent one of the organization’s 10 single-bed apartments, Heiple said. Heiple said the majority of people and families who come to the organization need assistance through the organization’s seven transitional housing program, which can be used for three to six months. Food and Shelter is working on expanding its housing options at a new location to be opened in summer 2017, she said. Whether they use short or longterm housing, those who use the organization’s services work with case managers who help them determine what is needed to overcome obstacles they might face. “A significant majority of those people will be able to do that in the amount of time that we have with them, and go on and do fine,” Heiple said. Food and Shelter also works to intervene before homelessness happens. “It’s very expensive to rehouse somebody once they become homeless, so we have a homelessness prevention program where we try to work with as many people as possible that would encounter someone on the brink of homelessness,” she said. Heiple said the average age group the organization helps is 35–44, but it seems to get younger every year. “When I first started here it was higher than that. It’s always alarming to me to see young people becoming homeless, because once it gets into your system, that hopelessness sets in,” Heiple said. People come into Food and Shelter for one reason or another, but most of them are broken, said food services director Sunny Hill. “They all have a story, but they won’t be mended,” Hill said. “We don’t mend people well anymore — we patch really well, but we don’t mend our society in general.”
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Last month there was an average of 258 people per day at Food and Shelter. Heiple said usually
people come in for one meal or stay for both, so the total meal count is more than 400 per day. Hill is the only paid, trained chef, Heiple said. Hill said when she arrives each day, she does not know what food was donated the day before, but she has an idea of basic supplies the kitchen has and what she might be able to make of it. “I get to come in every day, and I don’t know what I’m going to make for lunch when I walk in the door at 6:30 in the morning; I have no idea,” Hill said. “And I love that.” Hill plans the menu, organizes the kitchen and then delegates tasks to volunteers, such as cooking, serving and cleaning.
“They all have a story, but they won’t be mended. We don’t mend people well anymore — we patch really well, but we don’t mend our society in general.” SUNNY HILL, FOOD SERVICES DIRECTOR
“She is a wizard at cooking and serving delicious, healthy meals with virtually anything we have in our pantry,” Heiple said. “It’s totally like what you see in ‘Chopped.’ You don’t know what your ingredients are going to be on any given day, but she can make something delicious out of all of it. She’s a magician in my opinion.” Hill said the Norman community is very supportive, and the donations never stop. “People truly take volunteering and giving back to their community seriously here,” Hill said. Heiple said eight to ten volunteers help in the kitchen on any given day. Food and Shelter’s former president, Tish Marek, started volunteering at the organization when her daughter, who volunteered there at the time, asked her to tag along seven years ago. After that day, Marek never stopped going, even bringing her husband along. “We just enjoyed it so much
because we recognize how humbling it was for a lot of the people that go through there,” Marek said. “But just their gratitude for (volunteers) taking our time to do that for them was nice to see.” Marek volunteers with a group from St. Marks Evangelist Catholic Church on the third Friday of every month, always bringing stirfry, she said. “When we get out of our car, everybody there — all the guests there — are like, ‘Oh my God, stirfry!” Marek said. “They get so excited, and they’re always like, ‘Tell the old ladies that cook it thank you and how much we appreciate it. This is our favorite meal during the whole month.’”
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Whether by distance or family circumstance, the state of being homeless or hungry is closer than many people think. Heiple grew up in Chickasha, Oklahoma, with two parents who were as good as they could be, until one day when severe mental illness overtook her father, she said. He left, living homeless and with stints in mental hospitals for a long time. “I grew up in that. That was just part of my life; I just knew that existed, and it was always in the back of my head,” she said. Heiple went on to earn her bachelor’s degree in psychology and her master’s in public administration. While getting her master’s, she worked in Oklahoma City, often passing homeless people on her drive to work. “I would ignore them,” she said. “Every day I would just do everything I could to just not have to look at them.” One day on the way to her office, something struck her differently. “I was sitting in my car … and I look over, and there’s this man sitting on this bench … I just looked at him, and almost kind of in this deeply spiritual way I could see my dad sitting there, and my heart broke that he was somebody’s dad,” she said. Heiple said she immediately thought about the homeless people’s relatives. Although Heiple’s father eventually found the help he needed to live housed and functional, the realization hurt her, she said. “It just broke my heart that
there were all of these people that we had decided were not worth investing in,” Heiple said. Shortly after, she heard Food and Shelter was hiring a director. “I said, ‘OK. Give me the job. I don’t even care how much it pays. I’m going,’” she said. “I knew from that first phone call that this is where I was supposed to go.” Marek said she understands the difficulty of living life paycheck to paycheck. She and her husband, Ed, did it all by themselves, but not without help. Marek’s parents did not have any money, but what little they had they used to help her and her family. Marek relied mostly on commodities from the government, such as food stamps, when her husband was teaching in Norman in the 1980s. “I knew that if anything major happened, we would have been in a lot of trouble. We would have been destitute,” she said. “I never could understand why a teacher in Oklahoma was faced with having to get commodities.” Now, it makes her feel good to give back and help people who are going through something similar, Marek said. “You don’t have to (care about them). You can go on all your life thinking, ‘Well you know, that’s someone else’s problem,’” Marek said. “I just feel good that I know that I’m helping people that either don’t know where to go or what to do, and it’s just a matter of giving them the information and giving them hope.” Mia Chism
mia.chism-1@ou.edu
FOOD & SHELTER FOR FRIENDS Address: 104 West Comanche Street, Norman, OK Phone: 405-360-4954 The shelter is open Monday through Sunday and serves breakfast every day at 8:30 a.m. and lunch at 11 a.m. No reservation is necessary, and anyone is welcome to come eat. Source: foodandshelterinc.org