Molly Jalma sometimes tells the story of a young man who spends hours marching around the perimeter of a room and yelling. This behavior made the people around him uncomfortable until, she said, staff at The Listening House, a daytime shelter for people experiencing poverty, homelessness and loneliness, took time to talk to him and discover that the marching was actually a behavior suggested to him by a therapist to help him cope with his anger.
“It turns out his mental health practitioner said, ‘When you start to get like that, you need to go for a walk,’” explained Jalma, Listening House’s executive director. “So he was doing exactly what he had been told to do.”
Conversations like this are what set The Listening House, a 40-year-old St. Paul nonprofit, apart. Listening House staff focus on hearing their visitors’ stories and helping them find the help they need to move beyond homelessness, mental illness and addiction, said Mary Margaret Reagan-Montiel, Listening House director of operations. They actually get to know the person who is misjudged by society and help them access the tools they need to move to a more stable life.
“This young man is walking around doing what he’s supposed to be doing, but of course that’s not the first thing the outside world sees,” Reagan-Montiel said. “They think, ‘Let me call the police. It seems like he’s in crisis,’ or, ‘Let me call the police because he makes me feel really uncomfortable.’” Listening House staff see the situation differently, she explained: “We, on the other hand, knowing how much that behavior impacts the outside world, can remind him how he might be perceived, give him some of the tools to do what he needs to do and welcome him back in when he understands what needs to happen.”
This winter, The Listening House moved from its former home at First Lutheran Church on Maria Avenue on St. Paul’s East Side to its new home: a community resource center in the renovated former Red’s Savoy Pizza just outside of downtown on East 7th Street. The project, which will be completed in two phases, is the result of a $6 million public-private partnership.
I met Jalma and Reagan-Montiel in the main community room of The Listening House’s sparkling new facility. We talked about the program’s history, its goals and its unique approach to assisting people with homelessness, mental illness and addiction.
MinnPost: It looks like a lot of change has happened in this building.
Molly Jalma: That’s for sure. Before, it smelled like pizza and sewage. There were so many ceilings. Lots of asbestos. It’s been a total transformation.
Mary Margaret Reagan-Montiel: It’s been an adventure.
MP: How did you pick this location?
MJ: It was unoccupied. We’d first looked at the building years ago, pre-COVID. Then we came back to it. It was being used as storage for other businesses. I understand why nobody was restoring it to make it into another restaurant: The cost to just remove the asbestos alone was so high.
For us, the location is ideal. It is a non-residential area. The zoning is all commercial. So we don’t need a conditional-use permit. We don’t want to go too big. We don’t want a warehouse space. We want to do what Listening House does. We are just outside of downtown so it pulls people out. We’re close to Union Gospel Mission. We’re close to the jail and detox. We’re not too far from where we were before and it’s on a main transit line. We have tons of buses and it’s accessible. But there are downsides, too.
MP: Like what?
MJ: It’s on a very narrow sidewalk. This building is known for getting hit by cars. That makes us nervous. Our folks can be disruptive. We don’t think they’re disruptive, but even being near someone who appears impoverished makes people uncomfortable. There’s a difference between being in danger and being uncomfortable, and we find that when people interact with people experiencing homelessness, they get uncomfortable and react with fear, which we all understand. You don’t know what someone is going to do. Is this person so desperate that they are going to do something to me? Of course we’re all going to be on guard with that and that moment to just say, ‘Am I really in trouble here? Or am I just uncomfortable?’ Most of the time you’re just uncomfortable.
MP: Do attitudes like that add up to public opposition to this kind of facility?
MJ: Sometimes. For our guests, we want to be able to have a space where we can pull people away from that kind of scrutiny. So we’re going to have an enclosed courtyard. I want to make it clear that we are not hiding our guests from the world: We are more hiding the world from our guests. Because when you are that impoverished, your body becomes illegal. Cities have only made it harder to be poor in public. Everything about you is for everyone else to judge. Every phone conversation is in public, every argument, every mood. You can’t sit anywhere. You can’t stand anywhere. You can’t use a bathroom. You can’t lay under a tree. You could go lay in an REI hammock in a park, maybe have a microbrew you picked up. If our guests wanted to take a nap and have a beer in the park, the cops are going to be called.
MP: You’ve been housed at First Lutheran for years. Why did you move to this new space?
MJ: In order to make organic shifts in the way we deliver service, we need more flexibility in our space, even as far as just hours. The church is the church first. And First Lutheran was so wonderful. They were very practical in their approach. We’re very hard on a building. If we’re renting we have to wait for their folks, for their vendors to repair things, which is just fine, but we can do it a little faster when it is in-house. And then there are funerals, weddings, choir practice, AA. And sometimes it’s 20 below and we just need to keep the doors open. And we want to be able to shift to whatever our guests need. In order to accommodate that ongoing, we really needed our own space.
[image_credit]Supplied[/image_credit][image_caption]An architectural rendering of The Listening House’s new facility.[/image_caption]
MJ: Sometimes it’s just grubby appearance. Sometimes it race-based. Like the guys playing softball at the park having a beer: No problem. The guys playing basketball at the park: Problem. It’s that sort of optics problem.
MRM: That was one of the other reasons why we needed a space that not only had the ability for us to build in two phases like we are here, but also didn’t have residential neighbors. Part of our identity is that we are good neighbors. As part of that we are diligent about upkeeping our space, having processes and procedures that allow everyone to feel safe and be safe. There’s little we can do to please everyone in a residential neighborhood. Here we have much more opportunities.
RELATED: Read Bill Lindeke’s 2022 Cityscape column about plans to move Listening House
MP: How do you work with guests who have addiction issues?
MRM: As an organization we don’t Breathalyze. We don’t opt people out. It’s the same with anything: you check in, you abide by community understanding and group rules. We establish those in our weekly community meetings with staff and guests. We all talk about what the agreed-upon rules are.
MJ: We’re not a safe-use center. We’re pretty strict about that. There are so many people working so hard to stay sober: Even just smelling or seeing somebody get away with it is so tough. That messaging is understood by the people who are here.
Our guests are not partying. They are miserable and they are trying to be well. That’s deep addiction. They are just trying to get to their base. We are not a “hoot and holler,” not a corner with, “Let’s pass this around.” What we are more likely to see is somebody who is shaking and could be seriously ill if they don’t get that drink. We’re not the place to get that drink and people know and respect that.
When we give warnings, sometimes it’s, “I asked you four times today already, Buddy. Let’s try again tomorrow.” Our approach is person-centered. I’m a person in recovery myself. If I was in here every day, I’d probably be drinking. If the message was, “Molly, stop drinking,” I’d probably just have a week ban or a month ban. But Mary Margaret doesn’t have those issues. So if she were here every day she’d just probably be helping clean. If she were drunk or using, we’d know that something’s probably wrong. So we’d ask some questions before just saying, “You have to go for the day.”
MRM: When guests check in, we welcome them. We say, “We do not allow dangerous weapons on the premises. We need you to hand them over.” We label them and we keep them safe. We lock them up. Then they can claim them when they go. Another question we ask is, “Do you have any open bottles or anything like that that you need to check in with us?” We label them, we lock them up and then we give it back to them when they leave. This is not jail. This is not treatment. They are adults. They can drink when they want, just not here. The message is, “Not here. If you have to do it, do it because you are taking care of yourself.” If you are caught drinking or doing whatever here, the response is conversations.
MJ: We’re not gentle with anything predatory. There are a couple of cars that we recognize. They know when our folks get their General Assistance money. We all try to keep an eye on them and keep them at bay. There are a lot of folks who prey on this population. We had this guy who just wanted to film himself handing out tacos to the poor. We’re like, “This is unethical. This is not OK.” Part of our controlled entrance into this space is not about our guests. It’s about making sure that our guests have autonomy and safety and comfort in one place in the city. We’re going to make sure that no one is shoving a taco in your face and putting you on TikTok.
MP: You are halfway through the construction of this community resource center. What features will be included in the second phase?
MRM: We will have another building that will have sleep alcoves and offices. We will have four showers. We will have food and hygiene closets, where guests will be able to get clean clothes and personal-care items.
MP: When will the second phase of the building be completed?
MJ: Our contractor and architect have assured us it will go up really fast, like in 8-10 months. Phase one was primarily funded through TIFF funds from the city and private foundation grants and our board of directors. For phase two, we did a cash ask to the state Legislature, which we got. I assured them we won’t be back. We also have corporate sponsors.
MP: How would you define your organization’s mission?
MJ: Our mission is about radical hospitality. Sometimes it is hard to define what that is. One of the most important things we offer is eye contact and learning someone’s name, which sounds so silly but is so powerful. When we get new staff, I say, “Pretty much just talk to people. They say what they need and you figure out how you can help them. Even if you say, ‘good morning,’ and somebody yells at you, just say you’re glad they’re here.”
MP: That sounds like it could be tough.
MJ: You know when you’re in traffic and everyone around you is a terrible driver except for you? The only time in my life I get instant rage is when someone cuts me off because it feels like they are messing with your life. I have to tell myself, “You overreacted, Molly.” Then I calm down and try to be nicer to everyone. I see that behavior play out in our guests every day. The world greets them based on optics, and they greet it right back. So someone can say, “Hi,” and they’re like, “What?”, because they are going to push you away to stay safe.
And that’s fine. You are allowed to be angry here. You are allowed to have a tantrum. You are allowed to be sad and you’re allowed to tell me to go away. What I’m not going to do is say anything other than, “Hello. I’m glad you’re here. I’ll give you some space.”
