Representatives of Lucas County's Interchurch Council are headed for Des Moines today to visit with staff members of a homeless shelter there, hoping to develop a working partnership that will provide a more organized way to assist the homeless here --- and homelessness is an issue in Chariton just as it is in cities large and small across Iowa although many of us are not especially aware of it.
The Interchurch Council, however, serves on the frontline --- as it does in feeding the hungry through the Ministry Center food bank.
Visiting with the Rev. Fred Steinbach after Compline prayers last evening at St. Andrew's Church, I mentioned that I'd happened upon an article published in The Chariton Leader on April 23, 1922, that gave some idea of the scale of homelessness in Chariton a century ago and the way the city had dealt with it then. So here it is.
The shelter that year was the fire station, located as the map above shows on the current location of our current city hall and fire station, built in 1931 with later additions. The fire station at that time was a single-front two-story brick building. The second floor had been intended originally to serve as city hall, but city offices had been moved to rental quarters elsewhere and the somewhat dilapidated second story of the building was available, along with the fire station below, to offer shelter.
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TRAMP HOTEL CLOSES SEASON
Guests at Fire Station Notified to Move on as Weather Warms Up
The Chariton Leader, April 13, 1922
Last week a sign was posted in the fire station notifying the lodgers that the season was closed and suggesting that the guests be on the move and seeking employment or support in other parts. The guests of the Hotel de Tramp immediately acted upon the suggestion, as there was little packing to be done.
Since last fall the fire station has furnished quarters for the wandering unemployed gentry. As many as twenty-five were taken care of at times and it is probable that the number averaged twenty a night during the winter season. On the basis of a 120-day season and an average of twenty a day that would mean that the city fire station housed in the neighborhood of 2,200 during the winter. Most of these 2,200 probably sought assistance from the citizens, either at the back door for a hand-out or on the street where the appeal, "Mister, can't you stake me the price of a breakfast" was heard with considerable frequency. As the season progressed there was a noticeable difference in the attitude of the station guests. Early in the season a refusal to help was frequently accepted with surliness. The longer they stayed the more polite they became.
The newspaper offices came in for the nightly visits of the wandering guests. They came in flocks for old papers on which to sleep. Some asked for something to "flop on." Others asked for "Harding blankets."
The fire station furnished fairly comfortable quarters for these men. There was a place to sleep, and plenty of hot water for bathing, shaving and laundering of clothes. Most of these men presented a fairly clean appearance which would seem to disprove the accepted notion that tramps have a dislike for cleanliness. It is said that one night there was a big wash hanging on the fire trucks to dry while the owners of the wearing apparel slept. An alarm of fire was turned in during the night and a mad scramble ensued to rescue the wearing apparel.
Some of the lodgers spent the winter here, it is said, but the majority of them were transients who spent only a night or two in our midst.
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