Coming in off the Street

For the past week, Jim has called the Cambridge YMCA home.

He considers living in the YMCA's residence for homeless men quite an improvement from the half-way house where he used to live.

And Jim, 39, regards his current situation a significant breakthrough from eight months ago--when he tried to kill himself.

He suffered from substance abuse, and he thought his life had reached a dead-end.

"I was on Revere Beach with a gun to my head," he says. "I hit fucking rock-bottom. I was in the gutter looking up."

But now he has found a home in the YMCA's Mervyn D. Demille Residence, established in 1896, which provides single rooms to more than 100 homeless men to help them get back on their feet.

The center provides a variety of housing programs, including free and low-cost units, and a number of counseling and job placement opportunities.

Ronald P. Lahti, a graduate of the Harvard Divinity School, and the Vice President of Residence and Counseling Services at the YMCA runs the program out of the building at 820 Mass. Ave.

The residence, Lahti says, serves as a "stepping stone" for its residents.

"They forget how to live" while living on the street, he says. "One of our jobs is to re-educate people in basic living skills."

Jim, and other residents interviewed, requested that their real names not be used in order to protect their anonymity.

Jim stares at the ground in the sparsely decorated YMCA lounge. Occasionally, he looks up to talk about his old job as a machine operator, his addiction and the suicide attempt--and his new life at the center. "I am still confused and screwed up. I am a sick individual," he says.

But Jim says he has started to put his life in order. He has been clean since March, and says he has benefited from living at the center.

The residence, named after a former president of the Cambridge YMCA, recently completed its $5 million renovation.

The hallways of the living quarters are clean, with posterless walls painted off-white, adding a feeling of sterility to the environment, while the soothing colors of the door frames and stairwell belie the dark, lifeless hallway.

Although the YMCA itself receives its funding from a number of companies, including the United Way, the housing center is funded by the state of Massachusetts.

Some residents pay market value, $307 a month, for their rooms, but most pay 30 percent of their income in a government subsidy program, Lahti says.

Several programs are coordinated through the residence, providing both temporary and permanent housing for the homeless. Temporary housing is provided for one to six months under an emergency transitional shelter program run by the city of Cambridge.

People in need of transitional housing can find help through the Cambridge Cares About AIDS program.

Permanent housing is aided by the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health for those who qualify, while the Cambridge Cares for AIDS program donates 15 additional beds.

All resident have access to counseling services and the YMCA facilities.

Most residents stay in the housing for an average of two years--although Lahti says one man has inhabited the YMCA building for 30 years.

While Lahti says the programs have suffered from recent cuts in state funding, the center has found alternative ways to renovate and improve their services.

"We came close to closing seven-and-a-half years ago," Lahti says. "In a last ditch effort they hired a human service professional and I turned them around."

The leader of the program says the center, at any one time, houses about 70 percent whites, 25 percent "people of color" and five percent Asians and Hispanics.

"[The people here] are a microcosm of what you find in Central Square," Lahti says.

Many residents credit Lahti for sustaining the program and giving them a second chance at life.

Varied Backgrounds

Tony, a recovering drug addict from Dorchester, has resided in the center for the past six months--yet he has not told his mother where he lives.

"It's okay here," said the 31-year-old former tractor-trailer driver. "I've adjusted to it a bit because I have no choice."

"I needed to stay on myself, by myself," he says.

Other residents, however, are not so pleased with their experiences at the center.

Rich and Dave have each lived there for only one-and-a-half weeks, but they say they are disappointed with the way they have been treated. They say the quality of counseling is poor.

"The [homeless] shelter is cleaner and they have no attitude," says Rich, 39, a former cook who lost his job when he was diagnosed with pneumocystis cariniae, a disease contracted by AIDS patients.

Dave, 28, a former advertising professional, says he used to earn $24,000 a year in Florida. But after he discovered he was HIV-positive, his life took a turn for the worse.

After his parents kicked him out of the house when they found out he was HIV-positive, he decided to leave his job.

Tired of working for other people, and cognizant of his limited energies, Dave moved to Boston for its reputed health care.

But the Cambridge center has yet to live up to Dave's expectations.

"They need something in the line of how to treat people," he says. "All [employees] here as smart as we are or as creative as we are."

Dave and Rich applaud Lahti's attempts to sustain the center, but they are severely critical of the way many staff members treat residents.

One night some residents were eating pizza and playing pinball. Rich says the YMCA attendant "told me if I took better care of myself I wouldn't be in this predicament."

After a wisecrack by Dave, the attendant became angry and he would not give them the key to their rooms.

Name calling ensued and the police were called to the scene by the attendant. But when the police discovered that Dave lives in the residence, the police did not take any further action.

Dave and Rich also claim they were promised better facilities than they have received. The two men say they had been promised a full kitchen in every room, but instead, kitchens are located only on every other floor.

They also complain that social security does not provide them with enough money for food.

Because both men are faced with a deadly disease, they must eat well in order to continue to live. The government, they say, has not given them enough support to maintain their health.

"What gets me is that what I pay in rent, I could add $50 to and have my own place," Dave says.

"I am going to fuck up the government good," Rich says. "I am going to live 100 years."

Dave and Rich, who say they plan to move into an apartment by Monday, have requested a meeting with Cambridge Mayor Kenneth E. Reeves '72 to discuss their situation.

The two men, however, seem to be the exception. Most residents say they are pleased with the facilities.

One gay couple, who has lived in the residence for about two weeks, say they have chosen to live temporarily in the center until they become more financially stable.

The two men, who say they left Oklahoma to escape the state's strict sodomy laws, decided to come to Massachusetts where they hope to register for a domestic partnership agreement. The men call the residence "just another stepping stone."

George, one of the elder residents at the center, is about 65 years old and speaks with a distinctive British accent.

George, who was schooled in London, has lived in the residence for about six months since he retired from Raytheon, a local defense contractor. Because his social security check is insufficient to both rent an apartment and send money back to his family in London, George has chosen to stay at the center. But he says he hopes to return to London next month.

In contrast to the George's more worldly background, most residents apparently hail from the Boston area.

Gary, 39, who has lived in the residence for seven and a half months, was forced to leave his Roxbury home due to what he termed "domestic problems." He soon traveled to Las Vegas, Nevada where he worked at a plasma center.

Since returning to Boston, Gray says he has returned to a local health center to study histology instead of immediately looking for job opportunities.

Lahti says the residence has done its best to live up to the YMCA's motto, "health of body, mind and spirit." But the center has encountered several problems.

"Here and nationally," says Lahti, "we have to look seriously at how we are running centers and we must hire the appropriate staff to run the programs."

Lahti indicates that he might leave within the year, which would leave a big gap for the local YMCA to fill.

But he says he needs a change to re-energize himself, and he also sees the need for new blood in the residence program.

Day after day for several years, Lahti says he has faced numerous difficult and troubling circumstances. But he says he has continued to chug along, knowing that his spirited optimism has improved the lives of less fortunate people.

He says about 97 percent of the men are able to obtain "marginal employment" and some eventually land secure "normal jobs."

But more important than seeing results, Lahti realizes that he is fulfilling his duty to help others.

"We have to believe that we all have the capacity to change even in the deepest parts of our beings," he says. "Humans have the capacity to change. That is the one thing that gives us hope."