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Michael Dunne: I’m Michael Dunne. When’s the last time you had a conversation with someone on a park bench? For me, it’s been a really long time. But sometimes sharing information or stories with someone, perhaps even a perfect stranger, can be a truly beneficial occurrence for both the teller and the listener. Recently, the Eugene Mission hosted a 24-hour program called Conversations on a Bench, where the executive director had chats with people who were at the mission to recover from homelessness and addiction, and also with some of the staff who work there, many of whom first came to the mission with nowhere else to go. Today on the show, you’ll hear some of these conversations and get a window into both the struggles that so many people face in our community and the potential for finding hope and help. First up, you’ll hear from the mission’s executive director, Sheryl Balthrop. Sheryl Balthrop, executive director of the Eugene Mission, thanks so much for talking with us.
Sheryl Balthrop: Thank you.
Dunne: Talk about this program, Conversations on a Bench. What’s it all about?
Balthrop: This is a 24-hour event where we have an opportunity to share stories with the community: stories of lived experience from people who’ve experienced homelessness, stories of recovery and of restoration to families. We’re hearing from the broadest possible swath of the community: policymakers, families, people who have been through it and are back with their families, back in the community, working, etc. We hear from people who have been in a really tough spot. At midnight, for instance, we have a remembrance of family members and others who have lost their lives. But it’s 24 hours largely to celebrate, because we’re hearing about people who have done well, who are flourishing. We want it to be an encouragement to the community to hear what’s working, but we have those hard conversations as well: what’s not working, and how can we come together as a community to start reconnecting people with health and well-being?
Dunne: Was part of the strategy with this the fact that probably a lot of people don’t really understand homelessness?
Balthrop: That’s correct. Far too often, we don’t recognize the level of disconnection. Many times, this can actually go back generations, where families separate and people don’t have the level of support they need. There are traumas, there are elements of mental illness, there are economic challenges and, of course, there are substance issues. Many times there are multidimensional challenges, and the last domino to fall is the person being out on the street, where we’re trying to connect them with material resources. We recognize we have to take a very holistic approach and start addressing all of these underlying causes in order to get a person back to health and well-being, so that they can be restored to family, to meaning and to recovery, and so that it is a sustainable condition, not that terrible repeating cycle that we hear about so much.
Dunne: Who benefits the most: the people who are talking or the people who are listening? Or is it both?
Balthrop: Wow. I think it’s both, and I also think there’s a broader benefit to the community in having hope that this cycle can be broken. We hear from former guests who have now been doing very well for decades, who come back with their children and tell us stories about when they thought their life was basically over, when they were entrenched in substance use or other really serious challenges. Our community needs to know that we can reconnect and that there are resources available, that this does not have to be a death sentence for people. The same goes for hearing from families, moms and dads, spouses and children, who can talk about the hard steps that need to be taken, but that nonetheless there is something better on the other side.
Dunne: You’ve been doing this for a while, and the mission has certainly expanded greatly over your history. Looking at the state of homelessness in our community today, what are some of the positives you’re seeing, and what are some of the obstacles that still remain?
Balthrop: I would say it’s such an entrenched problem. The challenge, I think, is that people approach it from a materialistic perspective, and we know that many of these things are relational and complex. We really need people connecting with one another to address the traumas, the grief and the isolation, and it’s affecting people of all ages. We see an increasing number of seniors involved, and of course the community sees a number of young people being impacted by what we know as homelessness. So we’re recognizing that approaches to this problem need to be very broad, and we need to come together.
Dunne: Sheryl Balthrop, executive director of the Eugene Mission, thank you so much.
Balthrop: Thank you.
Dunne: Now you’ll hear from Stephanie Butte. She came to the mission when her life became not just unmanageable, but a true nightmare. Why don’t you tell me what your life was like before you came to the Eugene Mission?
Stephanie Butte: I was at a lonely place in my life. My parents had passed away, my brother had been estranged for about a decade, and I have two children, who were around 10 then and are now about 22. During that decade of my life, I found that I had become completely estranged from my whole family. I was living destitute in my own home with no one around me. Drugs and alcohol had put me into a bitter state where I had turned away all those who loved me, and my erratic behavior had caused schizophrenia, but it was the kind induced by the use of methamphetamine, drugs and alcohol. I was in that state, doing things erratically in my neighborhood and in public that caused me to be arrested. I had been arrested and sent to the mental health hospital on a couple of occasions. My life and my mind were at a place where they were just completely lost, and I did not know if I would be able to find a way out. In fact, in my state, I didn’t even recognize how destitute it had become.
Dunne: How did you find the mission?
Butte: I found the mission through being arrested. During my arrest, there was a woman in jail who was friends with one of the women’s Life Change sisters, Nico Reyes, who’s here with us today too. Nico had been in the program and had turned her life around under the same charges I had, and she was sending in brochures about the mission and the program it offered: that it could not only help get you sober, but would also eventually help you go through school, help reunite you with your family through counseling services and give you the opportunity for restoration in your community, living communally with other women who had been down similar paths. When I heard her story and how far she had come in the program, it gave me hope and encouragement to apply, and I was accepted into the program she let us know about in the jail.
Dunne: Did it help being in a place like the mission, where many people share the same story as you? Did that help you?
Butte: It sure did. It makes you feel a part of, instead of separate.
Dunne: Tell people who are listening the difference between your life today and when you first got here.
Butte: I’m no longer under the schizophrenia diagnosis. It has been changed to bipolar, which can be treated with a medicine that I’m in a routine of taking at the same time every day. So my mental health has been repaired 100%. My broken heart is no longer estranged from family. My children and I have regular contact. They come for visits and passes here, where I get to spend the weekend in repair, and they will also help me when I complete the program, which is a path, or a walk, with Jesus. We go to church every Sunday in a family church kind of situation, and with my sisters walking the walk with me, I’m confident that when it comes time to do the work, which is a lot of rehabilitation through homework and the classes we take, with that repair and restoration I’ll be ready to return to the community. The mission helps you establish that too, with housing, furniture, groceries, all the needs, and schooling, so that you can get back into the community and sustain yourself.
Dunne: Stephanie, thank you so much.
Butte: Thank you very much.
Dunne: The next voice you’ll hear is that of Nico Reyes, a guest of the mission, who tells how she fought her way back from addiction. Talk about your life before coming to the mission.
Nico Reyes: Before coming to the mission, I was in a seven-year abusive relationship, which I tried to escape, and which led to me violating a lifetime no-stalking order.
Dunne: Give people an idea of what your everyday life was like.
Reyes: It was my everyday life. Man, I don’t like to think about it. I was very suicidal. I tried taking my life three times. I was depressed. I was hopeless. I thought I had no way out. I felt all alone, and that nobody understood.
Dunne: How did you get here? How did you hear about the mission?
Reyes: It was a God shot. I ended up in jail, and I was looking at five years in prison for violating that lifetime stalking order. One night I just prayed, and I was looking for a treatment facility as an alternative to going to prison. The doors just opened up. I heard about Life Change through a friend, then I started checking it out for myself, got all the information and pursued it. The doors just opened up effortlessly.
Dunne: If you could, what was the first day like?
Reyes: The first day at Life Change, walking through those doors, I was overwhelmed. I was nervous about living with 12 other ladies, and I didn’t know where I’d fit in. I didn’t know if I was cut out for the place. But when I came in, it exceeded all my expectations. I was welcomed with loving arms. They all cared for me and wanted to help me in everything I did, and I wasn’t lonely at all. I didn’t feel like an outcast.
Dunne: I know a lot of mission staff and volunteers are people who went through the program themselves. How important was it for you to have someone who could understand your experiences?
Reyes: It’s really important, because now I can’t use the excuse that “you don’t understand,” because they do understand. They’ve been there and done that, and they share their life experiences with us. They coach us on which path to take and which not to, and that’s really helpful.
Dunne: So what’s your life like today compared to when you first walked through that door?
Reyes: Today, I enjoy life. I’m enrolled in college, in my second term, to become a drug and alcohol counselor, and I have hope. I have this tremendous hope that I don’t ever want to give up, and I have peace in my life.
Dunne: When you complete that program and become someone who counsels people, what do you think your experience, both before the mission and in the mission, is going to do for you as you counsel others?
Reyes: I think it’s going to help grow me into an even better counselor. I’m going to know different perspectives on what people are going through. I’m definitely not going to be judgmental. I’m always going to be open-minded, and I’m just going to be a sponge, taking in everything I possibly can and learning to use it to my benefit, to better my future.
Dunne: Well, Nico, thank you so much for talking with us.
Reyes: Thank you very much.
Dunne: Finally, you’ll hear from Kimber W. She works at the mission now, but first came to it when she had nowhere else to turn. What is your role here at the mission? What do you do?
Kimber W.: Women’s Life Change program manager.
Dunne: OK, explain to the audience what the Life Change program is.
Kimber W.: Life Change is a faith-based, 18-month relapse prevention program.
Dunne: OK, so who are the people you serve? Who enters the Life Change program?
Kimber W.: We have men who go into Men’s Life Change and women who come into our program. We have ladies who come in who have had problems with addiction and alcohol, and in some cases struggle with mental health. Ladies come in from detox centers, a lot from Willamette Family, and also from the jails.
Dunne: What do they get out of this program? What does it do for them?
Kimber W.: Well, it’s faith-based. We’re 18 months, so we address barriers to remaining sober, and we deal with core issues such as childhood trauma, the roots and causes of why they chose to do drugs in the first place. A lot of times, drugs and alcohol are just a cover-up for symptoms that really have nothing to do with substances. We use the “Genesis Process” book, which is the clinical part of our program, and that helps give them tools for when they leave.
Dunne: What brought you here? Why did you want to be here at the mission providing the services you do?
Kimber W.: I myself was a drug addict for eight years, from 36 to 44. My mom brought me an application to the Life Change program, and I went through the program myself 10 years ago.
Dunne: And I imagine that helps in connecting with people who are going through it.
Kimber W.: Yeah. I left here sharing Jesus. I didn’t know Jesus before I came into the program, so I left here telling everybody how Jesus could heal them, and from there I did ministry under the bridge. I’m still serving at City First Church. I know the power of God through this program, so with the ladies who come into our program, I truly know and believe that God can heal them. So yeah, it’s coming back and giving back what I’ve been given.
Dunne: What about this program, these Conversations on a Bench? What does it mean to you? And what do you think people get from it?
Kimber W.: What it means to me is that it’s a way to bring the mission and the community together. It’s a way to let our community know that people do recover, that we are a valuable part of our community and that God brings people here. It’s a place where people can find hope and healing.
Dunne: Maybe I should phrase it this way: Are there myths among the general public about people with addiction, and what message do you want to give people about the possibility of recovery?
Kimber W.: Well, recovery is absolutely possible, and relapse doesn’t have to be part of recovery. I think there’s the myth that people want to be on drugs. I think there are a lot of people in our community who choose drugs and aren’t ready to come in. But what I see from being out with our unhoused brothers and sisters is that right now a lot of it is generational. It’s not people coming from a stable household. It’s from having parents, usually a mom, who were themselves addicted and homeless. So more than anything, it’s getting people to realize that this is generational homelessness, which I think is something we have not seen before at the levels we’re seeing now.
Dunne: My last question for you: Obviously, a lot of people live unhoused and have all sorts of challenges. Talk about how this program helps them at the very bottom of society, and how they can work their way back.
Kimber W.: I think it helps them to be seen and heard. We address the four areas of a person’s life where their needs haven’t been met. We meet the basic needs: housing, food, shelter. We do classes, and we do things outside of our program. We send them to church. They go to Celebrate Recovery. They go to AA. They go to NA. Some of them are actually out in the community building a support system, so that after they’re done with our program, they have a community completely set up. It’s basically teaching them how to reconnect and to feel seen and feel loved. Some of our ladies who come in don’t even know what that looks like. It’s just been such a rewarding position.
Dunne: Thank you very much.
Kimber W.: You’re welcome.
Dunne: That’s the show for today. All episodes of “Oregon on the Record” are available as a podcast at klcc.org. Tomorrow on the show, you’ll hear from an Oregon entrepreneur who turned her lack of hearing into an app to help others with a similar challenge. I’m Michael Dunne, host of “Oregon on the Record.” Thanks for listening.
