Jenny Diaz was in a cycle of poverty. She recently lost her home, and she never finished college, after defaulting on previous student loans. Her children were taken away from her care and placed in protective custody. She was living homeless on the streets and using meth. She ended up in jail.
But according to Diaz, being in jail helped to turn things around for her.
“If I hadn’t have been able to go to jail this time I wouldn’t have been able to fix my life,” Diaz said. While imprisoned, she met Fred, a retired vocational teacher, and started working with him. She is beginning this semester in studying American Sign Language, hoping to become an interpreter. She said she has been off drugs for several months, and is starting to put her life together.
“I feel like I’m definitely making the steps in the right direction,” Diaz said.
Stories like Diaz’s are exactly what the new dropin center opened by the Verde Valley Homeless Coalition on Aug. 6 at 14 South Main Street is trying to nurture.
Diaz was one of many homeless individuals in the city of Cottonwood taking advantage of the drop-in center, not just as an air-conditioned place for people to escape the Arizona heat, but as a place with resources to get their lives back on track.
On Aug. 16, Diaz was there filling out enrollment forms for college, working with Fred to make sure her paperwork was in order.
“My personal philosophy is, ‘Don’t do for others what they can do for themselves,’” said Audrey Dorfman, a volunteer at the drop-in center. “But people need some support at the beginning. Then we let them go. This is not a place we just want people hanging out from 1 to 5 p.m.”
The center is open those hours on weekdays and is equipped with Wi-Fi and multiple computers and printers. Staff are there to help people who come by with all sorts of issues, such as signing up for food stamps or assisting in job applications.
Dorfman told the story of a woman who wanted to sign up her children for elementary school. Volunteers helped her get in touch with state offices dealing with homeless education, and talk to the right people at the local school district.
The opening of VVHC’s new center comes after a similar center run by Catholic Charities closed in 2016, and aims at replacing the services that were provided there.
“I think it left a real gap in services,” said Carol Quasula, vice president of VVHC’s board. “The homeless are untrusting, many times for good reason, so you need to have familiar faces to develop trust.”
One service that the new drop-in center provides is a stable address for homeless people, allowing them to get mail.
“They can’t apply for services if they don’t even have mail,” Quasula said.
The drop-in center is not solely there to push Cottonwood’s homeless to fix their lives. It also serves as a place to relax, with TV and DVDs, numerous books, and snacks.
“It helps the homeless get out of the heat until 5 o’ clock,” said Dustin Carl, a homeless man who frequently visits the center.
VVHC depends on donations — its rent is paid by a grant from the city of Cottonwood — not just in money, but in goods and services. VVHC Executive Director Raena Avalon traveled to Sedona last week to pick up a brand new Wi-Fi printer, and is seeking further donations from the community, including bottled water, snacks, coffee, paper and plastic utensils, toilet paper, toiletries, printer paper, books, DVDs and games.
The center is trying to work on a collaboration with a local laundromat, providing vouchers for homeless people who come by that would allow them to clean their clothes for free.
In addition to material donations, one of the main things the center asks from the community is donations of time — Avalon said she dreams of being able to keep the center open for longer hours, or on weekends. VVHC tries to ensure that there are two staff members on site at all times, in order to handle any issues that come up.
Avalon said she is pleased with the early success of the shelter, pointing to how it went from having four to five visitors a day in its first week to close to a dozen in its second. She spoke of how the homeless community in Cottonwood have already “taken ownership of the place,” and referenced something a man who came in had said to her.
“It’s really wonderful to come to a place where you feel like you’re family” she said.
Jon Hecht can be reached at 634-8551, or email jhecht@larsonnewspapers.com
