A night at ‘The Light’
This story provides a candid look inside The Salvation Army Harbor Light Shelter, Minnesota’s largest homeless outreach facility.
The Salvation Army Harbor Light Shelter in downtown Minneapolis houses up to 500 people every night.
That’s the easy way of saying it. In reality, providing shelter to hundreds of people experiencing homelessness is much more difficult. Some have mental health issues. Others are drug addicts, or alcoholics, or both. Some are veterans dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder.
Still others are stable, everyday people who can’t catch a break. People like John, 52, who’s been staying at Harbor Light for over a year. He can’t find work because employers balk at his physical limitations.
“I can’t keep my arms above my head, and my knee pops all the time,” explains John, who has worked as an electrician, handyman and horse handler, among other occupations. He had a solid work history until 2003, when he fell off a 37-foot roof and shattered his body. His aorta ruptured, forcing doctors to give him an artificial heart.
Although the heart inside his chest is manufactured, the one in his soul remains intact.
“I’m a survivor,” says John, who is working with Harbor Light social workers to obtain social security disability benefits. “I’m still here today. I haven’t laid down.”
John is one of 130 men who sleeps inside Harbor Light’s bunkhouse emergency shelter on the main floor. Another 300-plus men and women are housed in a mix of emergency, transitional and permanent housing on floors two through five of the six-story facility.
Every floor of Harbor Light is filled to capacity almost every day of the year.
“I’ve been here nine years, and every year I’ve seen an increase in the amount of people coming through here,” affirms Michelle Bradley, Harbor Light housing manager.
Here is an unvarnished look at what life is like inside Harbor Light’s main floor on any given night.
6 p.m. – A night at ‘The Light’ begins
It’s a Thursday in March 2015. Harbor Light is bustling, inside and out. Dozens, if not hundreds, of people are arriving for a free dinner. About half of them have been working all day. The rest have been doing any number of things, from walking the streets, to reading at the library, to job searching.
Tremayne Williams (pictured) is staffing the front desk. It takes him 45 minutes to carve out five minutes of interview time. He’s that busy. The phone is ringing constantly. A never-ending line of people are waiting to talk to him.
Williams enjoys the fast pace because he’s a high-energy kind of guy.
“We’re here to shake, rattle and roll,” says Williams, 38, who began working at Harbor Light a year ago. “You’ve got to have compassion to do this job. You’ve got to want to help people. You never look down on someone unless you’re trying to find a way to help them up.”
For the next half-hour, this is Williams’ life:
- A homeless man requests a shower. Williams gives him a towel and unlocks a shower room near the front desk.
- A middle-aged Hispanic man introduces Williams to a young Hispanic man who cannot speak English. It appears that the men met at the bus station a block away. The older man is acting as an interpreter, telling Williams that the young man was just released from jail and needs to stay the night. “We’ll take care of him,” Williams replies. “Can we get him something to eat?”
- A young woman approaches Williams and begins singing a hymn. Williams recognizes the song and belts out the lyrics with her: “Victory is mine, victory is mine, victory today is mine! I told Satan to get thee behind, victory today is mine!”
- A disgruntled man in his 50s tells Williams that two kids sucker-punched him across the street and ran away. Williams asks the man if he needs medical attention and whether police should be alerted. The man says no.
- Williams scans Harbor Light’s security monitor, which includes images from more than a dozen cameras. He uses a joystick to zero in on a cluster of people in the chapel. “Sometimes I catch people making a transaction,” he says. “Whenever I bust people, I get them out of here. They’re not going to disrespect this church. We don’t play that.”
As people walk past Williams and line up for dinner, others form a smaller line to Harbor Light’s free acupuncture clinic. Although acupuncture is not offered on this night, two medical students from the University of Minnesota are using the space to provide free blood pressure checks. Other nights, U of M dental students offer free oral screenings.
Kristin Showen, a pharmacy administration resident from Hennepin County Medical Center, is supervising. When patients are found to have high blood pressure, she reviews their current medications or points them to doctors.
“The nice thing about this population is if they’re taking medications, they usually have their meds with them for me to look at,” says Showen, adding that those who receive six blood pressure checks get a free $10 bus pass.
Another line has formed. Dozens of ladies are waiting to head upstairs to the third floor, known as “Sally’s Place” (pictured). It includes emergency, transitional and medical housing for up to 172 women.
Two of the women get into a loud verbal altercation. A Harbor Light staffer breaks it up.
“People don’t know what they’re mad at,” Williams later says. “They’re really mad at themselves, but they think it’s everybody else’s fault that they’re in here. You just try to walk them through it. We’re here to help, not to judge or dictate. My main thing is you treat people how you want to be treated.”
8 p.m.
The bunkhouse opens. A crowd of men line up in Harbor Light’s main entryway, where security officer Karl Jefferson (pictured) searches their bags for weapons, drugs, alcohol, and other contraband.
“I’m going on two hours of sleep right now,” says an enthusiastic Jefferson, who works 7:30 p.m. to 7:30 a.m. three nights a week, plus one four-hour shift. Sleep deprivation doesn’t bother him. If it did, he would have quit working at Harbor Light soon after he started four years ago.
Jefferson can relate to the men he serves because he used to be one of them.
“I was homeless, with a drinking problem,” he says. “I bounced from couch to couch. I always knew about (Harbor Light) but was scared to come in here. My pride got in the way.”
Like most others at Harbor Light, Jefferson reached a point where he had absolutely no place left to go.
“The Salvation Army helped get me through,” he says. “They gave me a chance, more than once.”
After security, the men pass through a narrow hallway that leads to the bunkhouse. Awaiting them are bunkhouse supervisors John Allen and Shanay Steward (pictured), sitting at a desk. Like Jefferson, both will be working until 7:30 a.m.
The bunkhouse is a large open room the size of small gymnasium, with 65 bunk beds. Attached is an office where two Hennepin County social workers stay until 1 a.m. offering services and referrals.
The men walk in, provide their names and – if they so choose – grab a free toothbrush and toothpaste. Allen and Steward check the men’s names against a list. If a man is new, his name is added. Every man on the list is recorded into a system that gives The Salvation Army information about what types of services they might need to break out of homelessness. In the past year, Harbor Light social workers have moved more than 200 people into permanent housing.
Allen has been working in the bunkhouse since November 2012. “I like the people here,” he says. “I like making the guys feel good, giving them stuff they don’t have – food, shoes, shaving cream. I’m glad I can do that.”
One of those people is Harold Godbolt (pictured). The 48-year-old moved to Minnesota from Pennsylvania just under a year ago and began working at a fast-food restaurant. He lost the job, and has been staying in the bunkhouse for the past two months. He’d been living in a house with roommates until he could no longer afford rent.
Godbolt has worked all his life and has never been homeless.
“It’s very sobering being on your own,” says Godbolt, who spends every day looking for a job. “I can’t stand being without work – it’s getting to me. My résumé is excellent. But once I tell (employers) I’m homeless, their nose turns up. They say they will call, but they never call.”
Godbolt is thankful for The Salvation Army.
“It’s not the Hilton, but I’m safe, I have a warm place to sleep, and I’m fed – I have no complaints at all,” he says. “I’m here to make it. I’m not going to run just because I’m falling on hard times. I’m going to suck it up. Do what I have to do.”
10 p.m.
The bunkhouse is closed to newcomers and is filled to capacity.
At this time of night, the bunkhouse is quieter than one might expect. A third or more of the guests are curled up and trying to sleep. Everyone else is waiting for a shower, or talking with their peers, or eating from an unlimited supply of free sandwiches provided by Allan Law, a philanthropist made famous by the 2014 film, “The Starfish Throwers.”
On the far side of the room, a shelter guest breaks the relative quiet by shouting that somebody near him is a “Fat (expletive)!”
“Hey, watch your mouth!” roars Steward, a small woman who isn’t a bit intimidated. She started working at Harbor Light four months ago.
“OK!” the voice replies.
A man approaches Allen and Steward and says he wants to change beds because “the guy next to me is spilling his sandwich on the ground, talking to himself, talking about killing people.”
Allen gets up to check it out. If the man in question poses a threat, Allen will remove him or pass him along to the appropriate law enforcement or medical authorities – a daily occurrence at Harbor Light, which averages three ambulance visits per day.
Thankfully, the number of ambulance visits has begun to drop. A community paramedic has been put on duty at Harbor Light five days a week from 2 p.m. to 1 a.m., thanks to grant and partnership with Hennepin County and HCMC.
For the next eight hours, Allen and Steward will spend all night making rounds, cleaning, talking to shelter guests, and waking people up who have to get to work extra early.
The hardest part of their job?
“Having to clean up somebody’s number two,” Allen says.
Second worst?
“Dealing with the foot smell,” he continues. “Once everybody is in bed, they take off their shoes. The worst is when it rains outside and people’s feet get wet.”
6 a.m.
Rise and shine. Allen and Steward yell for everybody in the bunkhouse to wake up and begin the new day. As the men file out, Allen and Steward start cleaning the bathrooms, floors, and 130 bunk mats as fast as they can. Both have several children, and must get home in time to send them off to school.
Breakfast is waiting for the men in Harbor Light’s main entryway, thanks to a volunteer group from Grace Fellowship Church in Brooklyn Park. Since 2008, the volunteers have been showing up at Harbor Light at 4:30 a.m. to cook oatmeal and grits, seven days a week.
The men are “going through some really tough times, but their faith is so strong,” says Dave Simpson (pictured), who founded the volunteer group. “They’re teaching me every day how to keep the faith and keep believing.”
After breakfast, the men make their way back out into the world.
At 7:30 a.m., a fresh batch of staff and volunteers enter Harbor Light to serve the 300 men and women on floors two through five, providing hot meals, counseling, rehabilitation services, spiritual outreach, and more.
Harbor Light has been doing everything you just read, 365 days a year, since 1928.
Where rubber meets road
When Jesus talked about serving the “least of these” in Matthew 25, He was in part talking about the types of people who live at Harbor Light.
These people have absolutely nothing, be it material possessions, self-esteem, life-skills, good health, or hope. Without help, they will continue to have nothing.
“As servants of Jesus Christ, it is our duty to help change that,” said Major Jeff Strickler, Twin Cities Salvation Army commander and interim Harbor Light director. “Serving the men and women of Harbor Light can be dirty, difficult, thankless work. But it is work that we are honored to do. We love every person who comes through our doors. Each person has infinite value and potential.”
Thank you, volunteers and donors, for helping The Salvation Army demonstrate this love to the people who need it most.