No place like home
Alcoholism a common malady of homelessnessHomeless veteran Bill Ward tells stories over coffee and cigarettes on the back porch of Care 66 France House Monday, November 10. — © 2008 Gallup Independent / Cable HooverBill Ward stands at the counter of Self Serve Laundry on Boardman Ave. Tuesday, November 18. Ward frequently spends his mornings in the laundromat where he gets free coffee. — © 2008 Gallup Independent / Cable Hoover

Copyright © 2008
Gallup Independent
By Phil Stake
Staff writer

GALLUP — The Frances House is a transitional shelter. Its purpose is to give footing to men who have recently stumbled over an addiction, or been knocked down by some other of life’s circumstances and are ready to give it another go. Men accepted to the shelter receive job placement from Buck Largo, Care 66’s Handy Man Services and Employment Specialist. They receive help navigating the paperwork of public assistance by one of two part-time case managers. They eat two meals a day from magician/cook April Mazone. And, of course, each resident gets a bed.

The building is sectioned into dormitories, communal rooms such as living rooms, dining rooms, bathrooms, and storage. At any given time there may be seven men sprawled across the living room watching “Prison Break,” four men in the dining room reading the paper and five men on the back porch smoking cigarettes and spinning yarns.

Everyone has a different schedule. Some have jobs to wake up to in the morning; others are looking.
Kenny Grissom hopes that getting a car will help him in his search; most employers expect dependable transportation. Kenny volunteered to guide me through two days of being homeless. He’s been a resident for 15 months and hopes to get his own place soon. He’s waiting for an opening at Cliffside low-income apartments on Dani Drive.

“When I got on the list 15 months ago I was number 140,” Kenny said. “Now I’m down to 30.”

Kenny’s first experience without a home came about in 2001, when a disagreement with his mother forced him out of her house in Grants. He made it to Albuquerque, where he got a job washing dishes. Tips bought him a cheap motel room three nights a week. The other nights he slept at shelters.

He stayed in Albuquerque three months, then packed two bags and put them on a Greyhound bus bound for Tuscaloosa. Kenny spent most of his first 12 years in Alabama; his family on his father’s side still lives there.

They helped him get a job on a coal barge, which, as Kenny is quick to boast, paid better than any of his previous jobs.

“I made $11.15 an hour,” he said.

The crew worked 21 days on and 11 days off. Kenny said he had an apartment and furniture, but lost it all when the rope holding the barge fast against the mooring unfurled one day and whipped his arms. Kenny was injured and couldn’t work to pay bills. He came back to Grants in early 2002, but his mother had taken a vacation. When nobody answered the door, he spent five days sleeping under a railroad bridge.

“It would wake me up,” Kenny said. “I didn’t really feel safe nowhere else ... man if people see you sleeping they can come steal your wallet or something.”

When his mother came back she let him stay a year.

During that time, Kenny applied for and received Social Security Disability Insurance and was diagnosed with depression. He moved into his own apartment in Milan and bought a bed and a table and chairs. Kenny said he was reluctant to look for work because his SSDI benefit is cut short if he works full time.

“I would walk a lot, exercise,” Kenny said. “ ... started drinking ... that’s where the problem started.”

Kenny succumbed to the habit for three years, between ages 25 and 28, before he decided to end it. In 2005, he moved to Path Of Renewal, a half-way house in Gamerco.

He started counseling sessions and stopped drinking.

“I had days and days and months under my belt,” he said.
Kenny got two part-time jobs, one working the register at McDonalds and one as a night clerk at America’s Best Value Inn and Suites. He moved into a three-quarter house, where restrictions like curfew are kept in place, except more lax. Eventually Kenny quit the job at McDonalds and was fired from the job as a night clerk. He lost one job because it made him gain weight and the other because his car broke down. Kenny moved from the three-quarter house to Care 66.

Other residents have had bouts with alcohol. Ross, a veteran, is 64 and recently left his home of 10 years in Rio Rancho and moved to Care 66. He’s there to maintain sobriety until there’s a vacancy in an addictions-rehab program at the Veterans Administration in Albuquerque.

“I used to get up about 6:30 a.m., have breakfast, fiddle in the yard and be at the VFW by 11:30 a.m.,” Ross said. “I’d leave about 6:30 p.m. Every day for 10 years.”

One night a week, Fred Carmack drives from Albuquerque to teach a relapse intervention class at the VA in Gallup.

Ross is a member of the class and invited me to observe.

“This is the inside of the inside,” he said.

Tomorrow: Inside a counseling session.

Thursday
November 20, 2008
Selected Stories:

It's open:
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No place like home:
Alcoholism a common malady of homelessness

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Elementary school pupil brings pellet gun to school

Former Gallup mayor, author to sign book

Deaths

Area in Brief

Native American
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