The Virginia Soprano Homeless Resource Center was bustling Friday afternoon. Not only were homeless folks stopping by or good-hearted people were dropping off donations of gloves, hand warmers and toe warmers, even the fallen sycamore leaves were skidding in whenever a door would open on this blustery day.
“Local folks wait until the last minute and then go into a panic,” cracked the feisty Kitty Wynn, who took over as director of the Central Louisiana Homeless Coalition (CLHC) last spring. “We’ve been getting calls every day with someone talking about the coming bad weather.”
Wynn’s concern, with temperatures expected to plunge into the teens early in the week and not go higher than the mid-30s, was a dearth of “warming shelters” in the area. “The state might let us use the evacuation center, but then there are transportation and security problems if we do that, going to an unsupervised shelter.” She added the Louisiana Housing Corporation, which offered heat relief supplies during the scorching summer, is not offering similar help for the winter.
A wish-list priority is a conversion of the patio behind the center to have retractable sides so that it could be warmed in the winter and cooled in the summer. This would be especially helpful for the elderly who are out on the street. Granted, there are some homeless folks in the area, Kitty said, (“I can think of about 12 off the top of my head”) who seem content to continue living that way, but there are many who are down on their luck, for whatever reason, and just need some help to improve their lives again.
In December of 2023, CLHC saw 198 clients (some repeats) and provided 1,587 services. In the last calendar year, they saw 779 clients and provided more than 19,000 services, Kitty said.
It can be a constant battle to help such people because the CLHC gets no funding except from donations and grants, Kitty said. They may soon launch a burger cook-off as a signature fund-raiser. This is right up Kitty’s alley since she was involved in catering in an earlier life when she owned two Fort Worth restaurants. CLHC does partner with Volunteers of America, Hope House, the Food Bank, Manna House and Catholic Charities to help the homeless and mitigate some problems.
A native of Ball whose husband, Gary, is retired from the Department of Transportation and Development, Kitty said she’s always had a place in her heart for people who suffer from mental health problems and/or addictions. In her nine months on the job she has seen some success stories come through the center’s doors.
“We know our clientele, we consider them part of our family,” she said.
Kitty is part of a seven-person CLHC staff, with just three full time, in-house personnel. LaTessa Mathews is the case manager and Connie Liddy is a resources specialist. They have helped individuals get jobs or housing. There was a man from Montana who found his way here, connecting with the drug culture, and Kitty said they helped him get cleaned up and paid his approximate $300 bus fare back to Montana. There, Kitty said, he has found work as a “talented hand” in the construction business with a brother.
There are some tragic stories, too. Like sex trafficking. “Women are trafficked in the streets of Alexandria every day,” she said, noting they come in with bruises from abuse but won’t let them report it to police. “They feel worthless,” she said, wiping tears.
We will not see tents for the homeless in Alexandria or Pineville, as are seen in several big cities across America, because police don’t allow it, she said. “They’re in the woods,” she said. “The farther out you go, the more camps (for homeless) are in the woods.”
If you want to help, the answer isn’t to give money to a panhandler on the corner, Kitty said. “That’s only putting a bandage on a problem or enabling them to buy drugs.” The answer, she said, is to give the money you intended to CLHC instead. “That then helps us, and we can use that money to help the individuals who really need it.”
For her most recent birthday, Kitty put out a request on Facebook that nobody give her a present for her birthday but send her $25. She promised she’d put all the money in the CLHC “kitty.”
People responded and she did as she promised, she said.
And a good chunk of that money helped that young man from Montana get a bus ride home.
Anyone interested in donating, can mail a check to CLHC, 1515 Jackson Street, Alexandria, LA 71301.