Iglutheca’s Report to Pine Ridge District
Today I attended a Pine Ridge District Executive Board Meeting. I wanted to give them an update on what we are doing and brainstorm with them on how to get a permanent location for our homeless shelter. I am very proud of the report we gave, so I wanted to share it with other community members and supporters! The following is the written report I presented.
What we have been doing
Iglutheca and the Reconciliation Center have been busy serving the people. Iglutheca started using a new case-management software called CharityTracker on May 25th, 2023. Since then, we have counted 33,807 assistance records. An assistance record includes any of the assistance categories that we track, including things like meals, showers, shelter check-ins, recovery meetings, etc. We will break down what those 33,807 service records were, but the number of service records is useful for showing the scale of our services and to whom those services were provided.
Who are we serving?
In total, since we started keeping track on May 27th, we have helped 788 people. 739 of those were members of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, and that means we have helped 1.6% of the entire tribal membership! There is a perception in the community that we are primarily serving members of other districts who are coming into Pine Ridge. In reality, the majority of our clients are from the Pine Ridge district.
Assistance Per District
584 Low-Barrier Shelter Check-ins
Low-barrier shelter is the most controversial service that we provide. So far, we have had 584 overnight check-ins for the low-barrier shelter. With these, we allow individuals to have a bed even if they are intoxicated. This is necessary to prevent freezing deaths. We were warned that if we opened a low-barrier shelter, it would cause our transitional clients to fall off the wagon, but that has not been true. Instead, low-barrier often enables people who are in active addiction to get sober and then enter into transitional shelter. We are proud that we likely saved lives during this year's brutal cold weather, including temperatures down to -36 degrees Fahrenheit!
3,257 Transitional Shelter Check-ins
The transitional shelter is designed for those who are sober and who are trying to make a change in their life. Guests are breathalyzed every time they enter the shelter. UAs are conducted randomly or whenever staff suspects that a particular guest might be high. Guests are required to attend two recovery meetings per week. We have some impressive sober-time within the transitional shelter. We have two guests who have been sober for six months. We have about four guests who have been sober for two months. We have about four more who have been sober for one month. Recovery is hard, but we are seeing real progress with our guests. Several other guests have had very brief relapses around the 1st of the month.
843 Recovery Meetings
Iglutheca assists in facilitating 6 recovery meetings per week. These include three AA meetings, two NA meetings, and a Celebrate Recovery meeting. The number shown above is short of our actual numbers because we have had some difficulty making sure that every week is logged, and we only started tracking these meetings in October. That number also does not include many other community members who are not guests in the shelter. These recovery meetings have been very uplifting lately. I take pride in seeing several former drug dealers and bootleggers sober and sharing in our meetings. We generally average around 12-20 people per meeting. These meetings are making Pine Ridge a better place.
10,947 Meals Served
The lunches served seven days a week aren't only for the homeless. They are for any community members who are hungry. Sometimes, we feed children, sometimes we feed the elderly, but everybody gets fed. It is the staff of the Reconciliation Center who feed and we have had some delicious meals!
9,142 Day Shelter Check-ins
Day shelter is a safe place to warm up, do laundry, take showers, drink coffee, eat, use the phone, get mail delivered, and just hang out in an alcohol and drug-free environment. We occasionally catch people drinking on the property of the reconciliation center, but this gets rarer and rarer because we keep on dumping out whatever alcohol we find. Day shelter is a lifeline for many people, not just the homeless.
5,640 Showers
There is no explanation needed for this stat! If you have ever gone for a week or more without a shower, you know how vital this service is.
4,053 Articles of Clothing
We do laundry at the shelter, and we have definitely washed tens of thousands of articles of clothing, but many of our shelter guests come to us with only the clothes on their backs. We collect donations of clothing and distribute these to our clients. The most common thing that we give out is socks and underwear which we usually have to buy new.
The Big Picture
Iglutheca’s Mission is to provide a pathway for homeless Lakotas out of addiction and poverty. These 33,807 acts of kindness are impressive, but how do they impact the Pine Ridge Village as a whole? How do they impact the reservation?
We are seeing a lot of people getting sober! Some of them have reconciled or reconnected with their families once they were sober. We can measure the services that we provide, but we can’t measure the impact of a child having their parent back in their life to raise them. We have some of our guests who are reentering the workforce in an area where good reliable workers can be hard to find.
We have former drug dealers and bootleggers who are staying sober with us. We can’t really measure the impact of getting them sober, but we know that having half a dozen fewer people selling drugs and alcohol must have a positive impact.
One of the things I have noticed about homeless people and especially recovering addicts, is that they have a desire to give back. I think that several of our current guests are going to make a big difference in the world. I have already been really blessed to see three of our guests facilitating beading classes that are open to the whole community. These beading classes create a sober, safe environment for anyone who needs it.
You can see that we are doing big things. We can only imagine what the ripple effects will be!
That concludes the report. I’m proud of all the hard work we have done together with the Reconciliation Center. One of our shelter guests who was present at the meeting said that what was missing from the report was the way that we have a relationship with each client and are able to build them up individually.
Keep us in prayer. Especially pray that we can get a permanent location for our shelter. If you would like to support us financially click the button below.
Thank you! ~Abram Neumann