Ginny Ramsey chats on the phone, checking in with a woman who just gave birth. She assures the new mom of twins that she will still have a bed at the homeless shelter/community center run by the Catholic Action Center.
The babies will go to a grandmother, the woman will come back to her bed and her minimum wage job and Ramsey moves onto the next challenge, whether a man who’s had several problems at the center in the past, could come back. She gives him a stern talking to and pairs him with another client with the warning that he may be running out of chances.
Ramsey’s office is right off the cafeteria/day room/laundry room which even mid-morning is already half-full. Her day is filled with crisis, near crisis and helping the men and woman of Lexington who call the streets their home.
She’s been doing it for 20 years.
The Community
Many of Ramsey’s clients have substance abuse or mental health issues. Spend 10 minutes at the hectic shelter and those challenges are palatable. A woman with a dirty bandage on her bloody forehead slumps, passed out, on a couch with an equally haggard man. People are in walkers and wheel chairs with some clearly carrying most of what they own.
Ramsey points out that 40 percent of her clients also work full-time, but work at low-wage jobs that make it hard to save enough to get back on their feet. Some are elderly with health problems that push them out of their other life. One client, she said, was once a music professor at the University of Kentucky.
Ramsey has hope that the Catholic Action Center building that opened last year Industry Road near the Eastland Shopping Center can provide something more than basic food and shelter – community.
“We are taking people from places where they are not use to being with people, they are used to being solo. They are used to fighting the system rather than being embraced,” she said.
The new expanded location last year was built to hold 134 bed. It is already over capacity. Client Alex Tomilson navigated the crowded hallways to give a tour.
It starts at a large patio, with a few potted plants and some picnic tables. It’s less crowded than inside but a dozen or so folks are scattered mostly where there is shade. Tomilson seems to know them all by name.
“This is Dora she has a service dog, little Molly,” he said, smiling at a thin woman with a tiny white dog. “If is she is having a spell or anything like that, Molly is the one who gets someone she is a smart little puppy. And this is Max over here, Max Berry, he is a resident here also and he is trying to reconnect with his life.”
Tomilson is trying to do the same. He says he worked almost 40 years, mostly in manufacturing. He said a mix-up with his Social Security made him get behind on his rent. He points out the patio, which is called the park, is surrounded by a tall fence. He says it lets people rest without being ridiculed.
“It keeps people on the other side from driving by and gawking,” he said.
Ramsey says her clients are often unsafe on the streets.
“Sadly we had a gentleman, two years ago, teenagers jeered and pushed him down and that night he died of a heart attack,” she said.
Like Family
The new center is designed to build a place where clients feel included, like a family. And that includes helping out.
“Everybody does four hours of chores a week just like a family,” she said. Those chores include disinfecting surfaces to fight against the spread of Hepatitis A, cleaning the bathrooms, helping in the kitchen, anything need to keep the operation functioning.
And it is quite the operation. The new is a long way from the rundown building in a rough part of town that was the first Catholic Action Center. Previously the center was spread out to several downtown locations. Now the center has a laundry, sleeping rooms for men and women, a cafeteria, and a mental health clinic all in one space. Soon, a medical clinic will also be on site.
“This has been quite a journey,” Ramsey said. And, she said, she sees signs that the community she hoped would form is taking root as clients are helping take care of not only the space but each other.
