A safe harbor for stormy lives

Gathering Place in Denver offers help for homeless women and children in need

By Berny Morson
Denver Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer

Marlana L. had been living on the streets of Denver for three weeks, when another homeless person told her about the Gathering Place.

The private, nonprofit agency at 1535 High St. didn't find a home for Marlana. But it gave her a family of women facing similar problems.

"We're a very close-knit family. We've all walked in the same shoes," says Marlana, who has been in and out of abusive relationships. "The outside world just can't understand us."

The Gathering Place provides a day program for homeless women and children, most of whom spend their nights in shelters or cars or on the street. Some, like Marlana, are running from abusive partners; others have problems with drugs or alcohol or are battling mental illness.

The program provides breakfast, lunch and an afternoon snack weekdays, and breakfast and lunch on Saturday. The women can read, watch television or work toward their equivalency diploma in classes run by Community College of Denver.

The three-story building contains a play area for pre-school-age children. Many of the older children are enrolled in nearby Denver schools.

One day recently, the program was distributing fresh carrots, parsnips, green beans and mushrooms contributed by supermarkets. The Gathering Place also stockpiles canned food, toothpaste, diapers and other personal care products.

"Everything here is free," says Leslie Foster, the program's executive director.

The participants in the program "just show up," she said.

"It's a drop-in center. No one has to prove anything. You just walk in the door."

The program was founded in 1986 by two students working toward their master's degrees at the University of Denver's school of social work.

Today, the program serves 2,000 people a month, Foster says. Virtually all the funding is from private contributors.

Some of the women remain for a short time. Others, like Marlana, return with each repeated crisis.

"It runs in cycles with us," says Marlana, 58, who discovered the Gathering Place two years ago. "It seems like if you're an abused person, a woman, the people that you go to are abusers. You're drawn to abusers for some reason."

When Marlana is not homeless, she comes to the Gathering Place as a volunteer.

She is living with a friend at the moment, after falling out of another abusive relationship. She is unemployed, but has a painting job lined up for January.

Kieyesa Johnson visited the Gathering Place for the first time when she was 9 years old, along with her mother, who had a severe drug problem. They were living at the Samaritan House Shelter at the time.

Johnson, 18, went on to graduate from Aurora's Hinkley High School and is now a freshman at Metropolitan State College.

"It helps women. If their kids are hungry, they give them food and some place where they can come and get off the streets and relax," she says. "It gives them somebody to talk to. Some comfort."

Contact Berny Morson at (303) 892-5072 or morsonb@RockyMountainNews.com.

December 17, 2000