Homes for the Homeless
It's hard to believe another week has already gone by. Not too much has been going on to write about though, hence, you don't see me writing here everyday.
On Friday, my wife and I were able to go to a nice lunch and then headed out to Gilgal gardens in Salt Lake. It is a lot prettier when they can get the gardens there, and it is very small. There are some interesting carvings there to look around at. It's free, and we'll have to go back with our kids on another day in the Spring.
On Saturday, my wife and daughter went to Aunt Gladys' home to meet Randy's new wife. My son and I went to a couple of used computer stores to see if he could trade his memory sticks. None of them wanted that from him, so we ended up getting a couple of digital to analog converters for our TV sets. It was a lot of running around for not much. A few days before that we had run around to find some tan pants for our son to wear with a uniform for the Technical school he is at. It was some good times being with my son doing this stuff with him. I think he enjoyed it a little bit too. Our daughter stayed with Pam and Anne for the night, and our son was jealous, partly because our daughter would miss church because of this and he couldn't.
Sunday was the regular church meetings. We did leave from Sacrament meeting after taking the sacrament so we could meet up with the rest of the family because Allen and Libby were in town along with Casey who came to see his twin brother Zach. Of course Casey and Zach didn't show up at all, so we went to a dinner at Ruby River. It was more money than I really wanted to spend, but we did it anyway. It was nice having a visit with Allen and Libby. We talked about all of the years that they have spent being parents of children. I mean, raising your family and then having to raise your grand kids can't have been easy for them.
Monday, I went over to the tech school of my son to see what was going on. I got there near the end (he had been doing it from 7:00 AM until 7:00 PM. I stayed around for the award ceremony. He didn't get one of the awards, but he has informed me that he was in 5th place for his CAD design on a ceiling fan (they gave them what they were to do there and then gave them 4 hours to design it). I am so proud of what he has accomplished in this school.
Today was a busy day for me. It started out not too busy at work, but then at 3:00 I had to head out with Paul to our DR (Disaster Recovery) site. We were to go there to test our processes to see that they would all work if we had a disaster. We had called and they said they were ready for us, but they really weren't. We weren't able to get to the intranet that we needed to be too in order to run our reports. I wasn't able to run my jobs because there were some LDAP problems. We were able to fix those so I could run my jobs, and then we were able to run loss-runs, but all other reports we weren't able to run. I usually leave the office around 4:00, but with this, I left at around 5:00. I took Paul to the TRAX station and then headed home. It took me a full hour to get home. This is why I hate leaving during rush hour.
As I was almost home, I saw my kids walking over to the church for the Young Men/ Young Women activity. I hurried home, said hi to my wife and left for the church. I piled into Brother Beans car to go to the food bank. The roads were still pretty busy, but we got there in pretty good time. At the food bank we grabbed 20 boxes of goods (along with some bags) and then took them to an apartment complex. Once at these apartments, we went in and knocked on the various doors that we had assigned to us to hand them the food. They all got one box of canned goods, one grocery bag of refrigerated items, one grocery bag of frozen items and some apples and oranges. There was also a half gallon of milk each and one bottle of laundry detergent. I went with a group that had three doors to knock on. Two of those weren't in. The third door we had pulled the knocker down (it was pointing upward) and knocked. The lady was a little bit irritated with us until she saw that we had food. She seemed so grateful and happy for this food, and said she would forgive us for using the knocker on the door. They all said, "God bless" and we left.
After delivering the food we were given a tour of the place. These apartments had been open for about a year. In order to live here one has to have been homeless for at least 365 days first. They also need to have a disability. Disabilities include mental, physical and substance abuse. They need to pay at least $25 a month to be there, and if they are out working 1/3 of their paycheck goes to the place, but they can't be making more than just over $600 (I don't remember the exact figure but it was in the 600's). Anyway, we were taken upstairs to a library. Of course there are books in this library and a computer. They can get on the Internet in their and some of them had found their families with the use of the computer. The books they can take if they want (there isn't a checkout of the books). Some people come in and replace more books periodically to keep the library full. We were told about the courtyard outside with barbecue grills so they can socialize since most of these people aren't used to normal socializing behaviors. They also had an exercise room with about 5 treadmills, and a game room that had a couple of billiards tables and air hockey tables. The rooms themselves were quite simple. We went into an empty one. It had a kitchen area and then the living area. It is just a studio apartment. There is a single bed in there and a little bit of furniture. Of course they also have their own bathroom area. It is small, but I'm sure for somebody who has been on the street it was quite nice. They can stay there as long as they like. It was interesting to see how some of these people live. I asked a couple of questions because I can see this as something similar to what we may have to do with my sister-in-law. Of course, she hasn't been homeless for a year and that would disqualify her right there.
Well, that's the week in summary.
On Friday, my wife and I were able to go to a nice lunch and then headed out to Gilgal gardens in Salt Lake. It is a lot prettier when they can get the gardens there, and it is very small. There are some interesting carvings there to look around at. It's free, and we'll have to go back with our kids on another day in the Spring.
On Saturday, my wife and daughter went to Aunt Gladys' home to meet Randy's new wife. My son and I went to a couple of used computer stores to see if he could trade his memory sticks. None of them wanted that from him, so we ended up getting a couple of digital to analog converters for our TV sets. It was a lot of running around for not much. A few days before that we had run around to find some tan pants for our son to wear with a uniform for the Technical school he is at. It was some good times being with my son doing this stuff with him. I think he enjoyed it a little bit too. Our daughter stayed with Pam and Anne for the night, and our son was jealous, partly because our daughter would miss church because of this and he couldn't.
Sunday was the regular church meetings. We did leave from Sacrament meeting after taking the sacrament so we could meet up with the rest of the family because Allen and Libby were in town along with Casey who came to see his twin brother Zach. Of course Casey and Zach didn't show up at all, so we went to a dinner at Ruby River. It was more money than I really wanted to spend, but we did it anyway. It was nice having a visit with Allen and Libby. We talked about all of the years that they have spent being parents of children. I mean, raising your family and then having to raise your grand kids can't have been easy for them.
Monday, I went over to the tech school of my son to see what was going on. I got there near the end (he had been doing it from 7:00 AM until 7:00 PM. I stayed around for the award ceremony. He didn't get one of the awards, but he has informed me that he was in 5th place for his CAD design on a ceiling fan (they gave them what they were to do there and then gave them 4 hours to design it). I am so proud of what he has accomplished in this school.
Today was a busy day for me. It started out not too busy at work, but then at 3:00 I had to head out with Paul to our DR (Disaster Recovery) site. We were to go there to test our processes to see that they would all work if we had a disaster. We had called and they said they were ready for us, but they really weren't. We weren't able to get to the intranet that we needed to be too in order to run our reports. I wasn't able to run my jobs because there were some LDAP problems. We were able to fix those so I could run my jobs, and then we were able to run loss-runs, but all other reports we weren't able to run. I usually leave the office around 4:00, but with this, I left at around 5:00. I took Paul to the TRAX station and then headed home. It took me a full hour to get home. This is why I hate leaving during rush hour.
As I was almost home, I saw my kids walking over to the church for the Young Men/ Young Women activity. I hurried home, said hi to my wife and left for the church. I piled into Brother Beans car to go to the food bank. The roads were still pretty busy, but we got there in pretty good time. At the food bank we grabbed 20 boxes of goods (along with some bags) and then took them to an apartment complex. Once at these apartments, we went in and knocked on the various doors that we had assigned to us to hand them the food. They all got one box of canned goods, one grocery bag of refrigerated items, one grocery bag of frozen items and some apples and oranges. There was also a half gallon of milk each and one bottle of laundry detergent. I went with a group that had three doors to knock on. Two of those weren't in. The third door we had pulled the knocker down (it was pointing upward) and knocked. The lady was a little bit irritated with us until she saw that we had food. She seemed so grateful and happy for this food, and said she would forgive us for using the knocker on the door. They all said, "God bless" and we left.
After delivering the food we were given a tour of the place. These apartments had been open for about a year. In order to live here one has to have been homeless for at least 365 days first. They also need to have a disability. Disabilities include mental, physical and substance abuse. They need to pay at least $25 a month to be there, and if they are out working 1/3 of their paycheck goes to the place, but they can't be making more than just over $600 (I don't remember the exact figure but it was in the 600's). Anyway, we were taken upstairs to a library. Of course there are books in this library and a computer. They can get on the Internet in their and some of them had found their families with the use of the computer. The books they can take if they want (there isn't a checkout of the books). Some people come in and replace more books periodically to keep the library full. We were told about the courtyard outside with barbecue grills so they can socialize since most of these people aren't used to normal socializing behaviors. They also had an exercise room with about 5 treadmills, and a game room that had a couple of billiards tables and air hockey tables. The rooms themselves were quite simple. We went into an empty one. It had a kitchen area and then the living area. It is just a studio apartment. There is a single bed in there and a little bit of furniture. Of course they also have their own bathroom area. It is small, but I'm sure for somebody who has been on the street it was quite nice. They can stay there as long as they like. It was interesting to see how some of these people live. I asked a couple of questions because I can see this as something similar to what we may have to do with my sister-in-law. Of course, she hasn't been homeless for a year and that would disqualify her right there.
Well, that's the week in summary.
posted by Craig's Blog at 10:44 PM
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