HOOKED ON HELPING THE HOMELESS

'SHELTER JUNKIES' DEVOTED TO THEIR VOLUNTEER WORK AT NEW ALEXANDRIA FACILITY

It's quarter to midnight and most of Carpenter's Shelter is dark. Its homeless residents are in bed, except for a few men smoking and chatting in a splash of fluorescence cast by the light at the front desk.

Tonight that desk is manned, as volunteer John Hartigan puts it, by "a bunch of Episcopalians." The three, who include Hartigan, his wife Farrell, and Frank Evans, have volunteered to work the shelter's "graveyard shift," which ends at 6 a.m.

Their task is to help the on-duty staff members. They hand out supplies and open the front door to latecomers fleeing the cold. If it's slow, they take turns napping on a couch in the back room. Often, they listen to whatever the sleepless residents want to talk about, which is usually themselves. Hartigan calls it his "Hill Street Blues" experience: "slices of life from a variety of characters."

Evans and the Hartigans are among the 700 volunteers who have rallied around Carpenter's Shelter, Northern Virginia's largest homeless residence, offering meals, manpower, solace, supplies and moral support to keep it going.

Few private endeavors in recent memory have drawn as much support and enthusiasm from the community, say many longtime Alexandrians. With homelessness at the forefront of many people's conscience, the shelter is a way for them to do their part to help. It has become such a focus of activity that one recently divorced woman turned up to volunteer because she had heard the shelter "was a good place to meet people," one official recalled with a laugh.

Most volunteers have come to the three-month-old shelter through their churches, which provide round-the-clock staffs of volunteers on a rotating basis. Others have simply showed up on the doorstep of the brick warehouse on Duke Street offering their expertise and time. While some donate a few hours every month or so, others have become what volunteer chief Don Elder calls "shelter junkies," appearing several times a week to pitch in.

Barry Witten turned up one snowy day with his tool box offering to help out, recalled shelter director Erna Steinbruck. Her running list of Witten's labors notes that the handyman, among other things, has "unstopped commode, spackled the wall in women's quarters, put together a bookcase and repaired front door lock."

Montessori teacher Marilyn Giovanetti drops by every day to give a class in "the Carpenter's Preschool," a walled-in section of the vast building stocked with books and equipment donated by another Montessori teacher, Kathy Shields.

And one day, Lewis Ingram, a man who loves to cook, carted in 50 pounds of beef stew, coleslaw, cinnamon apples and bread. When the residents remarked on the tastiness of the food, Lewis was brought from the kitchen and introduced. He got a round of applause.

But along with the satisfaction of helping out, working at the shelter also brings its toll of frustration, exasperation and depression, as many volunteers have discovered. Recently, representatives from the various churches gathered at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Alexandria to talk about this unplanned fallout hitting their shelter workers.

Some volunteers have said they feel like "a police force" as they administer the shelter's rules from the front desk. "There are people complaining that they're so busy getting towels or sheets they don't have any personal time" to talk with the residents, said one volunteer organizer.

Others were unprepared for the "lack of appreciation" from some shelter residents who, they say, can be downright rude or unexpectedly picky. "I had one ask me for a soft-bristle toothbrush rather than a hard-bristle," piped up another organizer.

"People are taking time from their lives in varying amounts to work at the shelter," Elder said later in an interview. "Common sense says you don't expect and you're not going to be thanked. But on the other hand, you don't expect to be beat on verbally and have people insult you and treat you in a demeaning way when all you're trying to do is help them.

"I have a couple of friends who've been bummed out by this," he said. "They realize the shelter is a good effort and they're willing to support it, short of being there. They can't personally deal with being there."

Elder says he warns volunteers not to expect "thanks in the conventional sense in the way you do from colleagues and peers." Homeless shelters "are not fun places. They're not on the list of tourist attractions. They are Band-Aids."

Director Steinbruck, a veteran of homeless shelters for more than a decade, notes there is often a vast culture gap between residents and volunteers. And some homeless people "are just not in touch enough to remember" to express gratitude, she said. "They're on another frequency."

In addition, she notes, the volunteers "mostly see the folks that are aggressive and the complainers. There are people back there who are quiet strugglers, who don't come to the front desk and who keep to themselves trying to survive."

Many volunteers leave the shelter deeply bothered on another level.

"I feel lousy when I leave there," said Ann Brunk. "I didn't think I would, but I do." An Alexandria mother of two who holds a part-time job, Brunk is typical of many volunteers at Carpenter's Shelter. She describes her life as "pretty cushy" and got involved with the facility through her church.

"You live around this area and see these million-dollar houses and . . . then you see these {homeless} people and it seems nobody in this country should have to live like that," Brunk said. "It's no place where you should have to live. Nobody. While there may be a few people who may take advantage of the situation, there are children and people who should be in more of a hospital-type setting.

"I just go away from there feeling terrible for those people. It's not something that makes me feel happy to go there. It sticks with me for days after I've been there. It's disturbing that that situation even has to exist for people who by-and-large are good people."

Brunk said she got involved at the shelter because "I think the private sector, and in particular the churches, have to pick up the slack where the government services aren't providing for these people . . . . I feel like it's my responsibility, I guess."

Frank Evans, who has worked Carpenter's graveyard shift four times so far, said he volunteers because he has realized that not a whole lot separates him from some of the shelter's residents. "I earn a minimum salary for this area," said the technical editor. "I get $15,000 a year and a rent subsidy from Arlington County. So you realize you can be homeless. I can appreciate the fact that some of these people have just gone beyond that stage."

For others, volunteering at the shelter is an extension of their regular job. Keary Kincannon is a graduate of Wesley Theological Seminary in the District and works with low-income families on housing issues. The community's involvement with Carpenter's Shelter is having repercussions back in their congregations, he said.

"People are beginning to question why people become homeless," Kincannon said. "I think people are beginning to realize it could be anybody out there and that . . . their own children are not going to be able to live in the neighborhoods they grew up in."

For volunteer Alex Lathers, working at the shelter brought this home. "I come from a small town in Pennsylvania that has people who probably have no better education and skills levels than these people {at the shelter} and they have their own homes," the civilian employee with the Navy told his fellow workers during their meeting at St. Paul's.

"What's wrong with the system? That's what's troubling to me," he said.

"The impression you get initially is that {the residents} are all like Mitch Snyder's street people, and that's not so," he said later. "There are people going off at 5 in the morning to work and they just don't have a place to call home. Temporary shelter for winter is not enough. These people need housing. They deserve that if they're part of this country."

Articles appear as they were originally printed in The Washington Post and may not include subsequent corrections.