This past December, an article that ran in The New York Times had this to say: “According to the city’s daily homeless census, there were 6,975 single adults−4,934 men and 2,041 women−in shelters on Tuesday, Dec. 8, the most recent data available.” Not mentioned in the article is that, of those 2,041 single adult women, seven spent the night on cots in the multipurpose room on the lower level of the Brooklyn Heights Synagogue on Remsen Street, a picturesque block of historic brownstone row-houses in the heart of Brooklyn Heights.

I know because I was there, not as one of the seven, but as one of two volunteers assigned to work the overnight shift on that particular evening. So it was with particular interest that I read the Times article, which went on to discuss a shortage of beds at New York City’s homeless shelters due to a major uptick in demand in recent months, a phenomenon that city officials attribute to the economic downturn. Issues involving the homeless scatter the headlines these days as more and more people fall on hard times and providers of homeless services struggle to meet demand in the face of limited funding and manpower. Advocates of the homeless and city officials have been watching the strain on shelter capacity, in particular.

But on December 8, at the shelter in Brooklyn Heights, where our seven guests were bused in from a drop-in center and social services agency, we were lucky enough to be able to provide everything expected of us.

Widespread news coverage has kept many of us in the loop regarding the constantly-evolving situation of the homeless populations in New York City. But beyond the headlines are the personal stories−those of individuals served by organizations like the Brooklyn Heights shelter, and those of individuals serving there.

Working overnight at the shelter typically means arriving at 7 p.m., setting the table and assembling the prepared dinner the “cooking volunteers” have dropped off. Then everyone, volunteers and guests alike, sits down together and shares a meal. On the night of December 8, however, I arrived at 9:00 p.m., having been called in as the pinch-hitter to fill an unexpected last-minute opening in the volunteer schedule. I’d had longstanding dinner plans with a couple of friends from college who had wanted to take me out for my birthday, and the shelter coordinator said that my late arrival was okay, just so long as I could stay the night.

So at 8:45 p.m., I hailed a cab from the steps of a swanky restaurant in Chelsea (much swankier than I’m typically known for) to the basement steps of the Brooklyn Heights shelter, wiping my lipstick off as I hurried down the hallway. I entered the dining room and took a seat next to seven “chronically homeless” women and one other volunteer, all scraping the last of their lasagna from the edges of their plates.

Such are the ironies of the volunteer experience, the pinch-hitter’s or otherwise. You drop through a wormhole in your normal day-to-day life and are plopped down in an alternate world, inhabited by people of much different fortune. Or maybe that’s not quite right. Maybe it’s all the same world, but you’re flying down the freeway, the wind in your hair, when all of the sudden, without warning, the speed limit has changed. You jam on the brakes, slow way down. You look out the window and notice all you’ve been missing.

No matter how many times I volunteer, I always find myself jamming on the brakes.

A few weeks prior in early November I had volunteered on the first night that the shelter had opened for the season. Since a new policy required that shelter guests return to the same shelter site each night−rather than be randomly distributed−on the night I arrived in December I recognized the faces I’d met on my previous visit. This didn’t mean that dinner conversation was easy. When I’d first begun to volunteer at the Synagogue, I quickly realized what a field of hidden landmines small talk with these women could be. Potentially volatile topics inevitably outnumber safe subject matter. Questions about where a guest lives, the line of work she’s in, the number of children she has and whether or not she is married invariably carry the possibility of an unfortunate back story lurking in the answer. I learned to steer clear of these (unless the women themselves chose to broach these topics) and to stick to well-traveled and inarguably less treacherous subject matter.

In the end, personal sagas do often come out. I see wallet-sized photos of grandchildren (many of them also in shelters) and one of a girlfriend living in another state. Some of the women have health problems, and some of these health problems have resulted in an inability to work at jobs that were never really stable in the first place.
On that evening in December, I cleaned up the dinner table with Kate, the other overnight volunteer−a graphic designer living in Greenpoint. There were leftovers, and we gathered with the guests to divvy up the remains to be taken for lunches the following day. We also offered to make some sandwiches and packed some fruit and extra yogurts we found in the fridge. We chatted while we divvied and packed. We talked peanut butter and jelly (creamy or crunchy? raspberry or grape?), and how much sweeter the fruit is in Argentina (I’ve never even seen a guava, much less tasted a bland one). The night was ending just as we were growing accustomed to one another.

Before I had arrived, Kate had set up the multi-purpose room with cots, blankets, pillows, and towels for the women. After loading the dishwasher, we set up our own cots in a nearby hallway. We got ready for bed in the bathrooms designated for our use, and in the other room nearby, the women got ready for bed, too. In the morning, before the bus was due to arrive at 6:15 a.m. to shuttle our guests back to the drop-in site, we would make them hot coffee and set out the lunches they’d packed the evening prior.

As we lay on our cots, Kate and I talked for awhile. I felt the ease of the conversation, an exchange that warranted very few special precautions. We talked about our jobs and the cities in which we grew up, and inevitably about our experiences there at the shelter.

Nights spent in an environment like this give rise to a strange brew of thoughts. Kate and I talked about our individual reactions to the experience. This was partly in the interest of exchanging ideas. But it was also a way for us to give voice to our own thoughts, and to thereby sort through them and make sense of them for ourselves. We talked about guilt. I told her that, as a volunteer, I try to resist this feeling, because it isn’t really fair and because I don’t believe that it ever really helps the situation. Instead, I try to summon a more positive emotion that in the end serves a greater purpose, a deep feeling of appreciation for all I have and all I am able to offer.

I like to think that as a volunteer, I am a small pulley in a system of cogs and wheels, gears and chains. It’s a system that can only function with sufficient reserves of beds and meals and dedicated individuals. As a volunteer, you do what you do because you see a societal need that you can help meet, even if you have to take your makeup off on the cab ride to meet it.