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About Keizertimes. (Salem, Or.) 1979-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 25, 2020)
PAGE A6, KEIZERTIMES, DECEMBER 25, 2020 and concerns he encounters during conversations: • Distrust of shelters and warming centers. • Assistance enrolling in the Oregon Health Plan. • Questions about getting into a shelter. • Applying for food assis- tance. • The location of the nearest landromat. • Displacement because of rising waters along the banks of the Willamette. • The location of a payphone anywhere in Salem. Marshall knows a few of the regulars by name, but many are new to him. He runs the warming center program for ARCHES as well as its day center where the area’s home- less residents can take a show- er, do laundry or pick up a hot meal. For Marshall, there was very little of the beforetimes. Before a pandemic that launched mil- lions of job losses, before re- quirements to quarantine and limit contact pushed thousands more who were already in ten- uous housing situations onto the streets of Oregon, before a wildfi re displaced yet more homeless people into the Willa- mette Valley. Marshall started his job in January 2020. Despite such crises, Marshall is a veritable fi reball of enthu- siasm. “There's a role for everyone to get engaged, anyone that's got a heart to serve. I'm con- fi dent that I'll be able to fi nd a role for that person,” Marshall said. In part because of people like Marshall, ARCHES has not only continued serving the homeless population but expanded its services in mul- tiple ways. One of those is in doing outreach in places where homeless camps have appeared. “We’re still taking COVID precautions, but we are now visiting all the outlying areas (such as Independence, Dallas, Woodburn, Silverton and areas of the Santiam Canyon). And we’re able to make the rounds to each of those places about once a week,” Marshall said. Infusions of grant money from regional, state and feder- al sources gave ARCHES the ability to hire more outreach coordinators and outreach em- ployees that cover the expand- ed ground. A renewed sense of partnership between local or- ganizations seeking to support homeless individuals is also helping create more of a blan- ket than a shawl for homeless people. Still, Marshall said, the agen- cy needs more volunteers. With temperatures forecasted to dip into the teens and 20s in the run-up to Christmas, Marshall needs about 45 volunteers ev- ery night to staff ARCHES’ three warming centers. In- terested readers can apply for warming center shifts and other duties at: tinyurl.com/volwarm. There are as many circum- stances leading to homelessness as there are homeless people, but those who haven’t experi- enced it often think they know a one-size-fi ts-all solution. The executive director of the Community Action Agency, Jimmy Jones, would rather the community think about it as a public health crisis that can be solved by making shelter a priority. Unfortunately, some areas, like Salem and Keizer, are more in the business of making homelessness survivable. For Marshall, the answer isn’t even that complicated. “Everyone out here is some- body’s somebody. Underneath it all, they have the same beat- ing heart to stay alive,” Marshall said. Because ARCHES has been able to expand its outreach ef- forts, one of the ways they’ve tried to foster connections is sending the same personnel to the same camps. “We don’t push people to services, but we come back as often as we can to keep the connection. Someone living outside for years might have to be contacted hundreds of times before choosing to accept help,” Marshall said. If a client decides to start the process, ARCHES workers walk the individual through ev- ery step. Frequently, getting help means meeting certain expec- tations or checking a variety of boxes in exchange for assistance. In the past 18 months, Marshall and others at ARCHES have tried to eliminate some of those hurdles. Because of the pandemic, a warming space that once held 80 people can now only admit 30. ARCHES created addition- al warming sites with commu- nity partners and tried to keep barriers to a minimum. At one time, if a client was found to be breaking a warming center rule, such as consuming alcohol on- site, they could be banned from using them again. Marshall be- gan trying a different approach and it came down to language as much as anything else. “If we fi nd them in viola- tion, we tell them that ‘It didn’t work out tonight, so let’s try again tomorrow,’” Marshall said. “I don’t like the term breaking down barriers, but I like to think we are chiseling away at them.” Even phrases that many take for granted – such as “have a nice day/weekend” – feel like a microaggression when dealing with the homeless population. “It’s not like they are going to Coachella,” Marshall said. For Marshall, the next steps include doing more of what lo- cal services are already attempt- ing to do, fi guring out where weaknesses are present and fi nding another partner whose strength fi lls in that gap. “There is a lot of coaching and mentoring each of our WE BUY RVs WE COME TO YOU! 503-689-0669 LICENDED, BONDED, INSURED. 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If it's happening in Keizer, or someone from Keizer — WE WANT TO KNOW. kt@keizertimes.com PLEASE KEEP THE FOLLOWING GOOD RECYCLABLES EMPTY, CLEAN AND DRY: • Cardboard and uncoated greyboard boxes (Shipping & cereal type). No frozen food boxes! • Print-quality paper - newspaper, junk & office paper, and magazines; • Tin & Aluminum Cans Only - NO foil, trays, or scrap metal; • Plastic Bottles and Jugs Only - NO bags, tubs, clamshells, bubble Pak, or other plastics. Serving Keizer for Nearly 50 years! LOREN'S VA L L E Y SANITATION & RECYCLING SERVICE, INC. RECYCLING & DISPOSAL, INC. 503.393.2262 503.585.4300 crossword 0108 A BLESSING CENTS, continued from Page A1 PLASTIC BAGS, STYROFOAM, AND WAXY CARTONS WERE NEVER RECYCLABLE! KEIZER CLASSIFIEDS RECREATIONAL VEHICLES organizations can do to keep building each other up,” he said. In the grand scheme, fi nd- ing one person willing to ac- cept assistance might not seem as though it makes a difference, but Marshall has seen what those connections can do, even if it is temporary. “I found out about a guy near the I-5 exit on Portland Road. A person had stopped to offer some help and found out he was covered in bug bites. I went down there and found him and we got to talking about what happened. He’d laid in a bush and got eaten up by whatever was in there. “Unfortunately, I hadn’t brought anything with me so I raced back to the offi ce and grabbed a tent and a sleeping bag and some fi rst aid supplies. On my race back to him, I called someone who makes hot meals for us and asked her if she could meet me there with one. By the time I got back, the per- son who had posted about this guy on Facebook had already come back with ointment for the bug bites, too.” Marshall spent about two hours with the man and walked with him to a public bathroom where he could clean up and apply the treatment to the bug bites. While the story is one of his favorites to retell, it wasn’t the bug bites that stuck with him most. “It was his age. That guy could have been my young- er brother. He’s somebody’s somebody,” Marshall said. ©1986 ARCHES, continued from Page A1
