The Beginning

Over the next couple of months I will be writing a lot more about the different shelters. I will be sharing my experiences of living at the various shelters. These shelters are Alpha House, The Mustard Seed, The Salvation Army and of course The Drop Inn Center.

To begin, would like to take you back to the late 1980's and early 1990's.

Back in the late 80's I used to be a frequent visitor at the Drop Inn Center. At the time the Drop Inn was just that. It was a place to come and socialize, play cards, use their laundry facilities and occasionally I would try to find day labor work through the labor office. Not to mention , I would also check out some of the clothing they had to offer. At that time the Drop Inn was just a warehouse, which to this day is is still used by the Drop Inn, mostly as their clothing store and as well as storage.

At the time I actually had my own 1 bedroom apartment that was all inclusive for only $450 per month.

The Drop Inn at that time was set up with about 30 tables for visitors to play cards and to have lunch and socialize. I would generally go to the Drop Inn at the time to meet friends, also for support and I found the staff very friendly back then compared to the new Drop Inn where I find the staff are not as personable as they could be. I think it is because of the enormous amount of people that actually frequent the Drop Inn nowadays.

In the late 80's early 90's, the only real addiction or substance abuse was alcohol and the occasional weed smoker.Back then there was not a very big demand for crack cocaine, that would come later on in time and in my opinion was one of the biggest contributors to people becoming homeless as well as the cost of housing rising dramatically.

Back then the Drop Inn usually housed between 20-50 people per night compared to the 1000 people that use the Drop Inn as a place to stay today.It was actually the Salvation Army Booth Center that housed the homeless for the most part in that day and age.

The Booth Center at that time was set up differently then it is today and I will talk about that in a later blog. Back then they actually had the TV room down in the basement where people could socialize and also read or play cards.

Back then The Mustard Seed was not well heard of and it would eventually become a very popular shelter to stay at and I will also discuss more about this shelter in a later blog.

Quick Note;

I will also be continuing with my updates of what is going on in my life and I encourage you to continue to check for blogs on a regular basis. That is all I have to say for now and I do look forward to my pursuit in life.

Thanks for reading,
Filled with HOPE
Tim Barber