BRATTLEBORO — For the past 22 years, Melinda Bussino has been following her dream of helping others.
As executive director of the Brattleboro Area Drop In Center, she has been one of the instrumental forces behind getting shelter, food, and clothing to the homeless of southeastern Vermont.
This week, this sixth-generation Vermonter travels to Washington, D.C., to receive an award from federal Department of Health and Human Services' Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) division.
Bussino and the Drop In Center are being recognized with an Exemplary Practice Award for its work in data collection and reporting for their Projects for Assistance in Transition from Homelessness (PATH) services.
In 2002, the Drop In Center was one of the first service providers in the nation to implement PATH data collection in Housing and Urban Development's (HUD) Homeless Management Information System (HMIS), which helps state and national agencies get a real time picture of who is receiving assistance.
This data collection and reporting system was beta tested by Bussino, and is specifically designed to track homeless clients, help measure the progress of clients, and collect information that can find help find inefficiencies and unmet needs. The result is better data reporting to local and state agencies.
The system helps define the characteristics of clients seeking help through the Brattleboro Drop In Center. Bussino said her two data entry assistants - Ed Johnson, a client advocate and main data entry person, and assistant director William Davison - have both been doing data entry and helped work the bugs out almost from the start.
Making it work
The three of them sit in a crowded office space where no discernible order is apparent. Yet in under five minutes, with staff and volunteers constantly in and out finishing up tasks for the day and checking in as they leave, it is clear a well-greased collaboration is what keeps the Drop In Center functioning.
Johnson and Davison sit before laptops on desks crowded with paperwork to be entered into the system. Johnson, 24, is the more gregarious of the two. He was a Drop In Center client at one time, as was Davison, a somewhat older gentleman.
The two are considered professionals in their field now, Bussino says. Both are success stories of what can happen by giving someone the chance to prove themselves, and a can-do attitude that things will work out.
Bussino said they are faced every day with people who have given up hope, and it is their job to help bring it back.
“Sometimes hope is all they have,” she said.
Eventually, part-time jobs opened up at the center and the natural strengths of Johnson and Davison became clear. Bussino could see that Johnson was good at working with computers,even with his cerebral palsy that has left him with the use of only his right hand.
“He is faster on the computer than I am,” she said.
At the same time, Bussino said Johnson “has a natural rapport with people, so when we added the client advocate position, it was a good fit for him.”
Bussino said Johnson was an at-risk youth who first came to the Drop In Center at age 15, “and he just stayed on with us. He found a home with us.”
And Bussino says that is probably the most important part of what they offer. Many people who come to the Drop In Center are just looking for camaraderie and interaction with people who will not look down on or through them, and will look them in the eye.
“The homeless people in our world are invisible,” she said. “Most want to be invisible [because of shame and guilt], and it can become a way of being.”
Bussino describes several clients who have been on the streets so long that even getting in the door of the Drop In Center is difficult and too overwhelming for them.
“We get people who are not eligible at Morningside because they aren't clean and sober, or have mental health issues, or can't be around children,” Bussino said.
They are both the hardest to help and the people who need help the most, she notes, adding that “when people come here, they are treated respectfully. No one is turned away.”
Davison was homeless for six years, he said. The hard life is etched on his finely featured face, but it is obvious he has great pride in his work at the Drop In Center. His enthusiasm is engaging.
“People will talk to him,” Bussino said. “His specialty is getting help for at-risk youth.”
Johnson piped up, adding, “Kids will open up to him. I don't know what it is about him, but they trust him.”
“They have become recognized by others working in the field of homelessness as professionals,” Bussino said of Johnson and Davison.
Johnson has been there nine years, and Davison five. Neither has any inclination elsewhere.
Bussino said they are serving more clientele than they have services for. Out of 400 homeless people last year, they were able to house 143. Last year, they gave at least one service (food, clothing, overnight shelter, or housing assistance) to 7,700 people. On Thanksgiving Day this year, they gave out 840 food baskets.
Bussino said this year will be even harder for people as heating and food costs are higher than ever, and cuts are being made in fuel assistance.
“People are buying less food with their food stamps, because food costs more,” Johnson said. “And those who aren't on food stamps have a choice between heating their homes and eating.”
Bussino said their food shelf is always understocked for the need. “We always need peanut butter, tuna fish and pasta,” naming the highest nutritionally efficient foods kids will eat. “The donors in the community, private and business, can't give as much this year because of the economy. We aren't getting the same amount of donations.”
But, Bussino said, “We've intervened [usually that means finding housing for people facing imminent eviction or foreclosures] in 153 households in the last 14 months,” Johnson said. “We found them housing,” Bussino explains.
Open to all
The Brattleboro Drop In Center is a humble place. People who walk in will find welcome, warmth, food, a shower and place to do laundry, free clothes, toys and books, and conversation if that is what they need.
Bussino said sometimes “it's just the opportunity to use the kitchen to cook a meal to share together. One person will use their food stamps to buy some eggs, another bacon, another juice or coffee. And they'll cook and eat a meal together.”
That simple act of sharing what little they have and doing something nice for and with one another makes them all feel good. Bussino understands, as do her staff and volunteers, that it is these simple acts that keep people feeling human and perhaps provide a little hope just when they need it.
“I am surprised every day by the overall basic goodness of people,” Bussino said. “Everyday one of my staff, a volunteer, someone in the community, one of our clients, or a stranger will do something that keeps my faith in people going.”
While not a faith-based service, sometimes faith that “something will turn up” is all they have to get from one day to the next.
“I make sure everyone is paid before I am,” Bussino said.
She said this summer, she went unpaid for five weeks. “I was paid eventually,” she said. “But these people need their paychecks more than I do.”
Bussino described another time when they didn't know how they were going to stay open, let alone meet payroll. That day, she picked up the mail and found a check for $6,000. “It covered just what we needed,” and was the last money out of the treasury of an entity that had shut down that year.
“They gave us what was left over in their account. How good is that?”
In addition to receiving the award from SAMHSA, Bussino will be a presenter at a workshop on the Drop In Center's PATH program.
The Drop In Center was one of three agencies honored. The other two are the Center for Urban Community Services in New York City and the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless in Denver. Thirty-three agencies around the country were nominated for the awards.