Street Spirit September 2004

'We Are Sisterhood, We Are Family'

Interview with Zelma Brown & Meredith Stout of the Berkeley Women's Daytime Drop-In Center

Interview by Maureen Hartmann

Zelma Brown and Meredith Stout came from vastly dissimilar family backgrounds and took dramatically differing paths in life, but their journeys converged at the same destination: the Berkeley Women's Daytime Drop-In Center, where the two have worked together for many years.

Zelma Brown, now a staff member at the Center, came to this haven for homeless women after a life-changing accident. A friend thought it was the place she needed to be after her career as a sheet metal worker ended due to an injury she received by falling from a scaffold. Zelma, a native San Franciscan, was born in 1964, and experienced homelessness and foster/group homes at the age of 16. She now lives in Vallejo, and has a Certificate of Health and Human Services from Solano Community College, which she earned two years after she started work at the Center.

Meredith Stout, a Berkeley resident, has volunteered at the Center for seven years, combining her social justice activism with photography. She is a graduate of Vassar College, a faculty-wife and mother, and worked for ten years in high school administration. She attended graduate school in psychology, then pursued a freelance career in photography.

Meredith came to the Drop-In Center to do a photographic documentary on homelessness. The staff told her that if she wanted to take photographs of the women clients, she would have to volunteer. She now has been there for seven years, both as a volunteer and photographer.

In a staff meeting, Zelma offered to write poetry to go with Meredith's photographs of homeless women, and out of that came a close friendship between the two women, and approximately 50 performances and exhibitions of what came to be known as the Sisters Project.

The Women's Daytime Drop-In Center was started in March 1988 after Mary Robach, who was on the original steering committee, found the present site. Linda Lazzareschi, the present coordinator, was also on the steering committee.

The Center has worked with BOSS, Berkeley Emergency Food Project, the Women's Refuge, the Ecumenical Chaplaincy, the Berkeley Drop-In, plus churches and other community organizations. A nonprofit agency, it has been funded by the City of Berkeley, a HUD contract, foundations and the United Way.

The Center offers a nutritious breakfast and lunch, the use of a telephone, mail and an address, transportation, and housing counseling. It offers crisis counseling for domestic violence, substance abuse and mental health treatment, case management and support groups for single parents, and for women's health issues. The children's service coordinator supervises play groups and activities. In the garden, horticultural classes are provided.

INTERVIEW

Maureen Hartmann: Zelma and Meredith, how did your childhood and upbringing influence your present-day relationship with homeless people?

Zelma Brown: As a child growing up in San Francisco, I suffered a lot of family tragedy. I was being sold in the neighborhood by my brother to pedophiles. As a young girl growing up, I thought that's what my life would be. I couldn't see beyond my block. It wasn't until much later that I learned that there was more to life, that I would utilize those experiences to reach back and help other women come out of it. There was a lot of incest and child abuse that took place in my home. At about age 13, I decided to leave. 

I became homeless at that time. Living in the streets, I hooked up with a lot of adults who were homeless, who sheltered me. They clothed me; they taught me how to survive on the streets. That's where my education came from. I was in foster care; I was on the streets; I was in city parks; I was in juvenile hall. That experience, living through that as a teenager, equipped me to do what I am doing now.

I street hustled for a while. I was doing some not-so-good things. So I didn't have a formal education, even though I tried to stay in school. My teachers didn't know where I was living at the time. Living in juvenile hall, I went to school there. Being in foster care, I was able to go to a continuation high school. There was a teacher, a Ms. Lolita Leak, who told me I could be whatever I wanted to be. I didn't buy it at the time. But later on as an adult, I remembered those words.

So I still struggled as a homeless youth, trying to make it. I didn't expect to see the age of 18. And when I reached 18, I knew I'd be dead before I was 21. I finally ended up in trade school, and became a sheet metal worker for ten years.

After an accident - falling from a scaffold - that ended my career as a sheet metal worker, I went into a big depression. I couldn't decide which direction my life was going to go. A friend took me to the Women's Daytime Drop-In Center and told me that's where I needed to be. So I started off there as a volunteer. Eventually I started working there. My whole life changed.

Meredith Stout: My experiences are diametrically opposed to Zelma's. They began in a stable, intellectual, academic family from a Victorian framework where subjects such as sex and money were never discussed. Both of my parents went through various ailments that gave me some underlying anxiety. But I did go through the regular school system with a supportive, unconditional backing which has helped me all of my life. However, there was a feeling of isolation, which I did not understand at the time.

I went to an elementary school which was more of mixed races and classes. The schools I attended later were relatively segregated. I think there were only two African-American students in my large public junior high school.

I came from a background of eastern colleges. My father and brother went to Yale; my mother had gone to Smith. I had the opportunity to go to Vassar College in New York which, in a way, was a very difficult experience for me. I was 16 and had not had the academic preparation in spite of coming from a very word-oriented family.

I was put on a train and sent to the East Coast where, for me, it was sink or swim. I was in classes with women two years older than I, many of whom had gone to the best private schools. I decided to be as much like them as possible, and I worked very hard at this, and I was intensely homesick. But I survived, received a good college education, and generally enjoyed a privileged upbringing.

MH: Zelma and Meredith, what factors in your adult life, such as education or mentors, had a positive influence on your work with homeless people?

Zelma: Well, I can honestly say that there have been quite a few angels in my life. When I decided to switch over into a helping profession, quite a few people helped me go back to school. I loved college. I love the experience of it. I hope to go back. I was able to go back and get a Certificate in Health and Human Services.

One of my mentors was Linda Lazzareschi. She's the director of the Women's Daytime Drop-In Center. She is one of the strongest women that I know - and I know a lot of strong women. I try to role-model how she treats her clients, in the way that she talks to them and deals with situations that take place at the Drop-In.

Meredith is also a mentor. She's been part of my continuing education. I met Meredith seven years ago. She was a volunteer at the Drop-In and I believe I was still a volunteer at the time. I remember tacking that first poem to the wall: "My Sister, My Sister," thanking the staff and clients of the WDDC for helping with depression. At that time I hadn't been sharing any of my poetry except with my journal and with friends. She encouraged me to bring it out more by giving me an opportunity and a platform.

The photos that she took inspired me to write these women's stories, and my own story. Just our daily friendship encouraged me. She's become my best friend. Because our worlds are so different, she's encouraged me to believe that there are possibilities, that there can be a bridge between people of different classes and different races. Meredith and I were talking the other day about the fact that people are not going to like what I have to say about oppression. I believe that all people are oppressed. And I believe we all oppress each other.

Meredith: When I was a senior in college, I married a graduate student in English, from Yale, of course. We came out to Stanford where he was studying. He received an offer for a job in Berkeley, and we moved to Berkeley. It has been a wonderful experience to live in Berkeley where the social fabric was so rich, but living in an academic community continued to have a sense of separation for me.

At that point, perhaps the primary mentor for me was the feminist movement. I kept saying to myself, "Why do you feel so needy? You could have everything you want. There must be something wrong with you." It began to occur to me that I could do something besides be a wife and mother and play tennis.

The mentors in my life who have most influenced my understanding of and relationship to homelessness are Zelma Brown, and the staff and clients at the Women's Drop-In Center. It's hard to describe the gap of ignorance, discomfort and fear that exists between people struggling with homelessness and those of us who have always had and take for granted the comforts of a stable, relatively affluent environment.

Through my work and travels with Zelma, I have learned her ease of meeting people and talking with them directly, of taking the time to ask how they're doing because she cares, of being present, of understanding that it's okay to say no if needed, and at the same time being open and friendly.

It's the same at the Women's Drop-In Center. When I first went there, I felt like a kid at a new school: Would I measure up, would the women accept me? Was I invading them because I didn't have the same hardships? Did they think less of me because I had more? Over time, those feelings have simply faded away. It's hard to tell who is staff, who is volunteer, who is guest. Not that there aren't professional boundaries, rules and house etiquette, but there is also warmth, laughter and care. It feels like family to be there.

Of course there are differences. Once I was listening to a woman tell me about a specific problem she was having. Eager to be sympathetic, I said, "Oh I know just what you mean." There was a pause while she looked at me, not unkindly. "No you don't," she said. She was right, but we're still friends. I hope, when I leave there each time, I more easily carry the lessons of compassion I have learned from the staff and the clients onto the streets and into my own life.

MH: Zelma, can you tell how the women at the Woman's Daytime Drop-In Center helped with your depression, and the effects of abuse and homelessness?

Zelma: They gave me a reason. They became my purpose. There was always somebody there who wanted to see me. No matter what little bit I had to give, they wanted it and it was valuable.

There were some days when I didn't want to get up and go. I would draw on that strength. You know that this person expects to see me today. I'm going to be there. Until we find housing for everyone, make sure everyone's fed, and address abusive issues toward women, I'm going to continue to be there.

MH: How did your relationships with others at the Drop-In Center contribute courage and strength in your relationship to homeless people?

Meredith: I can speak to that, because having lived a segregated life, I was nervous with homeless people, people who had been raised differently from me. I would scurry past people on the street, looking neither to the right nor left. I didn't know how to speak to people, if someone was disabled and needed help. I'd tend to not be there for them because I was afraid and felt guilty.

It wasn't until I began working at the Drop-In Center as a photographer, doing a documentary, that I began to understand that there were no differences. I began to meet women who were just like me with hopes and dreams and sadness and laughter and tears. I stopped being afraid and I stopped being afraid on the streets. In fact, Zelma tells me I'm not afraid enough.

I feel a sense of relief, because I don't have to live in what felt like an isolated world. We're all human. They're so wonderful, just the way I'm wonderful. We're all the same. I have had this experience of getting to know them in the photographic lens in which we bonded. It was a really spiritual experience for both of us. Women would come to me who hadn't seen me for five years and hug me, and say, "Remember me?, remember when you took my picture?" I say, "I do." And I always do. It is a deep, spiritual connection.

The courage of women who have to struggle every day is a phenomenal thing to bear witness to. I don't know what it is not to know where I'm going to sleep or when I'm going to eat again, but somehow they have a still joy and peace of mind. If you have the courage to let down your guard and let these women share their lives with you, you can experience their courage.

One of the many things I have learned from Zelma is the importance of being with them as an equal. When you do that, you trade courage with the person to whom you are speaking. When I meet women at the Drop-In and we could trade valor, they could accept me for who I am.

Zelma: I think one way Meredith and I may help is that we are trying to break down this whole stereotype of homeless women and children. And I think by doing that it encourages women who are going through this to continue, that they'll make it. Because we're out there saying, "This is what happens. This is who this person is. Just an ordinary woman with a child, women who may have made a mistake or had things happen to them. And when we show that to the women themselves, they become encouraged.

MH: Would you say that your journey to the present relationship with homeless people has been a spiritual one?

Zelma: It definitely has been a spiritual experience. It couldn't happen if it wasn't. I always describe this journey as riding the whale. And I say that all Meredith and I do is get on the back of the whale and hold on. We're on top of the whale and we get to see the beauty of it. This is not something that we control or that we have mastery of.

I'm not a director; I'm not a writer; I'm not a poet. I'm inspired. She takes photos; she sets them in front of me. The words just come. It's a spiritual thing that happens. I think that if we were to put ourselves in the way, it wouldn't work. I definitely believe in a higher power. I don't know what that power's name is. It could be the Star of David; it could be Buddha; it could be Jehovah; it could be many things, the Goddess. But I believe that there is something directing the work that we do.

Meredith: Zelma has exposed me to the world of a higher power, if you will, God. I was raised in an agnostic/atheist household. One depended only on one's rational, intellectual abilities. I have come to entertain seriously the idea of reincarnation, of knowing people in another life. I am reasonably certain that Zelma and I knew each other in another life. To even say that out loud is so astonishing to me.

Zelma and I have traveled together. We would be passing a hillside of erosion, with water running down, or of red earth. Zelma would say, "The earth is crying." This was a new way of thinking, a new way of spirituality for me.

MH: Zelma and Meredith, how do you keep your spirits up, with the intense tragedy that you see around you?

Zelma: You know how I keep my spirits up? I'm still alive. I can still be alive despite the things that happened to me, then I know that there's a way out of it for each person who comes through those doors. It may be hard, but I know that it's survivable. I keep my spirits up by seeing light in everything, even tragedy. There's light in it, and there's light around it even though it's a tragic situation.

Meredith: Sometimes a positive, one-on-one exchange with somebody will last me hours. Someone may be suffering from what to me are terrible hardships. I say to that lady, "How are you doing?" She will answer, "I'm blessed." I say to myself, "If she's blessed, I'm sitting on a pile of gold, spiritual gold." Any personal exchange with somebody, when somebody looks you in the eye on the street and says, "How are you doing? God bless you." That sustains me.

MH: When and how was the Women's Daytime Drop-In Center established?

Zelma: The Drop-In was born in 1988. What happened is a group of women decided that there needed to be a safe place for homeless women to go during the day. Most shelters would close and these women would have to be on the street. One member of the group was a social worker. Two other women were housewives. What they did is they got this place, and would just have a place where they would give sandwiches, just basic food during the day. From that place with available food, it grew.

MH: What services and programs are offered to homeless clients of the center?

Zelma: They added phone services and a second meal, so they had breakfast and lunch. They added mail services, then case management and housing programs. So it just grew. Now they have a staff of six on site, and they have a transitional house called Bridget House, which houses up to four families. They also have two housing programs, Shelter plus Care and Housing Stabilization. There's a drug and alcohol support group, a psychologist and a therapist on duty, also an HIV Coordinator.

We try to address every need of every woman that comes there during the day, even if she just needs a place to sit down.

For example, I did an interview today with a woman whom I will call "W." When "W" started off, she had been homeless for four years. She became a client of ours. We finally got her into a hotel through Berkeley Mental Health; they sponsored her. She lived there terrified because it wasn't a safe place for her.

So she hooked up with one of our case managers and also with Claudia Madison, our assistant coordinator. They worked with the housing authority, and basically held her hand, and worked at it daily and finally got her into housing. Now she's housed in her own place.

I talked to her about it today. She said she's learning how to be an adult and what it's like to be safe. She mentioned how she could cook for herself and live on her own. It feels good for her to be self-sufficient. She comes every day and we encourage her every day.

We are sisterhood; we are family. Once you come through that door the first time, we're with you the rest of your life. Some just need a bar of soap, deodorant, toothpaste, towels, or shampoo - things as simple as that. Or we have another woman who just needed to cry, and she didn't need to tell us why. We just made a safe place for her to be able to do that, to be able to not worry about being judged.

MH: How has the homeless problem changed from the 1980s compared to the 1990s and the early 21st century?

Zelma: In the '80s, I was in my teen years on the streets and on drugs myself. I was in Los Angeles in the '90s. I have been involved with the Drop-In Center in Berkeley for the past seven years. I'd say there were less women and children that I noticed around that time.

The homeless population is growing right now. I don't know if it's due to welfare reform or the fact that the cost of living is outrageous in California or due to the fact that there's no jobs for women with the type of education they get living here in Berkeley, and who are suffering poverty.

There's now a big disparity between those who have and those who don't. I don't think there's a big push to get people to get an education higher than high school. When I was growing up, the big thing was to just be a high school graduate. That was the accomplishment, and that's what it is in my community.

Nobody's saying, "We need to go beyond this." What they're doing is training women for minimum wage jobs, on which it's impossible to exist. The cost of rent alone will wipe out your paycheck. To be considered also is food, childcare, etc. The system is tilting right now.

MH: What do you see as the future of the Women's Drop-In Center, and what could it become in a perfect world?

Zelma: We need to have more funding to have more staff to have more programs to address all the needs of the women who come through our doors. We need more people to come to our community and invest; because when people contribute, they are investing in their own future. If they can't get involved financially, we need people to donate their time, even if it's just an hour to come read to a child or teach a woman to do an application.

In a perfect world, I see the Drop-In as just a place to hang out. There won't be women who are being beaten, women who see a need to destroy their bodies, whether it be through drugs or alcohol. There won't be a need to try to find affordable housing because everybody will be guaranteed it in this country.

If you have time, any woman, 18 years and over, please volunteer, if you could spare one or two hours a week You don't have to be trained in anything, just to bear witness to somebody's life, just to listen. If you love to cook, just come cook. Come teach somebody to knit, or to sew.

Meredith: When I started at the Drop-In seven years ago, I went there only to photograph for a few weeks. They said, "If you're going to photograph, you'll have to volunteer." I said, "I'll stay a few weeks." That was seven years ago. It is a family for me. I can't imagine not working there as long as I'm able.

For more information, write or visit the Women's Daytime Drop-In Center, 2218 Acton St., Berkeley, CA 94702. Phone: (510) 548-2884.

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