THE OBSERVER
The end of the line
A mat and a meal for the homeless downtown
By Sam Allis, Globe Columnist | March 20, 2005
Marty Miller's on a billboard in Medford.
His homely puss greets you above Mystic Avenue just off the exit ramp coming south on Interstate 93. He is, literally, the poster boy for the Boston Rescue Mission, the oldest continuously run shelter in the city, which has been serving the homeless since 1899. Next to his photo is the following: ''Drug dealer at 16. State prison at 22. Homeless at 47. Enrolled in college and employed at 49."
The man gets endless grief about his new fame. His answer: ''It beats the post office."
He should know. Over three decades, Miller, 51, has done time for heroin possession, financial scams, robbery, driving to endanger. He's had a rasher of DWIs and a wife who evaporated ages ago. There was a year of sobriety once, then a five-year stretch of clean before it all went dirty again. Girlfriend, job, car -- all gone. Heroin. Always heroin.
During Vietnam, the Army took one look at him and, in his words, said, ''No thanks."
Miller, a diminutive pear-shape with the cigarette rasp of a cartoon gangster, works evenings running the BRM's wet shelter on Kingston Street in downtown Boston. (A wet shelter takes the homeless in any condition. The Pine Street Inn, among other programs, is also wet.) He estimates that maybe three-quarters of the 65 men who crash there are high on something. Contraband is verboten so you watch for the water bottles in their pockets. After the lights go down, he checks the bathrooms for needles and other drug paraphernalia that can clog the toilets.
The men start lining up outside the Kingston House, as the place is known, after 6 every evening. Doors open at 7, earlier if it's really cold. David Faulcon, who works with Miller, checks names as they troop in while Miller passes out blankets. Some good soul donated 3,000 of them last year. Home Style Laundry in Beverly lets the BRM use its washing machines to get the scabies out.
Miller maintains his patter: ''Jason, are you going to take a shower tonight?" And: ''Anthony, you don't look so good."
They arrive with headphones and sunglasses and gym bags and windburn. They've been out in nowhere all day. Everyone's up at 5 and out of the BRM every morning at 6:30 after breakfast. Then maybe it's over to the day shelter at nearby St. Francis House, or Borders bookstore, South Station, the Boston Public Library. ''It truly is a lousy existence," says Miller.
They know the drill when they arrive: Stake your claim to a blue mat on the floor and head downstairs for a hot meal. There are no tables. They eat on their feet or slumped on their mats. A few take showers. A Latino without much English mimes his need for toilet paper. Continued...
The end of the line
March 20, 2005
Page 2 of 2 -- They walk and shuffle and limp and stagger in. Some are sober. Stevie, all gums like a newborn, says he's been off booze for 11 years but concedes, beaming, that he smokes the weed now and again.
There are groups of hard-core drunks Miller calls ''bottle gangs." There are those who have soiled their clothes and must be spoon-fed their supper. The men often help each other out. There are those who have drunk so much Listerine that their stomachs bleed and they're a mess when they hit the shelter. ''We get the bottom of the barrel," says Miller.
He is stating a fact, not making a judgment. Miller, after all, was one of them -- in and out of the place for months before getting and staying clean more than three years ago. He went through the BRM's post-detox program upstairs and then its residential unit. Today, he has a place of his own and has begun courses toward a bachelor of arts degree at UMass-Boston.
Some men drop immediately. Doing nothing for long periods of time does that to you. The rest are down after dinner and the lights are out by 8. A guy with headphones sings loudly in Spanish, prompting a symphony of epithets. There's wheezing and snoring and moaning. A speechless drunk from Guatemala materializes on his knees in the doorway. Faulcon calls 911. The emergency medical technicians come to see if he can enter the building under his own steam. He eventually does.
Miller and Faulcon ride herd on two floors of men on mats. They take turns watching the lower floor on a monitor. The shelter can get violent. There are rare calls to the police amid less-serious events. One guy was discovered making a robust meal of his own in the middle of the night after having unscrewed the refrigerator doors.
The BRM is a Christian mission, a faith-based nonprofit living, in part, off of taxpayers' dollars. The sign over the cafeteria serving area reads, ''Jesus is the head of this household." There is voluntary Bible study and religious services.
So what's a card-carrying member of the ACLU to do with this? Make a stand over church-state separation? Nope. There are other places to pick that fight. If there's a problem with the BRM shelter, aside from the state-funding cuts, it's the lack of facilities for women.
Miller is no holy roller. He's more concerned with staying sober. He's not out of the woods by a long shot and knows that running the shelter improves his chances. ''It keeps it green," he explains.
Sam Allis's e-mail address is allis@globe.com.
