Since August, the staffers of a daytime center for homeless women and children have been developing a renewed and personal understanding of what a transitory life is like.
With construction underway for a new and bigger structure to house The Gathering Place at its longtime site on High Street, the center, its staff and clients are sojourning in an outbuilding that belongs to Montview Boulevard Presbyterian Church.
“We’re a homeless homeless place now,” said Leslie Foster, president of the center.
Taped signs herd clients and staffers through the labyrinth serving as The Gathering Place’s quarters until the new building is finished next summer.
The clients, mostly unemployed and living at homeless shelters or on the street, seem unruffled when they navigate the maze of halls and stairways to the day room, the lunch room and the kitchen. The staff, on the other hand, remains a little rattled.
When center communications director Terrell Curtis reaches for the phone, her finger hesitates as she tries to remember whether to push “2” or “3” before making an in-house call. One number rings to the church. The other is The Gathering Place’s temporary prefix.
“We are less adept at this kind of change than the people we serve,” Curtis said wryly.
“In a lot of ways – logistically, emotionally – this move has been more challenging for the staff than it has for the women. The clients are fine. They say, ‘I take the 15 bus to Cherry now instead of High? OK, see you next week.’ For the rest of us, it throws a wrench into our routine.”
The church’s cavernous kitchen stunned Josette Sandoval, who prepares meals for the center’s clients. Since she was accustomed to working in a cramped, dated kitchen with minimal appliances, the temporary kitchen “was hard to get used to, at first,” Sandoval said.
“It’s hard to get used to any kind of kitchen when you’re used to always being in another one. Bigger is always, definitely, better, but I liked the old place.”
Sandoval’s kitchen co-worker, Helen Hansen, begs to differ. She likes the big kitchen almost as much as she loves the church’s industrial-size mixer.
“Helen was psyched about the mixer,” Sandoval said. “Finally, she could make mashed potatoes that weren’t from a box, and bake bread and cookies.
“We put a mixer on our wish list for the new place.”
Staff writer Claire Martin can be reached at 303-954-1477 or cmartin@denverpost.com.
