Posted on 01/01/2012 3:50:38 PM PST by SJackson
An unusual program to help homeless people do their wash is being booted from the Madison laundromat where it has been operating for the past six months.
Around 50 homeless people a month have been taking the bus to Laundry Land at 1131 N. Sherman Ave., where they get free detergent, coins for the machines and a temporary loan of clean clothes, since some people walk in with only the clothes on their backs, says Donna Asif, an advocate for the homeless.
She set up Project Bubbles to be a companion to a service providing showers for the homeless she established in the basement of the First United Methodist church downtown in 2007. Keeping clean is no little thing even for people who lack big things like food and shelter, she says. She has seen grown men bury their heads in their towels and cry after having their first shower in days and changing into a freshly laundered set of clothes.
Asif says she is "terribly disappointed" that management at Laundry Land is ending the program there Thursday, Dec. 29, but grateful they gave it a chance.
"They were resistant from the beginning, but willing to try," she says. "They were worried that people would just loiter, that other customers wouldn't be happy, that there would be drinking on the premises," she recalls of her initial conversations with laundromat managers.
None of those things happened, she says. But there were other behaviors some people found peculiar. One fellow, for example, spread all of his clean belongings out on a table into piles, folding and refolding them for a long time.
"His backpack was his closet," Asif says. She suspects he was enjoying the thrill of finally having his worldly possessions clean, organized and fragrant. But it made management uncomfortable.
Another time a homeless person suffering from incontinence put his soiled pants into the washer. Asif doesn't see how that is much different from parents who toss their toddlers' dirty clothes into the machines, but it was the final straw for management, she recalls.
Shortly before Christmas, she got a call from the owner. Thursday, Dec. 29 would be the last day the facility would accept the program's coupons.
A Laundry Land staffer reached on the phone said helping homeless customers ended up "taking too much time." This staffer would not give his name and talked only a few moments before hanging up.
"I'd love to do it but we can't anymore. It got to the point where helping them took away from our regular customers," he said.
It is one more loss, Asif says, in a year when "our homeless neighbors" have been shut out of former hang outs in the basement of the state Capitol and the downtown library (undergoing renovations).
The homeless get a bad rap for being unkempt, dirty and smelly. But it's usually not by choice.
"They want a hot shower and clean clothes just like you and me," she says. "They just don't have the access."
She knows homeless people who have washed their clothes in the lakes, in fountains, and in the sinks of city hall and the Capitol. Hot air grates make good dryers. "Some of that you can get ticketed for," she says.
She has found another place where people who are homeless can do their wash: Affiliated Laundries on East Johnson Street. It is within walking distance of downtown shelters.
But because the facility does not have in-house staff, Asif explains, volunteers are needed to hand out the clean clothes, the soap and coins, which means that hours for Project Bubbles will be limited for now to just Monday afternoons, noon to 4.
The only other place people who are homeless can go to do a free wash is the emergency shelter run by Porchlight at the downtown Grace Episcopal Church, where lines are long and the dryers don't work well, says Kelly, a 50-year-old former Marine and chef. He became homeless after being laid off from a job in Wausau, and is a regular user of the shower and laundry programs Asif runs.
"I'm keeping clean," he says. "You could never even tell I was homeless if you didn't see my bag."
He is alluding to the sleeping bag he carries with him, along with a backpack containing a few changes of clothes, a chess set, and a John Grisham novel -- another bag with his warm winter clothing was stolen last week, he says.
Nobody wants to look or smell like the stereotype of a homeless person, he says. "People think you're dirty, a drunk or a thief," he says. Or even worse, he says, invisible. "People don't look at you," he says. "They just walk right on past."
***
Asif is looking for another facility willing to host the laundry program and volunteers interested in helping out with the shower or laundry program. If interested, contact her at 608-609-8522.
Another President, the solution to unemployment is in the mirror. Energy, domestic, coal, gas, oil. Dare I mention the financial sector or healthcare. All these evil people, and they're the employers. Go figure Mr. President.
Notice you said “back in the day” too!
Now you have to wonder if this younger generation knows to do that? Think about it. Cloth diapers were used generation to generation so mother taught daughter and there was a few grannys helping out too. I’d say by the middle 1970’s cloth diapers fell out of favor due to the ease of pampers. So many women only know the convenience of disposable. Do you see the picture I am trying to paint here? Add that with the public school’s idea of education and I am not at all surprised at anything that could happen at a laundry mat.
OK.
You go wash your clothes in a machine that has recently had feces-smeared garments in it.
Don’t expect a hug from me afterward.
Buddy. I'm currently driving a concrete mixer.....We're pouring 12-15 hours a day....not just oilfield but new hotels, stores, homes......oilfield is all.....pipeline and new wells......trust me......this is huge. And this is just western Oklahoma.......Add Texas, Colorada, Dakotas...etc.....
Maybe some compassionate conservatives can pony up for nonprofit laundry.
LOL! I got cold busted on that a couple of months ago when I took a safety pin and ran it through my hair before putting through the cloth that had to be held together on my great-nephew's vest. My neice looked at me funny and asked why I did that.
Yes, there are skill sets there, as well as anything else.
/johnny
The biggest problem was trying to keep the homeless from sleeping in the dry, warm clothes dryers...
Old Friend, you have you see it to believe it. The pipelines and compressors are going into the groud as I type. Do a search of rig counts.....you'll be giggling all night...take care.
Wisconsin Wash Day Ping
Please, anyone who would like to be on, or off, this Wisconsin interest ping list just FReep Mail me, and I shall add your name.
Wisconsin Wash Day Ping
Please, anyone who would like to be on, or off, this Wisconsin interest ping list just FReep Mail me, and I shall add your name.
Guess your wife and you always use separate machines
besides if you try to hug me i will slug you
So you are saying your wife washes feces-smeared clothes?
Eeewwww. No more chili for her.
No worries about that, your clothes are washed in poop-soup.
Proud Poop Power here!
You must have the nose of a hound or sumfin.
100% agreed!
Frack away and have fun. Where can a body see a chart of those rig counts?
Maybe one of those cement mixers could be used as a huge tumble washer for poopy pants. Talk about stone washed.
Our two daughters were born in 1990 and 1992 and after the free disposables that people gave us at the showers were gone, both were cloth-diapered (home laundered). Never did dump a soiled diaper in my washer and instead rinsed those things well. It seemed that no one believed that we were going to cloth-diaper and instead of a diaper service gift certificate, they gave us disposables instead. We did use disposables on trips but we think using cloth saved us a lot of money.
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