The Wake

Every Monday night, men line up outside the Simpson United Methodist Church in Minneapolis. They wrap around the building, one by one, waiting for the weekly lottery. This isn’t the kind of lottery you see on TV with multi-million dollar prizes and oversized checks. This is a lottery sponsored by a coalition of homeless shelters including St. Stephen’s Shelter, Simpson Housing Services and Our Saviour’s Housing. The prize they offer is a 28-night stay in one of the three shelters. On a Monday night in November, 60 men lined up, all hoping for a bed. Only 24 beds were available.

Allysen Hoberg, a former University of Minnesota student, is the director of St. Stephen’s Shelter. She said the lottery was once held nightly at St. Stephen’s. However, last May it moved to Simpson Housing Services and became weekly.

When the nightly lottery began more than 12 years ago, “homeless men always had another place to go if they couldn’t get a bed at St. Stephen’s,” Hoberg said.

But over the past few years, the shelter began turning away up to 40 men per night because there wasn’t enough space. By making the lottery weekly, the men could gain stability in the sense that they could plan where they would be staying for the evening.

Back in the basement of Simpson’s, the men filed into a room full of couches, easy chairs and remnants of shuffleboard on the floor. Many of the men couldn’t be distinguished from anybody else on the street. Many, but not all, defied the stereotypical, down-on-their-luck homeless person.

At 7 p.m., a shelter employee stood before the men and announced the lottery’s beginning. The room went quiet as everyone waited to hear if their pre-assigned numbers would be called.

A shelter employee sifted through a white bowl full of old bingo balls.

“B8!” he yelled across the room with booming bravado.

A lucky man stepped forward and said he’d like to stay at St. Stephen’s for the next 28 nights. The other men remained expressionless, as did the people who won. Nobody seemed to be expecting a place to stay.

After the last number was called, half of the men, left without a secure bed for the week, sauntered back outside into the musty, November drizzle. Those lucky enough to win a bed began checking in at 5:30 p.m. at St. Stephen’s.

From 5:30 p.m. until she leaves at 10 p.m., Hoberg dashes from one corner of the shelter to the other, always looking as if she is needed somewhere and everywhere.

Hoberg, 27, has been volunteering and working for St. Stephen’s at 2211 Clinton Ave. S. for the past eight years. She has dedicated much of her time to homelessness in and out of the shelter. While studying geography at the university, she focused her senior paper on Minneapolis homelessness. In the introduction, she showed how homeless people become trapped in certain parts of the city because of physical barriers, like highways, they cannot walk around.

In the shelter, Hoberg darted from an office where a desk was covered in bottles of aspirin to a room where residents watched television, then back again.

One man stopped her and said, “In a lot of ways, what’s frustrating me is that the shelter is like a daycare center for adults. There isn’t any compassion for us.”

But another man stopped her afterwards and apologized for something he had done three years ago. He wanted her to know how much he appreciated her work.

“That’s the thing about being a woman in an all-men’s shelter,” Hoberg said. “To some of them, you do everything right, but to others you can’t do anything right.” On numerous occasions, she has found gifts from residents in her office.

At 7 p.m., volunteers started serving dinner. Various Minneapolis restaurants donate food nightly. Leeann Chin donated that evening’s meal.

While eating dinner, the men took a vote on which television program they would watch. Hoberg began reading program titles from a TV guide.

“Will & Grace,” she said.

“This Old House,” and a few men laughed to themselves.

“Shawshank Redemption,” and the men began speaking up.

“Yeah, that’s a great movie,” one man said.

“Let’s watch that,” said another. It seemed rational that the men wanted to watch a movie where a prisoner awaits his release.

At 10 p.m., the lights went out and the beds were filled. Many of the men needed to get up early so they could make it to a temporary employment agency early enough to get a job the next day. About 41 percent of Minnesota’s homeless have jobs, according to the Minnesota Coalition for the Homeless. Some of the men wake up as early as 4 a.m. to get to work.

The next day everybody was out of bed by 6 a.m. They wrapped up their things until they’d check in again in the evening. By 6:45 they were back on the street, searching for work and, hopefully, a permanent home.