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Seattle's first day care for homeless children has been helping families reclaim their lives for ten years.
Sometimes
life calls back with good news. In March of 1985 I was twenty-four years
old, living in Seattle, intent on finding work helping others. With a degree
in English literature and a resume extolling my physical skills (as a carpenter,
trail-builder, firefighter, and truck driver), I was not the sort of applicant
who inspired bidding wars among employers.
But I persisted, and one sunny afternoon I found myself in the dining room of Sacred Heart Shelter, a stone's throw from the Seattle Coliseum. Across the table sat an informal, straight-talking woman named Josephine Archuleta. She had informed me when she answered the door that the job I'd come to interview for was already filled -- the perfect candidate had been identified and an offer made. But she was happy to have me in for a chat.
So we chatted. The shelter, she told me, provided single women and families with clean beds, warm meals, and wise counsel for as long as three months while they tried to put their lives in order. Founded by a local church, it made no religious demands on its guests; it did insist that they spend their time there trying to "stabilize."
I had visited several shelters by then, and this was by far the most welcoming. The floors were carpeted, the bedrooms clean, the kitchen well-equipped. But Archuleta was quick to point out that things looked much cozier than they actually were. Especially for the children.
Homelessness puts an enormous strain on families, she said, and the children often bear the brunt. Frazzled parents need time to find work and housing; their kids need time to be kids. In fact, the main responsibility of the job I would not be hired to do was to set up a babysitting service, which would be staffed by the shelter's devoted volunteers.
I left inspired, but discouraged about my prospects. Then a few days later the phone rang. It was Archuleta. The perfect candidate had opted out. "I realize I hardly asked you any questions," she admitted sheepishly. We met again, and in an act of recklessness or charity she offered me the job.
I was thrilled, although the salary was not what one might call princely. This was a VISTA volunteer position, paying $405 a month. The idea behind VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America) is to provide community groups with idealistic workers willing to put a year's effort into getting something new off the ground. If a project doesn't work, it shouldn't sink the organization; if it does work, so much the better.
I jumped in with both feet, and it wasn't long before the volunteer babysitting service was transformed in all our minds into a full-fledged day-care program. The need was obvious. Homeless kids were desperate for security and attention, and homeless parents were desperate for a break. All we lacked was money, a suitable facility, professional staff, and the least bit of practical experience.
I made phone calls, gave presentations, and wrote grant proposals. And, miraculously, money started trickling in. We forged an alliance with a shelter run by the feisty Fremont Public Association, enlisting the help of a former Jesuit volunteer named Julie Dacey. Dacey was even younger than I was, but she at least had worked with kids. Together we found a place, had it renovated, hired teachers, begged equipment, secured a state license, and chose a name.
The budget was laughably low, but was a start. Two days before my VISTA term expired, then-Mayor Charles Royer stopped by to cut the ribbon and Our Place Daycare -- one of America's first licensed child-care programs for homeless children -- opened its doors.
That was 1986. I left the country in 1988 and gradually fell out of touch. In the back of my mind I feared that the day care center had died a quiet death, but I didn't really want to know.
Last year, with plans to spend a week in Seattle, I finally mustered the courage to call. Just hearing the recorded number from directory assistance was a huge relief. I dialed and stuttered my story to the woman who answered, and came away with an invitation to visit.
Our Place now occupies a bright-blue, two-bedroom house on a residential street in Seattle's Central District. When I arrived, a dozen kids were zooming around the front lawn, trying to squeeze a few more minutes of play before settling down to lunch and naps. A vegetable garden showed a few late tomatoes; tricycles and wagons littered the yard.
The day-care director, Terrie Yaffe, met me at the door and welcomed me in. "The kids love the house, but it's a tough place to work in," she said as she showed me around. "We really need something bigger, but we don't want it to feel institutional." The present facility feels anything but. The floors slope, the walls tilt, and the furniture has an unmistakably donated look.
We sat down among the clutter of desks in the daycare office, a converted sitting room shared by nine staff members. "Things have changed a lot since 1986," Yaffe said. "At the beginning, the main goal was to provide a break for the parents. But once we started spending time with the kids, we started to see what kind of impact homelessness was having on them. We've learned an awful lot about what these kids need."
It's a lot more than babysitting. Today Our Place (managed since 1989 by Catholic Community Services) provides meals, counseling, immunizations and health screening for children aged one to five staying in Seattle's homeless shelters or transitional housing programs. A van picks kids up at their shelters in the morning and drops them off in the afternoon. A multi-lingual staff offers the children everything from emotional support and help with basic skills to links with specialized services. Still Yaffe rues the fact that they can't do more.
On the day of my visit, one of the enrollees was a four-year-old boy with both cerebral palsy and asthma, neither of which had been properly treated. More than 40 percent of Our Place parents cite domestic violence as their main reason for being homeless. Yaffe estimates that 70 percent of the children suffer some sort of developmental delay when they first arrive. One in five can't speak English. "We always feel like we're racing against the clock," she said. "We don't know if a family is going to be here for two weeks or a year."
Most never make it there at all. Emergency-shelter operators in Seattle estimate that at least 500 children sleep in shelters or on the streets on any given night. Limited mainly by the size of its facility, Our Place can offer just eighteen slots. Kids are admitted on a first-come, first-served basis; once they're in they can stay until their families get back on their feet. It's a godsend for those who get in, but it doesn't do much for the hundreds who don't. As many as twenty names are on the waiting list each day, and the real need is many times greater than that.
But some things are looking up. Yaffe tells me how cities and organizations around the country are finally starting to appreciate the importance of services for homeless children. A few have called Our Place for advice on how to set up similar programs. At the urging of Yaffe and other advocates, the Seattle school district, public library, and parks department have all bent their rules, expanded their hours, or modified their facilities to accommodate children who are homeless. Neighbors and local businesses have pitched in with their donations and volunteer work, and city leaders have come to recognize day care as essential for homeless families eager to reclaim their lives.
After my visit I called Paul Mason, the father of two Our Place alumni. Mason, a spray painter, and his wife, Deborah, a nurse, are Michigan natives who came to Seattle in 1994 hoping to start a new life. "We had been here before, and we loved it," he told me. But neither could find jobs, and they and their four children quickly landed in an emergency shelter.
"We just ran out of money," he recalled. "We didn't realize how expensive it was. But now we've got a house, we've got a job, and we're doing good. And a lot of it is because of Our Place. Our Place has done so much for our family, I couldn't tell you in just one day."
I asked him to try. "They don't just look at the child," he said. "They look at the whole family. I used to come in with my daughters and I got to know the staff. And they saw something in me that I didn't see. They helped me fill out applications and hooked me up with services I never knew existed. They're the ones who helped me get on track."
Now Mason volunteers for the city of Seattle as an advocate for children and parents. "Never in a million years did I see this happening," Mason told me. "It's amazing what a year can do."
I can hardly disagree.
Reprinted with permission of Jon Miller and American Way magazine.
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