‘Peace House Community Journal’ Archives
Peace House Community: September ’23
Every Little Bit Helps By MARTI MALTEBY Marti Maltby After the doom and gloom of my last few columns, I wanted to write something a little more upbeat this month. Based on my current thoughts, I may not succeed, but by the end of this article I will try to have found a ray of hope.At the end of July, I traveled to England with my family to visit my parents, brothers, and other relatives for two weeks. While connecting and relaxing were the trip’s main goals, I also wanted to learn about how England deals with homelessness. What I found out was depressing.In London, I spoke with Maze, a homeless man who had fled his hometown when his life was threatened. He let me know that there was one drop in center in the city, but that it was only open for four hours a day. Other than that, he had to find libraries or museums to pass the hours. I was even more surprised when he said that there were no overnight shelters in London. I asked where he spent the nights, and he explained his [...]
PCH: What Did You Just Say?
By MARTI MALTBY Part of the Peace House Community Journal Marti Maltby Recently, a discussion about bathrooms at Peace House Community took a strange turn. I and several community members were talking about the problem we have with individuals camping out in the bathrooms. We have two bathrooms and we serve about 120 members a day, so we need everyone to get in and out quickly. The discussion migrated to the lack of public bathrooms in general. One of the members said that, in all of downtown Minneapolis, the only bathrooms that homeless individuals can easily access are at the library and the hospital. All the other buildings and stores prevent non-customers from using their facilities. There are undoubtedly a variety of reasons behind this, from prejudice to drug use to the inconvenience of cleaning up after someone tries to take a shower in a sink.As we discussed the situation, someone said, “Yeah, there are just a few people who ruin it for the rest of us.” She meant [...]
PHC: The Absurd Society
By MARTI MALTBY Marti Maltby This morning, one of Peace House Community’s members stopped by to say hi. He hadn’t been here for a few months, and I was glad to see him. When I asked how he was doing, he smiled, said, “I’m doing alright”, and held up his hands to show me that all his fingers had been amputated this winter because of frostbite. I expressed sorrow at his situation, but he continued smiling and said, “Oh, you know how it is being homeless. This happens. But I’ve learned how to sign my name. I can use a fork now.” After a few more minutes of chatting he left to get on with his day, and I came back inside to try to make sense of what I had just seen and heard.Every winter, people lose anything from their fingers to their lives because one of the richest states in the richest country in the world can’t figure out how to pay for proper housing. We’re more comfortable watching some people suffer so that others can live luxurious lives than we are with [...]
