Photo by Ruth Heide Michael Kobel and Nadia Marie Kobel enjoy lunch at La Puente on Friday.

Challenges complicated



By RUTH HEIDE

ALAMOSA — Already feeling the crunch of a tight economy La Puente encountered new challenges with Alamosa’s water emergency.

The inability to use water for cooking and bathing while the city cleansed the salmonella bacteria out of the system forced changes in meals and hygiene routines at Alamosa’s homeless shelter according to La Puente Director Lance Cheslock.

“People are sponge bathing,” he said. “All of our towel supply is wiped out.”

Members of an Estes Park church on Friday brought several bags of clean towels which were a godsend for the shelter where not a clean towel could be found since no water could be used for laundry.

When the water crisis initially hit, the shelter also had to reduce meals to cold sandwiches until it purchased a 250-gallon water tank to provide some water for cooking and hygiene purposes. The shelter has been able to return to its traditional menus since that time but is using paper plates and plastic utensils. Diners also receive bottled water.

More people have come to La Puente to eat their meals since the water crisis, Cheslock said. “We have doubled to 60’s and 70’s in terms of how many people come in for a particular meal,” he said.

The water tank was an expense for which the shelter had not budgeted. “We budget hand to mouth,” Cheslock said. “It’s really eaten into what we were setting aside to get through the year.”

The shelter home only has one salaried staff member and a couple of minimum-wage employees. “The rest are all volunteers,” Cheslock said.

“We have a wonderful core of volunteers and the residents do a lot to help out.”

Cheslock said he was proud of the fact that no residents of the shelter got sick with salmonella “which is an amazing success story.” He said La Puente’s guests are as diverse as any family but more numerous so he was grateful no one at the shelter had become ill.

He said he was worried about the domino effect of the illness if it infiltrated the shelter. He attributed the shelter’s success in preventing an outbreak within the shelter to Shelter Manager Margie McClymont who minimized the risks. “We have tried to take extra precautions,” Cheslock said.

“Our only issue is getting people cleaned up and laundry done,” Cheslock said. He said one of the board members took a vanload of laundry to Monte Vista but no laundry facilities could be used within the Alamosa municipal water system.

The inability to use the shelter showers has created an added challenge for shelter guests who are trying to look their best for job interviews, Cheslock said. “If you think about people needing a shower and clean clothes as a prerequisite to their moving on in job hunting, their lives are already complicated enough to add that into the equation,” he said.

The shelter is currently housing 40-50 people per night.

Generally the shelter is busiest during the migrant farm worker season but in recent months the shelter has not had an off season.

In December when the shelter traditionally houses 10-20 people a night it was hosting 50-60 people a night, many of them families.

The numbers have remained steady during the months since then, Cheslock added. The most drastic increases in homeless populations are in the numbers of veterans and families who are seeking shelter in havens like La Puente, he explained.

“We have more than doubled the homeless families we had last year this time and homeless veterans,” he said. “We already had our own crisis with that and this was one more complication.”

Cheslock said he was grateful for the community’s support in general and during this emergency in particular. “So many people have called to see what we needed,” he said.

Besides additional towels and washcloths, the shelter could still use nonperishable food because it had to dip into its stockpile Cheslock said.

“Jobs are nice too,” he added.

Cheslock said the community resources generally available for homeless folks to get back on their feet have been refocused to the current crisis so everything else is at a standstill. “People who want to put their lives back together have to be in that same standstill but they don’t have the resources to hold their own in the meanwhile.”

Cheslock said Milagros, the coffee shop that helps support La Puente and its associated services, also took a hit during the water crisis. “It’s starting to pick back up,” he said, “but it’s an industry where many businesses were affected.”