Hot News!
• Tea Party leader gets grilled by NAACP membership
On today's date in The Beacon archives, we published:
•Smitherman still saying the issue is about a “streetcar” (2009)•More on Amy Goodman’s Arrest and the Struggle for a Free Media (2008)
•Journalist Amy Goodman Unlawfully Arrested At RNC (2008)
•Seizing Illegal Guns—Thinking About 2% (2007)
•Information or Advertisements? (2007)
•Nick Lachey: “I have never supported George W. Bush.” (2007)
Contact Us
v mail: (513) 685-0678
e mail: click here
Monday, January 21, 2008
The Gift of the Drop Inn Shelter
Posted by The Dean of Cincinnati
Guest article by Thomas Dutton.
The front-page headline of Saturday’s Cincinnati Enquirer (January 12, 2008) read “Will Drop Inn Center Be Pushed Out?” bolstered by the subhead “Some wonder if homeless shelter hurts Over-the-Rhine development.” If those questions weren’t bold enough, readers were encouraged to register their opinions to the question “Should the Drop Inn Center Move?”
The prejudicial character of these questions should be obvious. People say that to really solve a problem, the question that frames that problem is crucial. These questions are no example of a decent framing. They are sly and specious, harboring assumptions that in no way reveal what the Drop Inn Center is and does. Example? The questions presuppose incompatibility, and worse, that such incompatibility rests with the Drop Inn Center. The questions place you too far down the road to recognize a more fundamental question: What is our society’s capacity for empathy?
I remember a year ago, during the 10th year commemoration of buddy grays’ death, that Donald Whitehead spoke of the first time he met buddy. As a person down on his luck, wandering about on the streets, Donald found himself one day at the Drop Inn Center. Buddy was there and talked with Donald for about an hour. Donald does not remember most of that conversation, except for four words: “I’m glad you’re here.”
Donald’s account reminds me of an episode I witnessed this past Friday night as part of the silent march commemorating the 30th anniversary of the People’s Move. When our group of 120 folks ended our march at the front doors of Drop Inn Center, a disheveled, older man, clearly homeless, was confused and disoriented by the drama of songs and celebration swirling about him. A staff member came out and put his arm around the man, and comforted him. It was a very simple gesture, but so illustrative of what happens everyday at the DIC.
What Donald Whitehead was saying was that buddy “saw” him. The same message holds true from the other night.
In our world where homeless folks are typically not seen, indeed, they are scorned, reviled, denounced—rejected—it is powerful when one comes up to a homeless person, puts his arm around him, and says “I see you brother.”
I submit to you, the lesson of this act goes unnoticed if we label it merely as an act of kindness. It is a very kind act, but it goes much deeper. This is an act to restore a person’s humanity. “I see you brother, can you see yourself?” This is the most loving of acts a human being can make.
Buddy had this quality. Bonnie Neumeier has this quality, as does Donald, and as do so many others of the Over-the-Rhine People’s Movement from whom I continue to learn.
This is what the Drop Inn Center enacts everyday—it is a place of compassion, a place of redemption in peoples’ struggle to overcome addiction to drugs and alcohol, a healing place. And it is out of this base of interpersonal dynamics that we can see the contribution of the wider political mission of the Drop Inn Center and the Over-the-Rhine People’s Movement: to restore Cincinnati’s humanity.
In this regard the Drop Inn Center stands in a long line of stellar examples that understood the importance of empathy and love in political movements.
Consider the words of Robin D. G. Kelley, an outstanding historian who visited Over-the-Rhine and spoke at buddy’s Place in October 2003: “Freedom and love may be the most revolutionary ideas available to us…I have come to realize that once we strip radical social movements down to their bare essence and understand the collective desires of people in motion, freedom and love lay at the very heart of the matter.”
This is the power of the Drop Inn Center. This is the Center’s gift to the larger world. And this is why the Center, with its capacity to love, remains for me the lead institution in the Over-the-Rhine People’s Movement, in its political mission to restore society’s humanity, a humanity that many of us recognize is not possible under current political-economic conditions.
• Share This Article! | Listen to this article |
|  |
Register
Anonymous comments are allowed, but you can create an account above to stamp your name and to avoid typing the anti-spam code.
If you are not familiar with our rules for leaving comments, click here! The Cincinnati Beacon is not responsible for the contents of any comments. Comments do not represent the views of the moderators of The Cincinnati Beacon.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.
22 Jan 2008 at 08:22 am | #
This freezing weather reminds us all the more of those that live without walls. The Center has been attacked on every front and still the good people do the good work. In a world where compassion is seen as a sucker’s game, it’s heartening that there are people with heart’s big enough to do the right thing. The Drop Inn Center should be where it’s always been doing the important job that it does.
22 Jan 2008 at 10:34 am | #
The Drop Inn Center is largely responsible for the decay of an entire neighborhood. You want to celebrate that? Two words for this whole article and the DIC: morally repugnant.
22 Jan 2008 at 10:56 am | #
TD: “What is our society’s capacity for empathy?”
It is huge, and can primarily be found in areas outside of the urban core of the city. The DIC is losing a golden opportunity here to improve it’s fortunes, and team up with suburban volunteers and their money. For example if they were to collaborate with Crossroads Church in Oakley, and relocate the DIC to their unused annex on Madison road, and possibly add some other social service programs to augment the DIC’s deficiencies in it’s program; the money and volunteers would flow in like a raging torrent. One other positive element that would emerge is, the rate of failure and relapse would plummet. Those folks from Crossroads are driven people, and would in no way accept the lackluster results that are the norm for this kind of endeavor. The key is to surround those in need with the expectation of success, by surrounding them with successful people,(i.e. the good people of Oakley). If this plan were implemented throughout the suburbs, the wrongly perceived idea for facilities like CityLink (see notocitylink.com), would evaporate like a drop of water in the Sahara.
TD: “Freedom and love may be the most revolutionary ideas available to us…I have come to realize that once we strip radical social movements down to their bare essence and understand the collective desires of people in motion, freedom and love lay at the very heart of the matter.”
The heart of the matter is to not give your love from afar, invite those you love to be with you. It’s the only way lives will change for the better.
22 Jan 2008 at 12:00 pm | #
Finally you say something that I can agree with cincysuz.
22 Jan 2008 at 12:22 pm | #
Thanx, Tom D, Dean, and Cincysue, I agree, the Drop Inn Center should absolutely stay where it is: It is a Beacon of Love and Hope in the midst of a dark and heartless land. vera z.
22 Jan 2008 at 02:18 pm | #
Is it coincidence that all those who write in support of the DIC live far far away from it?
22 Jan 2008 at 02:49 pm | #
A dark and heartless land they (DIC) created.
Does anyone posting understand cause and effect? DIC rewards bad behavior. If you want to celebrate something, celebrate good behavior. Like people who work hard, achieve, and are not parasites feeding off society.
22 Jan 2008 at 02:52 pm | #
Neighbor, why did you move next to the DIC if you hate it so much? Didn’t you spend anytime looking at the neighborhood before you moved?
22 Jan 2008 at 03:04 pm | #
If this plan were implemented throughout the suburbs,” the wrongly perceived idea” for facilities like CityLink
Should read: “the wrongly conceived idea”
22 Jan 2008 at 07:59 pm | #
Neighbor - I’ll bet the Drop Inn Center and the majority of the people it serves called Over the Rhine home long before you ever showed your face to drive the rents up and them out.
22 Jan 2008 at 09:28 pm | #
Why do so many want to attack one of the organizations that is actually doing some good in OTR? OTR is an economically diverse neighborhood, and should always be that way. Why try to shut out the organizations working for positive change?
If I lived in OTR, I would be glad that there is a place for the destitute to stay.. would you prefer they were on the street in front of your building? I don’t think they’re going to move to Oakley. Better yet, let’s move the DIC to Hyde Park or Indian Hill.
22 Jan 2008 at 10:12 pm | #
Neighbor and Anonymous:
You know….unless you’ve been there you’d never understand. As a recipient of the good graces of the DIC and several battered women’s shelters in our community, I know first hand that not everyone who must be there is there because they are lowlife black druggies. Sometimes they are white mothers just trying to survive. I’m sorry that I needed a place to go when my boyfriend beat me up and the only place I had to go just happened to be in “your” neighborhood.
22 Jan 2008 at 10:53 pm | #
#11 BGR: ” I don’t think they’re going to move to Oakley.”
Are you trying to say the good people from the Eastern suburbs, would rather just give money hand over fist, to keep the destitute, the drug and chemical addicted, on the reservation in the urban core; instead of really helping them?
23 Jan 2008 at 05:11 am | #
The Drop Inn Center needs to remain in Over the Rhine. The Primary reason the “Powers that Be” want to move the homeless and disadvantaged people out into the out skirts of Cincinnati is to keep them out of sight. They don’t want to disturb ” “the people who have” by reminding them that there are people who don’t have warm homes to go to at night or clothes that are nice and warm or access to restrooms where they can bathe and relieve themselves when necessary. The problem is that by moving them way out, the people who are most in need of the shelter have no way to get there.
23 Jan 2008 at 09:12 am | #
#14 VZ: “The Primary reason the “Powers that Be” want to move the homeless and disadvantaged people out into the out skirts of Cincinnati is to keep them out of sight.
There isn’t anything out of sight about the Crossroads facility on Madison road. On top of that, those people really want to help the downtrodden in the worst way; and I do mean in the worst way possible! In order to effect real change, those in need have to be surrounded with the expectation of success, which is not what happens when poverty is concentrated in one place (OTR, West End). If you can claim an up side to homelessness, it would be the ability to go, and stay where the help is.
23 Jan 2008 at 10:10 am | #
JFD: “Are you trying to say the good people from the Eastern suburbs, would rather just give money hand over fist, to keep the destitute, the drug and chemical addicted, on the reservation in the urban core; instead of really helping them?”
I didn’t say that, but yes.. except I wouldn’t call the urban core a “reservation”. Maybe you should take a poll of Oakley homeowners to see how they would feel about moving the DIC to Oakley.
It’s much easier for the good people of Oakley and Crossroads church to come downtown and volunteer at the DIC than it is for the homeless to come swing by Oakley.
Would you rather that the drug addicts and alcoholics in OTR have no place to go?
23 Jan 2008 at 11:05 am | #
The Drop in center needs to stay where it is so they can have quick easy access to crack, heroine, cocaine, pot & booze. Please don’t take them away from the convenient access to these vital sources of addictive substances. Just think what might happen to them if they went without!
23 Jan 2008 at 12:30 pm | #
True Story!
It was 1988 and my cousin and I had applied to go to school in the former east German (the communist side) and we flew into west Berlin. We did not know what to expect and with our back packs and a really big package of Charmin toilet paper because we were told they didn’t have toilet paper in the east (one of many propaganda myths that we were told). Outside of the toilet paper, we looked destitute. Our school was in Leipzig, which was way south of Berlin and the next train was not due to leave until the next morning so we hunkered down in a corner of Freidrich Strasse station for the night. Freidrich Strasse was the first stop in the east and was old and used. There was nothing pretty about it. Well shortly after we got as comfortable as we could get, along came the Stasi (police) and they asked what was going on. They understood and said that it would be better is we took the local train out to the east German Berlin airport and the train to Leipzig will stop there in the morning on its way to Leipzig. He went on to say that the airport is much nicer because it is a propaganda tool to make the west think it is wonderful in east Germany. He went on to say that the airport has soft leather seats that one can sleep on. We did as suggested and were very grateful to these notorious Stasi public servants.
Even though the east German government thought like the Cincinnati government in trying to appear to be something it wasn’t, the east German people showed compassion for others. I don’t know exactly how east German actually dealt with the homeless because I never saw any. I never saw any until I was returning home and reentered the west at Zoo Station in Berlin and we went out onto the streets of west Berlin before going to the airport. In relatively wealthy west Berlin, the homeless stood out immediately as they congregated around the station area.
The Stasi reflected the mood of the government and the people in the same way that the Cincinnati police reflect the mood of the city government and the people of Cincinnati. The east Germans were considerably poorer than the west or were they?
23 Jan 2008 at 12:41 pm | #
Actually I have lived in OTR off and on about the same time as the DIC.
I still think it is fascinating that most of the DIC activists live in other neighborhoods. Now that the neighborhood is starting to improve, maybe some of you will come join us.
The problem with the DIC is they help people continue their destructive behavior, and the blocks immediately surrounding them is a disaster because of it.
“The Primary reason the “Powers that Be” want to move the homeless and disadvantaged people out into the out skirts of Cincinnati is to keep them out of sight.”
-Alternatively, is the reason “activists” want the DIC on Elm is to be as visible as possible?
Is making the homeless as visible as possible the best way to help them?
23 Jan 2008 at 12:54 pm | #
JFD says:
23 Jan 2008 at 07:12 am | : In order to effect real change, those in need have to be surrounded with the expectation of success, which is not what happens when poverty is concentrated in one place (OTR, West End).
I can whole heartily agree with this point but why is this point only important when attacking a particular group of people: the homeless. If the same concept were to be applied to our society in general, it would become an extremely costly proposal. The homeless are being singled out as an aberration while, in fact, the real poverty problem is much greater and brings into question the feasibility of our societal and economic model. And no one wants to question our American way, do they?
23 Jan 2008 at 02:16 pm | #
JFD, dowtown is centrally located. You can take a bus to a job interview anywhere in the city. If you were in Oakley and had to get accross town you’d have to go through downtown adding at least an hour on to your travel time. The powers that be don’t want them there in Oakley, they want them in the west end at CityLink. What your proposing isn’t realistic. The DIC has been where it’s at for 30 years.
23 Jan 2008 at 05:26 pm | #
#16 BGR: “Would you rather that the drug addicts and alcoholics in OTR have no place to go?”
I would rather see the glut of social services that are currently centralized in two neighborhoods, (OTR/West End), be spread around the the entire metro area. If people are not separated from their codependents, to an area where the common expectation is for people to be responsible for their behavior, and self sufficient in their finances; the potential for success is minimal to nonexistent.
23 Jan 2008 at 06:01 pm | #
#21 No CityLink: “The powers that be don’t want them there in Oakley, they want them in the west end at CityLink.”
Let’s sort out who the powers that be are that want the granddaddy of all social service centers to be in the West End. It’s not the property and residents of the West End! It’s not the property owners and residents of the surrounding communities of; Fairview, Clifton Hgts, University Hgts or even OTR! It’s not the City of Cincinnati! It’s a bunch of well financed religious zealots (Crossroads) from the East side; who are paying for the appearance of piety; at the expense of the rest of us, who live and work in the urban core. Unfortunately these people don’t understand the catastrophic consequences, their bid for salvation will have on the rest of us, or they just don’t care. I wonder if Jesus would say it’s okay to help some, by harming others, as long as you do it in his name, and protect your own property values at the same time?
“The DIC has been where it’s at for 30 years.”
Yes it has, and it and the rest of the social service providers shoehorned into the downtown basin have not had a positive effect on the community it sits in either.
23 Jan 2008 at 08:15 pm | #
The Drop Inn Center has been near and dear to my heart for several years.
I will never forget when my social worker father came out of a 23 day coma saying that he is no better than the men who live with Buddy. Please just take and drop him off there. He of course was going thru the dementia of coming out of his coma. But every year and every time it got cold-I was taken to the DIC to take blankets, coats, socks, extra food from a church dinner, or in the summer- talcum powder, and soap and t-shirts.
When I became I youth leader at a church- I told the kids- we can sit and do bible study or you can hit the road with your hands and hearts. You should have seen my small group of 6 kid’s faces serving breakfast there one Sunday. I thought that they were going to puke at the sights. Now all 6 have given up their management jobs to be social workers, teachers and one is currently in Iraq as a psychologist- all have gone into social services helping people.
When my father finally passed away- we sat and looked at each other and said, who do we send memorials too. The answer was easy. We just started laughing at him the night he started crying as he was coming out of his coma- Take me to Buddy. Well- in a sense we did. Memorials were to the DIC and his church.
What good has the DIC done? Well- left a lasting imprint on 6 now adults that gave up great paying jobs to be in social services (one was being fast tracked for a bank management position), I now take my son down to donate items- 3rd generation, and I will always have the memory of my dad’s memorial and his stories of being in meetings with Buddy.
Drugs are everywhere- don’t be so disillusional. Read the damn court docket and the Hyde Park matron that just got busted for LSD out of her house on Stettitius. Alcoholism is everywhere- look at who doesn’t drink at your next social function at work- who is drinking water!
So get your heads out of your butt. Being homeless can happen to anyone and happen fast- it doesn’t always have to be do to drugs or alcohol. You could be next with the way the market is going.
24 Jan 2008 at 08:56 am | #
There but for the grace of god…
24 Jan 2008 at 04:04 pm | #
#24: “You could be next with the way the market is going.”
A lot of people could be next, if the glut of social services don’t decentralize, out of the downtown basin.
26 Jan 2008 at 11:37 am | #
JFD, you keep talking about the “glut of social services in the West End and Over the Rhine,” but in actuality, social services are available through-out Cincinnati. Many churches and community organizations, in many of our neighborhoods have food pantries and other services for the poor, and in our present economy it still is not enough. Social sevices tend to spring up wherever the need exists for them, not the other way around. There are more such services in those areas because the need was greater there. We cannot rid the world of poverty by doing away with social services. Vera Z.
26 Jan 2008 at 03:25 pm | #
Well of course. A Drop Inn Center in Indian Hill would make no sense. Services are and should be located convenient to the people that need them. If there were indeed this “glut” of social services, we wouldn’t have hungry, desperate, freezing people, or any people living without a home, and especially children. They would have been situated in a home, and then able to concentrate on whatever is needed to help turn around their lives whether it’s job training, medical and dental care, mental health care or substance abuse treatment. Can you imagine waking up from your bed in an alley, with no hope of a regular meal for that day, no way to take care of basic hygiene and then think, damn. “I better go apply for a job today.” Be realistic.
27 Jan 2008 at 01:37 am | #
JFD really sorted out the dilemma in comment 23. What are these catastrophic consequences,that he refers to? OTR offers one of the most efficient housing styles that should reflect in lower housing and living costs. It was build with the average and lower income people in mind. Row houses are low maintenance and require less infrastructure that a house in the suburb with its own little plot. It allow for higher concentrations which reflect in lower transportation costs and allows for a critical mass needed to support some small businesses and other services. All the problems in the OTR are exacerbated by the fact that there is not enough wealth to allow families to function in spite of the more efficient housing design. Also putting these social service together will allow more scrutiny by others in the social and incompetence in obscure scattered sites.
Spreading out social services is just dumb. It shows the contempt of a few for the needs of the poor. It is bad enough that these people have to take a full day just to go to the few grocery stores in the area, which also charges higher prices because they have a captive audience. I simply cannot the logic that goes into objecting to citylink people bring in their people and pocketbooks into an area starving for resources.
It is just mean that some idiots want to make the lives of the poor even more difficult. There are two ways to address financial disparity: one is to give the poor more money, which ain’t going to happen; the second is to reduce their costs as much as possible.
27 Jan 2008 at 12:12 pm | #
Next time there is a “RiverCount” I strongly suggest that all of you bashing the homeless- go join in.
RiverCount is a monthly event that takes place to go find all of the “NEW” families that have migrated towards the riverfront with the hopes of finding the underground network of homeless.
Last RiverCount I did, we found a family of 4-lost their house and car and were trying to live out of their duffle bags and sleeping bags. They had lived in Sharonville and lost everything including jobs, health insurance and a roof over their head.
The children were 3 and 18 months and the temperature was about 25 degrees. So getting these people out of their boxes with their own blankets, and into a van to take them to a social service agency was tough. They didn’t want a hand-out. They were too proud to take it.
Dad had for years donated to United Way in his paycheck. We finally had to threaten to call the police to take the kids away and that got them to go get help.
Last I knew, they were put into emergency housing, and were interviewing for jobs and trying to get back on their feet.
Not everyone who is homeless is helpless.