CARE 66: 'A safe place to live and regroup and think'

Care 66 acting program director Tim Kelley, left, places diced potatoes into a pot while preparing Thanksgiving dinner with Lazaro Diaz on Thursday at the facility's kitchen. [Photo by Jeff Jones/Independent]

By Elizabeth Hardin-Burrola
Staff Writer

GALLUP — So just how low did the temperature drop last night?

If you don't know or you only learned it from a weather report, Tim Kelley says, you're like most of us and you slept in a warm bed last night.

However, for the men and women who live on Gallup's streets, says Kelley, the nightly temperature is a huge factor in their lives and something they talk about daily at this time of year.

Kelley is the acting program director at CARE 66, the nonprofit homeless shelter for men that is celebrating its first year of operation in Gallup. In an interview on Monday, Kelley talked about the men who seek out CARE 66's shelter services.

"So many of them have lived life experiences that you and I can talk about but haven't experienced," he said.

Although the majority of men who have stayed at CARE 66 over the last year have some sort of addiction problem usually to alcohol or drugs or sometimes gambling, others are just men down on their luck, men who need a short break from family problems, or even college students needing temporary housing.

Safety and security
As of Monday, 11 men were currently living at CARE 66. The longest current resident has been living at the shelter since March, Kelley said, and some of the newer residents have been there only a few days. One of the current residents with the most time at CARE 66, he added, left the shelter earlier in the year to serve a jail sentence and has since returned.

According to Kelley, the primary dorm holds 15 men in a large, open room lined with cot-like single beds. The dorm features no privacy, no closet space, and very little room for personal possessions. A second dorm room, which features a room divider separating four beds, is available for residents who have successfully lived in the shelter's first dorm for long period of time. A third dorm room is for employees of CARE 66 who live at the shelter. Two employees currently live there.

Some men come in and spend a night at the shelter and decide they don't want to abide by CARE 66 rules, explained Kelley, while others stay for just a brief time because they need some time to rethink domestic disputes with spouses or parents. Other men stay for a couple of weeks and are soon able to get on their feet and move on with their lives.

CARE 66 has also housed a few UNM-Gallup students who needed temporary shelter, Kelley added. They lived at CARE 66, he explained, because they didn't have transportation to commute to UNM-Gallup from their out-of-town homes, and it took them a little while to find affordable housing in Gallup.

"The two big things we provide are safety and security," said Kelley. Creating a "safe place to live and regroup and think" provides the opportunity for residents to "make the decisions they need make to move forward," he explained.

"That's what we try to provide," he added, "the opportunity for the break to come."

CARE 66 requires all residents to be clean and sober while at the shelter. The ideal is for residents to live 100 percent clean and sober lives, but Kelley admits the reality is that some residents still choose to drink or use drugs away from the shelter. When that happens, he said, many of them will willingly spend the night at NCI rather than return to CARE 66; however, he added, when residents do show up intoxicated or high, CARE 66 staff members require Breathalyzer or urine tests.

Drinking or drug use can't be a regular pattern with residents, explained Kelley. If residents are losing their sobriety on paydays, he said, they need to rethink the choices they are making or move out of the shelter.

"Like any other place, we have our share of lapses and relapses," said Kelley. "When that happens, we have to ask people to leave."

Three main challenges
Kelley believes most residents face three main challenges as they try to put their lives back together. The first challenge, he said, is obtaining decent employment.

As a way to help their residents earn money until they obtain permanent employment, the shelter has started a CARE 66 Handyman Service. Residents are available, said Kelley, to do yard work, small paint jobs or move furniture. Individuals or businesses looking to hire a resident should call the CARE 66 office and talk with the Handyman Service supervisor.

The second is breaking the cycle of alcoholism, friendship, and family that keeps residents drinking. "You have to break the ties that bind," Kelley said. Residents with substance abuse problems, like all people with addictions, have to learn how to stay away from the people who encourage their destructive behavior.

The third is self-esteem. Living on the streets takes a toll on an individual's self-esteem, he said. Kelley believes the rest of us usually try to ignore the homeless people we encounter, avoid eye contact with them, and even cross streets to stay away from them. That reality, he said, is not lost on homeless people and is not easy to overcome psychologically, even while living in a safe shelter like CARE 66.

In light of CARE 66's first anniversary, Kelley was asked how he believes the shelter has helped Gallup. "I think the greatest gift CARE 66 has given Gallup," he replied, "are the 11 guys that are living here now." With those men living at CARE 66, he explained, they are not at risk for dying hypothermic deaths on the streets of Gallup.

"I think the program is a benefit to Gallup in that Gallup can be known for taking care of its homeless problem and not for ignoring it," he added.

"We're a year old," Kelley concluded. "If you think of that in people terms, were standing up and we're holding on to take steps, but were stepping."

CARE 66 is located at 2407 E. Boyd #11, which is a block east of both the Gallup Police Department and NCI. For more information on CARE 66, contact Tim Kelley or Executive Director Sanjay Choudhrie at (505) 722-0066.