First night in the shelter

For about six months, I’d been living with my friend Charlene, but the property manager at her apartment complex found out I was there and threatened to evict her for breaking her lease if I didn’t leave within 24 hours. With nowhere else to go, I made my way to the men’s shelter on South Wilmington Street in downtown Raleigh. My first night there was kind of a blur. I was pretty relieved to have a roof over my head at all, but eventually the reality of my situation began to sink in and I found myself becoming overwhelmed.

Even though I’d only packed a fraction of my actual possessions, I still had a duffel bag full to overflowing with clothes, and three plastic supermarket grocery bags full of shit (for lack of a better term). Surveying my pile of belongings, the caseworker doing my intake paperwork murmured “I don’t think you’re going to have enough space for all that. I’d advise you to lock up the important or valuable things and keep a close eye on the rest—things can get stolen pretty easily around here.” I’d been lucky enough to get a bed, which meant I got a medium sized drawer under my bunk and a small wall locker. In my haste to vacate Charlene’s apartment, I’d never considered that I might have more items than the storage space allotted to me could accommodate.

The caseworker, a diminutive New York Jew named David, promised to keep an eye on my things while I walked the two miles to the closest store that sold locks. When I returned, I was afraid that someone would have sold them for crack but they were still there, meagre and pitiful looking, but untouched. I crammed what clothes and shoes I could into the lockable spaces and put my tablet and loose papers in my bookbag, which I vowed to keep within arm’s reach at all times. Somehow I knew that the tablet would be a connection to the life I’d known and was determined to never be without it.

I’d arrived at the shelter just in time for dinner. My first meal as a homeless man consisted of baked chicken coated in greasy ketchupy barbecue sauce, soggy boiled potatoes, limp green beans and a square of yellow cake that had clearly seen fresher days. The shock over my sudden change in circumstances had dimmed my appetite, but I knew I should eat all I could. The only thing worse than going to bed as a homeless man would be going to bed as a hungry homeless man.

After dinner the TV room was cleared so the Chore Team could come in and clean up after us. They swept, mopped and made room for the overflow guys who didn't have an actual bunk and would be sleeping on mats on the floor. On White Flag nights when the temperature dropped below 32, the entire cafeteria would be filled with mats, as many as 70 men sleeping on thin green mats. But when temps were "warm" enough, we'd be allowed back into the cafeteria to watch TV until lights-out at 11.

I've always had a hard time going straight to sleep when I lay down, so lights-out in the shelter meant laying in the dark listening to the other guys in the dorm snoring and farting. Hardly lullaby material. But that first night, I didn't heard them at all. My mind was reeling from the new reality I was facing: homelessness. I couldnt even bear to think the word, yet I could scarcely think of anything else. Eventually I drifted off, and (as these things tend to go) I felt better in the morning. Having survived my first night in the shelter, I awoke more determined than ever to find employment and get my life back on track.