Past Issues :: 2005 September 1 ::
A woman's touch: Rose Haven endures as one of the few sanctuaries for women looking to escape the streets
Pushing a stroller, one woman can't get through the crowded room, so she calls for her playing children to come closer to her. Another woman helps carry the toys the children are using over the heads of the chatting masses to the other end of the office, past the seated women sipping coffee and reading books. She hands off the toy and settles back down for a back rub from another women who hasn't missed a beat in a conversation with two others as they grabbed a few seats among the throng of people, all of them women, who come daily to the sanctuary of Rose Haven.
For all the activity and noise, the room is inviting, filled with the conversation of women of all ages and abilities who come here for some respite from the street. About 85 percent of the women who use Rose Haven's services are homeless when they walk in the door. The others are near to it. They come here to use the phones, receive one-on-one counseling and basic health care, attend the workshops and look for resources. Most importantly, they come here because it's safe.
"I come down here periodically just to get moral support," said Donna Drew who stepped outside Rose Haven's crowded office on Third Street. "I'm homeless right now. I've been on the streets almost four months. But I get my apartment this week and the support here helps me to get out there and do what I need to do."
Rose Haven sees an average of 86 women every morning, Monday through Friday, each of them, like Donna, looking for the strength and confidence to do what they need to do. Advocates at the center help the women connect with emergency shelter, housing, health care and other services. It is often a struggle, the staff says, with fewer and fewer resources left available for emergency shelter specifically for women. Rose Haven's clients are all victims of extreme poverty, but many are also living with the other fall-outs: domestic violence, drug and alcohol addictions, prostitution, and increasingly these days, human trafficking.
"I came here because it's a women's place," said Yvonne Grochowski, who is homeless. "It makes me feel like a person and I get to interact with women. I never really had girlfriends. So I'm really lonely in a lot of ways, too. Yet I can't connect to a guy yet. I have trust issues. So I come here all the time."
Grochowski was abused by her husband, evicted, and ended up on the streets where she was then attacked by other men. At Rose Haven, she says she feels safe. She has bonded with friends there and has applied for Section 8 housing. "I've been homeless for about five years now off and on. But I really feel in my heart I'm on the right path now. I'm waiting for housing."
"This is where everybody meets," said another woman who didn't want her name used. "The ladies get together and we just chit chat and talk and get into groups and go off and do things together. This is pretty unique. This is a very unique spot."
She became homeless about two months ago, and has bounced around in and out of temporary shelter. She started coming to Rose Haven because it was one of the few women-only service providers she could find. If Rose Haven wasn't here, she said, "I'm afraid women would probably go crazier than they already are."
For all the women in the office, there are always three more; three homeless victims whose names have survived their deaths. Lilla Moler, 28, Stephanie Russell, 26, and Alexandria Ison, 17, were found strangled to death in Forest Park in 1999. Their deaths raised awareness of the plight of homeless women and spurred efforts to develop emergency shelters for women on the streets. A small plaque, created by a woman to honor their memory, hangs in the hall at Rose Haven. It states simply, "No woman should be homeless."
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"Our first year we had two women in their late 60s come in. They had been on the streets for three or four days. I think it was because one of their husband's had died. They were on the street and it was winter and it was cold. We put them in a comfortable chair. They had cold, cold feet, and we put their feet in warm water. And I walked in and they asked if I was in charge, and they had tears running down their face and they said, 'We thought we'd never be warm again,' and, 'Everybody's being so nice to us.'" And we were able to get them into a winter shelter. And they were just weeping. Nobody should be on the streets, but our seniors? Come on. We have people in their 80s coming in here.
- Sister Cathie Boerboom,
Program Manager, Rose Haven
Rose Haven opened seven years ago when the momentum to assist women on the streets was just beginning. Its access policy is simple: Have respect and dignity for yourself and everybody. If you're willing to do that, you're welcome. But only women. On a few occasions they have had men volunteers, but only for a specific job and for a set period of time, usually for a designated workshop. The center strives to be a safe and secure place for women, many of whom have emotional and physical scars from their relationship with men.
"One of the things people questioned me about before we opened Rose Haven was whether we were just going to enable people to stay homeless," said Sister Cathie Beorboom, program director. "Rose Haven is about people's own pace, supporting them into the next step. It's not about making it comfortable to be homeless. Three hours or six hours or eight hours does not make you comfortable for the night out. And we're not going to let people suffer, however, it's really hard for people who have major issues and no money to get into housing. Or maybe we can connect them to treatment, or connect them for mental health. It's those steps to remind them that they are people with the goodness and the right to everything else."
The center receives a few small grants, but otherwise the organization's $280,000 budget is almost entirely funded through donations. That pays for rent, supplies and three full-time and three part-time staff members. They also rely heavily on a volunteer staff. When the center first opened, 35 women in the morning was considered a heavy day. Today, the center receives, on average, more than 80 each day, but it has days of 100 or more. Legally, they can have up to 99 inside the center at any one time.
Within one year, Rose Haven will have to find a new home. The organization rents 2,100 square feet on the first floor of The Estate Hotel, a low-income housing project operated by Central City Concern. Central City Concern plans to build additional floors on top of the hotel and renovate the facility. Just to accommodate the number of women coming to the center today, Rose Haven needs 4,800 to 5,000 square feet of space, Sister Cathie said.
Estimates by the city of Portland place the daily number of homeless in the city at about 4,000, with more than 16,000 homeless at one time or another during the course of a year. The homeless system is highly categorized with aggravating factors: Women who are fleeing domestic violence or have other complicating factors in their homelessness are prioritized over the merely poor. But there simply aren't enough beds for all the women on the streets. Harbor Lights has approximately 30 beds set aside for transitional and emergency housing. Jean's Place, operated through Transitional Projects Inc., has 55, with a waiting list for transitional housing, and only a few beds available on any given night for emergency housing. Raphael House has 14 beds for families and women fleeing domestic abuse and they're virtually always full, staff say.
"If somebody comes in and they can't get into the domestic violence shelter, or they lost their job and they can't pay their rent, or they got evicted for whatever, we have no where to send them. No where," says Sister Cathie. "The ones who come in with their children are usually pretty new to the streets, and we try to get the in. But there's not enough shelter for families, either. Plus, there's not enough money to put them into housing."
Caliatra Riesterer, a client advocate at Rose Haven, has her own theory on the lack of facilities for people experiencing homelessness and poverty. "I think that they want to push the homeless out of downtown and say that there's not homelessness."
Another reason for the oversight might be the perceived level of demand among a population that tries desperately to hide its circumstances.
"Most women who are homeless don't want to be recognized as homeless," said Sister Cathie. "One book calls them the shadow women. They just do everything in their power to not look homeless. They do have to carry their bags, but they try to have nice bags. And they keep clean and they keep moving because of the dangers. They have no where to sleep. They end up washing in fountains, but they're going to look as good as they can. Some women try to look as man-ish as they can so that they're not targeted. And they do a really good job of it. It's not safe to be a woman on the streets. Like one of the women said, you can't be on the streets and stay a virgin. It's not your fault, you just don't have an option. I think that there are a lot of people who don't see women as people."
In their proximity to homelessness, the staff at Rose Haven sees the impact of a declining number of shelter options for women. Reports of rapes and attacks increase when the availability of beds decreases. There are more reports of violence on the streets, more robberies and more complications from mental illness, Sister Cathie said.
It only takes a few weeks on the streets before people change, she said.
"I've had women come in and say, 'I can't do this anymore.' You have to be on the alert all the time, so you're exhausted, you're hurt, you start getting kind of paranoid because you don't know who to watch out for. Your focus dulls and clarity just goes away."
Sister Cathie says she sees women coming in who couldn't afford the $6 for the Oregon Health Plan Medicaid and consequently have no insurance. With no insurance, patients lose medications to treat even common conditions such as high blood pressure, depression, Diabetes, seizures and mental illnesses. There are many serious health conditions among people on the street that are not being addressed, Sister Cathie says. There are women, she says, who are battling breast cancer and other cancers and going through treatment while living on the streets. "We have women doing chemo on the streets, come on."
Demands on Rose Haven are coming not just from the rising number of homeless and impoverished women they service, but from other agencies that call the center looking for any available housing options, rent assistance, or simply a safe place for a women to be for a while.
The staff is hoping to find an affordable, permanent location soon, before the renovation forces them into a temporary site. But it will take money, and Rose Haven, Sister Cathie says, is desperate for money and volunteers to continue providing for the women without interruption.
"The year before last we had to close for several weeks because we had to make more money to stay open, period," Sister Cathie said. "And when the women came back we asked specifically, 'What did you miss the most?' Their answers were: 'A smile.' 'A reason to get up.' 'Something to do with my day.' 'Friendship.' 'A place where I could fee good about myself.' 'A place to stop and get the courage I needed to live my day.' 'Each other.' 'The community.' It was those kinds of things. It wasn't a place to make a phone call, a place to get clothing, a place to eat. No, they missed the things that said 'I am a person and I matter.'"
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"Hope? It's in the strength of the women themselves. They really are remarkable. They are incredible women because they've come so far, and come through so much stuff. They've got some real strength."
- Caliatra Riesterer,
advocate at Rose Haven
The woman with the stroller and the three children says this is only her second visit to Rose Haven. She had just arrived in Portland that week, having moved here from Arkansas. She and her fiance had heard that life was better here and that they could make a go of it. But her fiance was still looking for work when she arrived, and they have no place to stay. In the meantime, she and the children, ages 1, 2 and 6, are camping.
"We're not exactly on the street but we don't have a home," said the women, who wanted to remain anonymous. "We've been camping out. We're trying to find a shelter. I don't want to lose my kids. If it was just me, I wouldn't care, but I've got the kids. We were told that we could make it here but getting our foot in the door is just highly impossible. If I knew it would have been this rough I wouldn't have even come to Portland."
Rose Haven provides security in a comfortable environment, she said, a place the children can play and she can rest and look for shelter.
"They say expect the worse and pray for the best. And that's what we got. We may not have much here, but we have a prayer."
There are people, experiences and stories for every emotion at Rose Haven, and Sister Cathie knows them all. There are horrible stories of people ignored or degraded for being homeless, of being forced into drugs and then prostitution by the people the thought were going to protect them. Stories of pregnant women on the streets, of women who lost their children to the state because they became homeless. But there are also stories of weeping for joy and reaching higher ground and stability. There are women who never have to come back to Rose Haven because they went to Rose Haven in the first place.
But it's not enough, Sister Cathie says. If Portland is going to really address and solve its homelessness problem then it will need to fund more housing at the shelter, transitional and affordable low-income housing level, she said. People also need to acquire the skills to stay in housing and more resources are needed to teach people how set boundaries and ensure they do not end up back on the streets.
For now, the women have each other, which has a power all its own, according to Sister Cathie.
"It's just an energy of support and encouragement and empowerment that happens when we are people together," Sister Cathie said. "We have a very definite thing where we are not more than or better than, we get to be in between, and it's such a wonderful place to be, between those who have and those who currently need. And it's a painful place, but it's a wonderful place."