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
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Ridge. Paslay started off buy-
ing everything with her own
money, but that was not sus-
tainable. It meant she had to
fi nd an alternative way to raise
money.
About a year ago Paslay es-
tablished Capital Senior Ser-
vices– a business designed to
whisk independent seniors
away from their homes on
their dream adventures.
“I would take elderly to
the beach. We would go plac-
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would go to nice restaurants
on the coast, like the Spanish
Head,” Paslay said, adding that
Spanish Head is a “hit” with
the elderly.
Previously, she worked as
a Certifi ed Nurses Assistant
(CNA). While Paslay loved
spending time and talking
with elderly folks, she did not
enjoy working for large cor-
porations, so she became an
independent contractor.
Things were looking up for
Paslay, who found a job she
thoroughly enjoyed, until the
pandemic hit in March.
Since older seniors are at
high risk of complications
or death due to COVID-19,
Paslay dedicated her time to
getting supplies to people
who were afraid or unable to
leave their homes. She post-
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and was able to raise around
$6,600 to buy groceries and
supplies for seniors.
“[I thought] ‘What can I do
to show people my business
cares?’ So, that’s what I did,”
Paslay said.
Eventually she ran out of
money, but restrictions were
starting to lessen in the sum-
mer so she was able to take a
client to the beach following
all COVID guidelines.
As the holiday approached,
she began thinking about se-
niors who would go without
family contact this year, and
how she could raise money to
do it.
“I’m from Washington, I
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a bottle you get 10 cents back.
That’s new to me,” Paslay said.
Her and her twin sister, who
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lect as many bottles as possible,
but Paslay ran into a problem
as she went door to door.
“They’d give me like 10
cans and their garage would be
open and you’d see 10 bags just
sitting there from quarantine,”
Paslay said.
Even so, Paslay purchased
enough gifts for the entire
memory care unit and then
started purchasing other gifts
for seniors in need. The gifts
contain chocolates, a puzzle, a
blanket, non-skid socks, jewel-
ry for the women and a razor
kit or body lotion for the men.
“My husband was like, ‘it’s
the memory care unit, they’re
going to forget,’ but it’s not
about that. It’s about Christ-
mas and giving back to the
community. It’s about showing
people how to make others
happy,” Paslay said.
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crossword
0108
A BLESSING
CENTS,
continued from Page A1
PLASTIC BAGS, STYROFOAM, AND WAXY CARTONS WERE NEVER RECYCLABLE!
KEIZER CLASSIFIEDS
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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