When Raven & Her Flock were in Hell

 It hurts me to admit that my family was in a homeless shelter, aka Hell, from July 17, 2017 to November 1, 2018, but there we were due to some unscrupulous slumlord whom I will never forgive. But that's a different story.

At the time we were in the shelter it was owned by a woman that I'll call Bev. It has since changed ownership and has hopefully improved. Bev had to sell the place because she and one of her employees were both embezzling and Bev couldn't pay a sewer bill that had risen to over $20,000. Bev had 2 employees who worked at the shelter during the day, throughout the week. One was the aforementioned embezzler. The other one was apparently cooking the books as well. But I digress. There was also staff chosen from among the residents. Some of these staff members left something to be desired, but that's just my own personal opinion of them.

When we got to the shelter we went through an intake process, which was to be expected. Then we were separated. For safety reasons the men slept on a different floor than the women and children, unless the man in question was a single father. So I had to be seperated from my husband and son. Queue panic/anxiety. Nor were the men allowed to just hang out on the ladies' floor. They could come up briefly if there was a good reason and they could come up during "family time", which was a joke. During family time my husband and son could come up and hang out with me in the TV room. The problem with that was that there was no place to sit. The same old gossipy women who always sat on the sofas and chairs watching TV never gave up their precious spots to allow families to sit together. Like I said, it was Hell for me. Luckily my family and I always left during the day, usually going to the library. So I had plenty of time to spend with them. Unless there was raining or other really bad weather. That always sucked.

There were other rules to be followed, unenforced rules and there were selectively enforced rules. I had to get a note from my cardiologist to say that I needed to use the handicapped bathroom and shower. Seriously! The staff had their own rules to follow as well. The main one that bothered so many people was that the staff were not allowed to say anything to misbehaving children. To Bev the children were everything. Nevermind the fact that their mothers weren't supervising or disciplining them either. The children knew that they could do whatever they wanted. I, for one, was not pleased.

Perhaps I should state here that I have never been good with children. I get anxiety attacks around them. Couple that with the fact that I am an only child. I was raised in a very quiet household. And my family now are quiet people, mostly. We keep to ourselves. 

Back to the unruly children... OMG some of them were beyond just being bad. Only little boy in particular was vehemently disliked by the other residents. "Brat" is the understatement of the century. He refused to do as his mother said, so every day and every night we heard her yelling at him over and over and over. This got on everyone's nerves, not just mine. Other children were bad, but not quite as bad. Some were very rude. The real problem concerning most of these children was their mothers. Some just didn't care. They didn't properly supervise them. Rarely disciplined them. They just let the children do whatever they wanted.

Granted, there were a few very good children but most of those were toddlers and babies.

Besides these children there were people who needed to be on medication. Some needed help badly. There were people fresh out of jail, alcoholics and drug addicts. Add in the fact that the place was infested with bedbugs and that lice went around the place 2 or 3 times while we were there. It wasn't a good place to be. 

And don't even get my started on the food!!! We had very very few good cooks. But most of the time that was not the case. The food was bad. Oatmeal that could double as wallpaper paste. Food that was over-seasoned, food that was under-seasoned, food that was undercooked... I'm sure you get the idea.

My husband is an excellent cook and they did get him in the kitchen a few times when there was no one else to cook. They wanted him in there all the time but he told them no. With my health issues I was his priority. He couldn't be in the kitchen if, for example, I had to go to the hospital. (Which, by the way, I did several times while we were there.)

I talked to a therapist about this time in the shelter. I was traumatized, literally. I was used to quiet, I wasn't used to large groups of people (sometimes upward of 100 there) and I most certainly not used to the children. Plus just being homeless is traumatic enough as it is. I can promise you that there are certain people that I never ever want to see or hear again. I would like to forget that I ever met them. Some of these people just filled me with such negative emotions that I'm just now recovering.