Dignity Station offers homeless in Lexington clean clothes, showers, restrooms – and hope
Originally published by WEKU.
“We got a washer open. Bring your stuff on over now, okay, you’re early today.”
John McGary
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WEKU
It’s a little after 11 on a Tuesday morning on Glenn Arvin Avenue. Catholic Action Center employee Dennis Johnson greets a regular who’s come to clean his clothes.
“Last week you were about one o’clock. I’ve never seen a man have so many nice sweatshirts and he can sing, oh, my goodness, y’all hear him sing.”
On this day, he’s songless and quiet, but friendly. He hands his clothes to a CAC employee who handles laundry duties – and the occasional joke.
“A, D, D, i, s, O, N. Thomas, like the saint, but far from it.”
Among the dozen or so they’ll assist today is a woman named Charlotte. She says she grew up in Nova Scotia, Canada, is 61 years old and has been in Lexington seven months – the last six of them homeless.
John McGary
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WEKU
“This is a gift. It’s a gift, especially in the summer, when it’s really, really hot. Um, it’s nice to know you can have a shower Tuesday here and Thursday down at Goodwill and get your clothes clean. That’s a good thing.”
Charlotte says she gets a free lunch at the Lexington Rescue Mission next door – and that alcohol played a role in her current state.
“I’m in the horse business. There’s not as many jobs out there as I suspected. But yeah, I’m getting ready to regroup here. I did a bunch of programs and helped a lot of people out along the way, so I’m getting ready to make a move. Just got few more things to take care of.”
Thomas works in the back compartment of a trailer designed for disaster recovery sites dubbed the Dignity Station. It’s parked in the rescue mission’s lot and pulled by a heavy-duty truck sold for a buck and rehabbed for free by Johnson’s employer of nearly 40 years, Dyno Nobel.
John McGary
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WEKU
“We have two washers and dryers here we have two showers and two bathrooms, and so up and down the whole unit, we carry 300 some gallons of water.”
A generator and propane tank provide heat. Johnson says the Dignity Station provides hope.
“I’ve seen … probably five or six people that have are no longer coming and have gotten jobs, and you know if you’re going to go for a job interview, when I was interviewing people, I’ll be honest, I was kind of judgmental if you came in you didn’t have some decent clothes or whatever, and so at least it gives them a chance.”
Thomas got his chance at the Catholic Action Center, where he sleeps. He’s a Florence, Kentucky native who served in the Navy during the first Persian Gulf War. He’s been homeless for four years, but says the VA will soon provide a subsidized apartment. He says he enjoys his work at the Dignity Station, though it’s sometimes frustrating.
John McGary
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WEKU
“Because you want them to just clean up their act like you did. But some, some people, it’s just not for them, you know. And they, they stay out … but by watching you, they see that, ‘Hey, this is a better life, and this is, this is that could be me.’ So a lot of people, it kind of encourages them to do the same things that we’re doing.”
On Thursdays, the Dignity Station parks at the Goodwill off New Circle Road, with the same 11 to 2 hours and some of the same clients, including Charlotte.
“What would you like people who’ve never been homeless to know about what it’s like for you?
“Well, it can happen to anybody. You know, it can really happen to anybody. So just, it is what it is, get with people like the people at the mission down here, and get whatever you need straightened out in your life, and hopefully you’ll get back to your life again.”
“Are you optimistic?”
“I am. Very.”
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Originally published by WEKU.
Republished with permission.
