Another male security guard was doing the check-in at the women's side of the Pine Street Inn this afternoon. He is not the security guard who had harassed me several weeks ago; however, he has the same employer who is contracted to provide security guards to the shelter.
After he had wanded a female guest who has a speech impediment and had searched her bag, he turned to me. I gave him my Pine Street Inn identification card. When I gave the card to him, he said "Whew" loudly and then ran his finger under his nose. I said "What?" He said "What," smiling. I said "You seemed to have a strong reaction to something." He pretended not to know what I was talking about.
He sat on the edge of the desk, folded his arms, and said "Open your bag." I opened all the sections of my backpack. He took out my purse and unzipped it. Then he put it back in my bag and said "You're all set." Another homeless woman walked into the shelter, and he said "Whew; someone needs to tell these people to take a shower."
I went to the counter and told both Pine Street Inn staffpeople who were there what he had said; he was grinning while I told each of them. He even took out his phone and was texting someone, while he was supposed to be checking women into the shelter so that they could be given their tickets for the bed lottery that's at 3:45 p.m. every day. He said "Whew" loudly again while I was telling one of the staffpeople what he had already done. He thought that what he had said and my telling staffpeople about it was the funniest thing that had happened during his entire day.
I was about to walk to the office to tell the supervisor, when she walked near the counter. Even while I was telling her what he had done, he did not stop grinning.
He walked over to tell her his side of the story, which he thought would absolve him. This is what he said to the supervisor, grinning:
"There was a guest here, I think she's mute, and I was on the phone, and the person that I was talking to made me laugh, and then I said 'Someone needs to tell these people to take a shower.'"
The supervisor told him "That's out of place. One, you're not supposed to be on your phone. Two, you're not supposed to talk disrespectfully about the guests. I will tell your supervisor."
He went back to his desk, and even then the smile wasn't totally gone. Every staffperson to whom I had spoken about him is female. The supervisor is also female. The guests at this side of the shelter are female. I guess he thought that he could do and say whatever he wanted to a bunch of females.
It is the middle of the summer. Except for inclement weather, severe old age, severe illness or pregnancy, all of the guests have to leave the shelter every morning by 8:30 a.m., and they can't return until 3:00 p.m., which is when the check-in starts. Many of the guests do not have lockers; they are on the waiting list for one of the high-school-sized lockers that the shelter has, so we're all carrying our things around with us all day. The only day of the week when guests are able to remain at the shelter during the day is Sunday.
There are no laundry facilities for the female guests at the Pine Street Inn. Probably, there's not enough money for them, the way that there's not enough money for a lot of things that homeless people need.
Even so, I haven't noticed that most people are smelling worse than is normal for large groups of people who have to live together in close quarters in the summer, and even if I had, security guards are paid to provide security and not to ridicule the guests. A security guard knows that if he can anger a guest, he can attack the guest, if there is not a responsible staffperson around to prevent it.
The director of the women's side of the Pine Street Inn is a good person who has to manage the shelter with a dearth of resources.
Homeless women were already at high risk for abuse before the conglomerate began its sexist and elitist propaganda in 2010. There is no country in the world that really cares about homeless people.
Copyright L. Kochman, July 21, 2017 @ 4:17 p.m.
