I thought it was getting warm here in Chicago and got very excited. Then I checked weather around the US and found that all of my friends and relatives are living in places that are about 10 degrees warmer than we are � sigh. I do get to leave the long johns home now, and some days can even abandon the winter coat.
At work I am making up a �work plan,� which of course, I was supposed to be doing all along, and which of course, has not been done. It is a really cool tool. I have a much better understanding of the projects I�ll be working on and what my role will be. I�ll be doing stuff with housing, prevention, policy, quality management, and some other random stuff. Can�t wait to get started!
Tonight is our community night (notice that they�re happening more frequently? � yey!). I�m actually leading the discussion tonight. We are working on our covenant, which is to put it briefly, a set of curtains that embodies our community values and ideals.
I biked to work on Tuesday. I loved the ride in. I had the wind at my back, it was sunny, and a perfect temperature. The way home was a dark, cold and windier. Can�t wait until it stays sunny longer! Last Saturday I took a ride through the nearby forest preserve. It was beautiful. My only wish was that I was further into my training so I could have stayed out and enjoyed it longer!
I'm feeling a little down today. Once again I have spent most of the day at work doing NOTHING. This is getting very old. I keep getting promised that things will get better, but it has been 7 months and I still don't have enough to do. My latest "maybe if" is the stuff on my work plan that starts up in a few days, but I have a sinking feeling that I am going to find once again that it was all an illusion and I will still be sitting here with little to do. I am finding, unfortunately, that my moods are highly dependent on how much I've had to do at work. On days when I am given work I think this is the best time of my life. On days when I don't have work I feel that I am just sitting here rotting away. The worst part is that when you have nothing to do you become so bored that your brain just shuts down. I can't even think of anything else to write in this letter. Hopefully I'll get work soon so I have something better for you to read than this.
Met with my supervisor this morning and wanted to let you know I am much calmer than I was yesterday :)
The past week has been BUSY. Woohoo! Two of our programs have a site visit on Thurs and Fri. The visitors are from the Chicago Continuum of Care and they are checking up on a couple of our housing grants. The continuum is a neat group of housing providers in the city of Chicago. They try to coordinate services in the city. They recently developed a �10-year plan to end homelessness�. The goal is that instead of focusing funding on shelters and other temporary emergency housing the focus will be on developing more permanent low income housing and on preventing homelessness (for example by providing rental assistance).
While the goal is really good, the transition will be hard. There is a real risk that more people will be homeless in the transition since temporary shelters will be loosing funding, perhaps before permanent housing can be established and ready. The really neat thing for me is that I have gotten to hear both sides of the story. Art, our housing director, was instrumental in developing the continuum plan, and most of our programs here at AFC are consistent with the plan. On the other hand, my housemate Melissa works for Deborah�s Place who has a few programs that aren�t consistent with the plan. She was upset because they will loose their transitional housing program as it gets changed to a harm-reduction program. The problem is that the harm-reduction program will not be able to serve as many clients as the transitional program and Melissa is worried that the women they currently serve will no longer have housing.
Finally starting to feel like spring here. In typical spring fashion Saturday we had highs in the 50s then Sunday it dropped into the 30s. Today we are back up into the upper 50s. We also had snow on the first official day of spring. I got to ride my bike to work yesterday, but today was foiled by yet another sign of spring-rain. As I came into work our executive director asked me where I was from. I told him Columbus, Oh and he said �oh, you look like you are from the Pacific Northwest� (I was in full rain gear). So take that Dave, I may sound like an easterner but I dress like a northwesterner :)
On Monday nights I now get to ring bells!! I had been on a substitute list for a downtown UMC, but wasn�t getting called very often. Then all at once they were asking me to sub a lot! Now one of the gals will be out for an extended period of time so I get a long-term sub assignment! It feels very good to have bells back in my hands, although I wish I didn�t have to go to another church to do it (Broadway doesn�t have a bell choir).
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