Now, some have remarked before, and it is true, that $50 a week, even with six guys, is not all that much for providing shelter, water, electricity, gas, internet and more to them. And it's not. We charge below cost so as to give them every chance possible to save up for their future independence. We even, early on, went over some operating models in which we would charge no fee at all, but that never works.
If the person doesn't pay anything, then they do not value what they have received. Vandalisms, thefts, general orneriness, fighting, all sky-rocket when there is no program fee. And instead of any money being saved, it tends to go to bad things - like drugs or alcohol. Oddly, in order to get anyone to save, they must be first at least contributing some to their own way.
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| I will gladly pay you Tuesday for moving in for free today! |
This lesson has been rammed home to us time and again, as inevitably, with hearts at times too much larger than our brains, we've took in some "stray" who "is definitely good for it next week" and then next week comes, and this or that or the other happened, never the person's fault, and so it cannot be till the next target date, which is - this time - for sure for sure.
Wash, rinse, repeat.
On the master list of every guest we've ever aided, you can see that at the beginning, the first half dozen guests the figures show "zero, zero, zero, zero, zero and zero". After that, we wised up a bit, but still, there's zeros scattered about for each year we've been operating.
There's also been the phenomena of the slowly accumulating arrears. Where someone doesn't have it on Friday, but will "for sure" have it on Saturday. Or Monday. Or Thursday. You can see that problem, even if it comes in, then the next fee is now nearly due, and they're going to be short on that. This makes for as if we had entirely missed a week's payment, as since we're always a week - or three - behind, we'll be the ones who take that on the chin when they leave.
Lately, as in this year, we've advanced more and are trying to become more "real". Real as defined by our long put off 501(c)3. And we're still on track for that, but obviously we've run into some delays. Principally the operating costs. The utilities for the past winter were fantastically hard on us. In past years, when we only had one house up and running, we could save some money by keeping the house Katie and I lived in at 50 to 55 degrees.
Meanwhile, the house where everyone only had to pay $50 a week, they'd have the gas furnace roaring away at 75 degrees, and then have some additional electric heaters plugged in, then - seriously - have at times the stove on full blast sucking megawatts of electricity, and then, to add grave insult to the devastating injury, have windows open in their bedrooms with fans blowing, as it was "hot".
While my wife and I were sleeping in sweaters and three quilts.
And if you're wondering if I'm exaggerating a bit, well, the heat situation next door I threw all the various things together at once, so usually not everything was plugged in and roaring away at once. But actually, if I did not keep on top of it 24/7, it was for more times than you'd think. We finally - in March - solved this by putting a lock on the temperature controls and letting everyone know that any heater found would be confiscated and held until they were ready to leave.
This past April and May we have been trying to "catch up" on the utilities, which since this year this house had to be kept far warmer than 50 - to accommodate the two guests downstairs - was frighteningly high. Four figures high. Some monies we meant for other projects had to be thrown over to defray that and keep our heads above water utility-wise. We've been struggling month to month to keep that lurching along, and doing so by delaying on personal bills, so that we can kick in the difference out of our own pockets.
But this last month, this June, we could put it off no more, and so the $400 that we'd ordinarily have tossed to CWLP to keep the wolves at bay instead went to - since it was her money in the first place - paying off my wife's bills. This left me to go to CWLP and arrange a pay schedule with them which they graciously allowed. Where I'll make a $300 payment per week for three weeks, starting this Monday, and being on each Monday. This way we'll have it reduced to near zero by the end of this month.
And since, for the moment, we receive $300 per week in program fees, this should work. Given that we've finally been able to get enough business cards, practice, contacts and word of mouth that we can - for the first time ever - generally keep our beds full. Up to just a month or so ago, that was not the case. It is still too soon to tell for sure, but if we can manage to keep at capacity, and it appears that we can, we may be at the start of a wonderful financial turn around where things like I've been describing will no longer be a worry.
We may be able to get out ahead of things, instead of running this place check to check, bill to bill, final notice to final notice.
One way, besides being able to find new guests quicker, that we've managed to get to this slightly better place is that we finally lowered the boom on the guests two months ago. We said that the policy of not paying or delay paying, or paying half now, half never, or virtual skips, or any of the surprisingly numerous ways to not pay was over. $50 per week, by Friday at 4 pm, or some kind of chore would need to be done in punishment, and if past midnight of that day, then they needed to move.
You're probably seeing where I'm heading with this.
So why Monday, Dean? Why didn't I tell City, Water, Light and Power that we'd pay the $300 on Friday, when the fees are due in? Yeah, you know where this is going. I already knew myself that the odds of everyone having it in by 4 pm would be next to nothing, but - with our new "toughness" - they would be in by the weekend, leaving us Monday to pay.
And sure enough, there was one person who needed to pay past 4 pm, and since he's relatively new that was fine, and there was another who wasn't due to pay till Monday given the day he moved in and blah, blah, that was okay, too. Really. So far so good. But a third person was not able to pay today, he needed till Saturday. And when he told me that yesterday, I agreed, as I knew that Saturday was still before Monday.
But the call today was that his boss wouldn't pay him till next Thursday, but that he was good for it. And actually, I know that he is good for it. It's just that the lights don't run on "good for it". I explained that no, that would not be okay, that we had to pay the utility bill by Monday, or the lights could go out. Now, in actuality, if he truly does not pay, then I will figure something out, I always do, but that's not really the point. The point is that while we're not looking to make a dime - and trust me, there is never any danger of that - we're not looking to go down in bankruptcy either.
We have a right to break even.
He went into the song of dance of how, what would I do, kick him out over $30? $30, as he had offered that he could get $20 to us this weekend. I said that it was not about wanting to kick anyone out, it was about how we had warned of this for months, and if $30 was such a small amount, then he should find someone to give that to him. He pointed out that he had no one who would give him that money. I pointed out that I knew that was not true (he has family and friends) and that it wouldn't be a give anyway.
He asked me what that meant and I told him what I've told some who seek to become new guests with no money. "Since you're sure you're getting paid Thursday, simply tell them that like you told me. That you'll pay them back Thursday. If I'm to know that you're good for it, they should know it, too."
"How did you let it get like this?" was his next angrily and self-righteously asked question, because clearly if we had only done better he could have slid with no consequences. I had to run away from my wife who tried to grab the phone from my hands, then I had to run back and shush her so he couldn't hear her explosion! (My beautiful wife has red hair!)
How I answered him is not relevant to this article, though you may be sure that it was calm and polite and I left it that he seriously needed to try hard to get that $50 by noon Monday at the latest.
But what is the answer? How did we 'let' it get like this?
My wife knows. Hence her anger. It "got" like that because I tried all winter to speak softly and cajole and beg the guys to stop turning up the thermostat. It's because when one of them had their bedroom window open, I just shut it, and did not kick them out even though they had been sternly warned before. It's because at each turn, be it stoves on or windows open or fans running or furnace roaring, I reasoned and explained and plead for adults to be adults, and refused to kick any out over it on the grounds of "we're here to help them".
Well, we are here to help them, but even before this day, we knew that the manner of it was to change. Hence our ramped up proficiency at finding replacement guests for those that we already kick out more frequently with our handy Breathalyzer. Hence our tightening up of the rules and having people removed for rule violations, including, yes, failure to pay on time. Such as the situation of a guest who stayed free just this past winter, for six weeks with the pay always being about to be here.
As I told the person today, helping one by not having them pay on time just means that then 5 more - and my wife and I - go without electricity.
Now, while I did not tell him this, as it will never come up again, this will be the last time that we are in a "how did we let it get like this" fix. Mainly because already we have took the steps to see to it that such will NEVER happen again. By the policies of nearly instant eviction for rule violations and a flat out insistence on timely pay, our preliminary budget figures show that we can be finally safe and self-sufficient by the end of this summer.
Maybe sooner.
And this CWLP bill, so scary now, will never get scary again, not this time. For the first time ever, we will approach winter with no dread, because the utility costs will NOT go through the roof, the stove will NOT be on, the windows will NOT be open, fans will NOT be running.
So good news. And sad news. See, we had been trying to be the "nicer" house. And I know that we'll still always be nicer than other houses. But the other houses are the way they have been for a reason. Too nice just means it all collapses, then no one can get aided. We have to be what we will like to think of as "firm but fair" and what others will inevitably call "mean".
And we really are sorry about that. But in the end, this will let us aid more people who are serious about sobriety and getting back on their feet.
Back to the guy who still owes us, what will we do? I told my wife this evening, "If it was a case of he truly could not get the $50, I'd find another way to get the $50 and wait till Thursday, because I know he is good for it. But he can get the $50 if he really tries, he just doesn't want to call family and friends. He'd rather I call people. And I won't put up with that. He was warned a long time ago to not let this happen, and we did spot him for a few weeks before. No more. The guys all have to know that if there is no fee, there is no staying. That sucks, it truly does, but that just is how it has to be."
This month we're paying off CWLP. Period. No ifs, ands or buts. Next month, we're paying off one old debt and paying back the "501(c)3 fund" that we had to borrow from. That's June and July covered. In August we'll pay all the taxes. Then in September, we're going to finally get the rest of this place fixed up - landscaping, windows, new paint job.
Come October? Well, then. We'll be all set, won't we? And as we slide into the cold months there'll be no further worries. About utilities, or anything else. We'll have arrived. We'll be able to keep helping six people at a time indefinitely.
That's how we'll 'let' it get like that!
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