AmeriCorps Member Story
By Michael Smith
Mike at workMy year of volunteer service at two of the Catholic Charities food pantries in Buffalo was full of new experiences, challenges, and growth. I immediately learned that these pantries were not just designed for food, as we provide many other services to our clients. Food is just the medium through which we get to interact with them.
This lesson proved itself yet late on a Friday afternoon this past spring. Just as we were getting ready to close our doors for the day and subsequently wrapping up another week, three men came sloshing into the pantry. It had been sleeting/snowing all day, and they had apparently spent a large portion of their day caught out in it. Earlier that morning they had been evicted from their apartment via a police escort. A notice had supposedly been placed on their door at an earlier date notifying them of this possibility, but they had yet to have seen it. Thus, they were thrust into the wintry elements with literally nothing, as all of their possessions were locked in the apartment they could no longer enter.
They were provided with some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches as we discussed their situation. Clearly the main priority was getting them a place to stay for the weekend. There are several places in the city but would any of them have any room left on a Friday afternoon with these types of wintry conditions for three male adults? Many calls were made to the various shelters. Quickly weeding out the options for women and children we were left with only one place that had any openings. Of course this was the least desirable of the shelters, but it provided them with a bed for the night if they so desired it.
As for the longer term effects of their situation, mainly being their need to get their possessions and begin figuring out how to find longer term living arrangements, I called my housemate who worked at a nonprofit lawyer’s office. He directly deals with homeless clients to help them get adequate living arrangements. We were able to setup an appointment for our clients to meet with his boss to discuss their options and learn the procedures of filling with the Department of Social Services in order to get funding for temporary housing. Thus these three men were able to leave the pantry with full stomachs, a place to spend the weekend, and plans for future housing.
Surprisingly, one of these three men came back two months later to thank me for the services he had received that afternoon. He told me that he had found a job and was able to support himself- an unexpected but wonderful turn around in such a short period of time.