[quote]Brother Chris wrote:
[quote]Chushin wrote:
Chris,
I think you are being a bit disingenous here.
The soup may take 30 secs, but the cot bit? Doesn’t that involve somewhat more interaction?[/quote]
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
It is harder than you think. I have only worked at the homeless shelter a few times (as my work was at night during this past summer so I wasn’t able too much). But I worked there a lot when I lived full time in Phoenix.
It is terribly hard the first few times they come to get anything out of them, it is even worse than the kitchen until they see that we care and we don’t pity them (they loosen up when they see that we’re not push overs and that we’re there to help them only if they help themselves).
Procedure goes like this:
- Doors open
- Line of women and children go in first
- Men go in second
- Everyone gets water-proof/rub-proof stamp
- Bags are checked and weapons and alcohol are taken
- Assigned cot or room
- Confession & Mass
- Supper
They can stay up to a week (we tell by the stamp), if they work for us (so they get a room, closet, stipend, more food, shower, &c.) they can stay longer, but we check to make sure they are legal.
For those who just come for the cot and supper we let them go two or three days then we pull them aside and let them know that we are happy to help them for as long as they need, but in order for us to do that they need help themselves.
This includes going to the office next door and applying for temp jobs and getting a sign off by the end of their week (the temp office is connected with us we help them get paper work started, including taking a picture). In order for them to get a signature paper work needs to be done by the job finder and that includes making sure they are able to work in Arizona legally.
So, I’m sure someone can get by for a short while of using the homeless shelters without being legal. But we honestly do our best to not enable these people. Enabling people is about as worse as not giving charity. If you want I can clip some of my 10 page thesis on the subject for you.
So, though we don’t personally have the man power/knowledge to pick the illegals out from those who are citizens and legals…our systems does it for us.
But, I’m not sure how easy you think it is with limited staff to figure out in a city of Spanish speakers which Spanish speaker is illegally here. If ‘bad at English’ was an indicator then about 50% of those 18 and under are suspect in Phoenix. After all we are like 48th in education and the Spanish speaking got to be such a problem that our government had to pass legislation that said that English was the language of the classroom (exceptions of course).
*Spanish is my first language and I am a natural citizen, it is also the first language of most of my family in Arizona and New Mexico and they are all natural citizens. Though I can no longer speak it fluently, though that is more likely to the fact that I learned Spanish from people that came from Spain and not Mexicans and South Americans. That is I learned Proper Spanish.[/quote]
Sorry for the small hijack BUT
Proper spanish? Is that a joke? Comparing spanish from Spain and Latin American spanish is like comparing british english to american english the differences are minor.
“Proper Spanish” as you put it, is taught in all schools, people choosing to speak slang is another issue, the same can be said about the United States.
When people are learning spanish they are often told to listen to television (news) from countries like Mexico and Colombia because they are the clearest in regard to pronunciation and accent. I am part spanish and have been to Spain and a few times I could not understand a damn thing the people were saying especially the older generations.