Stacey Witte dispenses knowledge, compassion and spare change at the Back Door Café, Central Oregon’s de facto homeless day center
“You’re going to cry? Give me a hug instead of crying.”
Stacey Witte embraced a homeless woman who came to the Back Door Café seeking help.
The Back Door Café, which is located in the basement of Bend Church, a Methodist denomination, serves breakfast each Wednesday morning to between 120 and 170 homeless people who come as far as Redmond and Sisters to be there.
The breakfast – scrambles, bacon, sausage, oatmeal, cottage cheese and fruit, juice and coffee – is made on site, in a commercial kitchen in the far corner. People eat breakfast in twos or threes or fours at large round tables in a large, well-lit basement space. The diners' conversation is mixed with piano music. Steve Sampels, 64, plays the piano every Wednesday. His range is eclectic – after playing Brahms, he’ll play Scott Joplin, then Chopin, maybe, then the Beatles.
He’s played the piano since he was 7 years old. He made a living playing on cruise ships and for other businesses. Now he plays in retirement homes and churches – whoever will have him. “I love doing it,” he said.
He most enjoys playing at the Back Door Café.
“I’d rather play for people people, who appreciate it more,” said Sampels, who is homeless. “Richer people don’t really appreciate it all the time.”
The café is much more than a breakfast spot. People can receive a wide array of services there, making it Central Oregon’s de facto day center.
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Witte, who operates the café, is Bend Church’s director of homeless outreach and is one of the fiercest advocates for homeless people in Central Oregon. She approaches her work in much the same way she greeted the homeless woman: with warmth, compassion, and determination to help them improve their lives.
People also come for all manner of services: They can sign up for same-day medical appointments at a medical van operated by Mosaic Medical, the federally qualified health center in Central Oregon, which is parked outside the church. They can also get haircuts, charge their cellphones at a charging station, get their clothes mended by a seamstress who sometimes comes, take showers in another part of the church, nap at two small respite stations cordoned off by a partition wall, or choose clothes from two small racks.
Nearly 120 homeless people also receive their mail there. The mail is sorted into cubby holes for each letter of the alphabet in Witte’s office, just off the café’s entrance.
Witte’s office also serves as a storage space for supplies people experiencing homelessness might need: luggage bags, car seats, sleeping bags, tents, cans of propane, hats, gloves, 1,500 pairs of socks a business recently donated, travel-sized shampoo and conditioner, sanitary napkins, condoms, toothbrushes, toothpastes, baby and adult diapers, reading glasses. “Anything you can think of,” Witte said.
The Back Door Café, and the help Witte offers, is regarded, among homeless people and social service providers in Central Oregon alike, as the only place in Central Oregon where homeless people can receive a comprehensive span of services in one place.
“This is a huge hub in the community,” said Britta Schroeter Phillips, the community outreach advocate for Thrive Central Oregon, a social service agency. “There’s so many services.”
Schroeter Phillips works in the café and on this day met with nearly a dozen homeless people in less than three hours to talk about housing.
“This is my craziest site,” she said, referring to the level of need and amount of people she sees.
The Back Door Café is low-barrier, meaning that anyone, regardless of their criminal history or drug or alcohol use, can come to the café and use its services, as long as they’re not belligerent or disruptive.
There are very few low-barrier services in Central Oregon. The largest shelters in the region, the Bethlehem Inn, requires people seeking shelter pass a breath analysis test and a drug test and not to be a registered sex offender. The other year-round shelter in Central Oregon, the Shepherd’s Door, has similar requirements.
“You just come as you are,” Witte said.
◆◆◆ DOZENS OF HOMELESS PEOPLE walked up to Witte with all manner of concerns and questions, asking for help. One man told her he needed $11.89 for a prescription refill. He’d also received a utility shut-off notice from the city of Bend because he owes $52.
Witte signed him up for Compassionate Care, a fund Witte started and generated from the church’s Communion donations, which pays up to $100 for emergency needs: buying gas, propane for heating, back utilities payments to avoid shut off, fees for getting state-issued identification or birth certificates, even rent assistance.
“We’ll see what we can do to help you out,” Witte assured the man.
Another homeless man, who Stacey recognizes from camp visits, walked up to her office doorway.
Conversations about camping – where people are camping, if it’s safe – is one Stacey is having more and more frequently, as more people, unable to afford housing, become homeless and are forced to camp outdoors.
“They’re steadily increasing,” Stacey said. “We got a whole group of folks that were barely making it, and now they’ve just fallen off to the other end (to homelessness).”
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She is always assuring people that she can help, that something can be done. She rarely says no.
Witte is energetic. She is constantly walking around the café space to say hello to people, give them gentle hugs and check in on them, as does her cadre of volunteers. She has a quick and infectious smile and laugh, a buoyant personality that is a balm to the homeless people she encounters.
She works half-time as Bend Church’s director of homeless outreach and spends the other half of the time going out to the homeless camps around Bend.
“I think her work probably never ends,” said Janet Brynteson, 64, a retired teacher who volunteers at the café.
Witte will often drive people to their appointments – often the hospital, Driver and Motor Vehicles, or other state agencies. She readily gives out her cell number and often texts with people throughout the day and night.
Ellis Lay, 76, began volunteering at the Back Door Café soon after she and her husband moved from Austin, Texas, last summer. Each Wednesday, she hands out mail.
“There’s a great need here,” she said. “I like to make myself useful.”
People most frequently receive mail from the state of Oregon, whether it’s from the Department of Human Services, a new piece of identification, or something perhaps less unsavory.
“Sometimes they really don’t want what they get,” she said. “Every once in a while there’s a personal letter that comes through.”
“I have seen a lot of pain in people’s faces,” Lay said of the café’s customers. “You can tell that they need help. That they’re scared or don’t know what to do.
“I have seen a lot of love shared (between) these people,” she continued. “They really cared about each other.”
The Back Door Café was started years ago by two members of Bend Church. With a background in nursing and social services, Witte has built the café up to the robust entity it is today.
Brynteson remembered once watching Witte interact with a person who had never come to the Back Door Café before, and she said what she always says when someone new comes in: “What is your name?” and “I’m so glad you’re here.”
“As soon as she said that, their whole face changed,” Brynteson said, realizing that someone cared about them.
And she knows everyone’s names.
“She always knows my name,” said Kate Bennett, a 61-year-old woman and Back Door Café customer who has dementia. “I don’t remember my name till noon sometimes. I mean, she is just on it.”
That morning, Witte had spotted Bennett outside of her office. “Kate!” she called. “I have something for you.” Witte hands her two crossword puzzle books.
Bennett does crossword puzzles, which she and her doctors believe help prevent her dementia from worsening. “You are the best!” Bennett exclaimed. “And in large print.”
“I’m not saying you’re old,” Witte joked. “I know you love crossword puzzles.”
As soon as she was done speaking with Bennett, another person was seeking Witte’s attention; there is hardly ever any let-up.
“Are you feeling OK?” Witte asked a woman, who was pregnant. “Is the baby moving around a lot? Just lie down and relax.” She turned to a man, asked if he signed up for a bus pass. A woman walked in. Witte did not mind that she was late for an appointment with her; she never seems to.
“How are you?” she asked. “You’re never too late! You’re early today.”
Then a man, who had never been to the Back Door Café before and had never met Witte, walked up to her.
“I was told you guys can help with identification,” the man said.
“Yes,” Witte replied. “Tell me, do you have a birth certificate?”
“Yes,” the man said. “But it’s not on me. It’s in my storage unit. It’s got a red lock on it.”
“Oh, I hate when that happens,” Witte said. She explains that to have state-issued identification in Oregon, a person must supply their birth certificate.
“I’m trying to get a job to get (the lock) off,” the man said. He said he had just gotten out of jail, that the lock had been put on while he was incarcerated.
“I wish they’d let you get your papers out of there and just put it back on. You know what I mean?” Witte said. “How do you get a job without your ID?”
She paused for a moment. “OK, let’s think about this.”
She asked if his current ID was expired. It was not, he told her. Then she asked if he had a phone. He didn't. She told him to borrow one to call the DMV to ask if he could get a replacement ID and how much it would cost. “What I might do is meet you there tomorrow and we can walk up, pay for it, and get it for you.” After he made the phone call, she told him, “Come find me.”
The man’s next words were unexpected: He introduced himself. As he said his name, he sounded relieved, more relaxed, confident.
“Thank you so much,” he said.
“One way or another, we’ll figure something out,” Witte said.
As soon as she finished speaking with him, she turned to another man, who said he needs help buying gas. Witte routes him to Compassionate Care.
Another man told Witte he lost his library card and the replacement fee was 50 cents. “Oh, we can solve that,” Witte said.
“All I need is 50 cents,” the man said.
“I can get you 50 cents,” Witte assured him.
◆◆◆
WITTE, FROM HER EXPERIENCES with the people she has met and helped, has become one of the strongest advocates for low-barrier services in Central Oregon.
She said that many of the people who come to the café have active warrants out for their arrest and that there is a high degree of mental health challenges and substance abuse among Central Oregon’s homeless community.
That means that without low-barrier services, many of the region’s homeless people are unable to receive the range of services they need to end their homelessness. In the tri-county, Central Oregon region, there are an estimated 1,455 people experiencing homelessness, according to the Point-in-Time count conducted last year, but the true number is thought to be much higher.
In the case of camping, she said, “we have no safe places for people to camp. So people are camping on (Bureau of Land Management) land. There are messes, because how do you get your trash out? So we’re not setting up infrastructure for folks, and we really do need that. … There’s just a lot of things that we’re not looking at.”
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She attributes the reluctance to create low-barrier services to assumptions people make about the homeless community and the fear those assumptions generate.
“They’re always being judged,” she said. “People need to be treated with dignity and worth.”
Last winter, Witte spearheaded the creation of a low-barrier shelter at Bend Church for homeless women, their children and their pets during the winter. It was called the Back Door Women’s Shelter and provided shelter, at night, for up to 20 women. Since the shelter was low-barrier, the only requirement was that women not bring drugs to the shelter.
Witte had an agreement with Bend Cab to have taxi drivers pick up women escaping domestic violence situations and bring them to the shelter. An overnight manager was trained in de-escalation tactics, CPR, and basic first aid. Witte provided case management.
The women ate dinner together, were able to shower, and Witte made a lot of activities available to them; she brought in a yoga teacher. They had movie nights together. The women took a knitting class. “It was awesome,” Witte said.
The women slept in Bend Church’s gym. In the morning, they were given breakfast, then had to leave for the day.
The shelter was open for 3 1/2 months, closing once winter ended. In that time, the shelter served 92 homeless women and children. Only one person had to be banned for disruptive behavior.
Witte said the shelter’s existence made a demonstrable difference.
“Women were not having to sleep in storage units,” Witte said. “They weren’t having to trade a safe place to sleep for sex.”
The shelter did not reopen this previous winter. Bend Church needed the space for other uses. Throughout last summer, Witte approached dozens of churches throughout Bend. They also refused for various reasons: They could not have sex offenders on site because of preschools located at the church; there was not enough space for a shelter; the congregation felt uncomfortable at the thought of having a homeless shelter at the church.
She has not stopped working with churches and other organizations to find a new space for the shelter, which she hopes will open this winter. She is also trying to get a dental van, which would provide cleanings, X-rays and extractions, to come to Bend Church, as the Mosaic Medical van does. And, she’s working with churches, social service agencies, and local businesses to increase and stabilize the Back Door Café’s funding.
With all the work that she does, Witte is always reminding herself to maintain boundaries so she can maintain a personal life and not burn out.
“How do you love someone and also be able to hold boundaries?” she constantly asks herself.
She never wants to become immune to the pain of people’s homelessness.
“I don’t ever want to stop crying over someone’s pain," she said. "That means I’ve gotten too cold to it.”
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