Goodmorning!

Woke up this morning to about 5 inches of snow, but its still warmer here than it is in Wisconsin!! Kyle and I served breakfast at around 5:30am, pretty simple continental stuff (cereal, bagels, coffee, etc). Got a chance to talk to a few more of the residents, many of whom are giving us some real helpful and kind advice on what to do on our down time in Boston. Everything kind of shuts down after breakfast, we're not sure if the residents are allowed to stay here during the day, or only when meals are being served. We just now went back into the kitchen to finish cleaning up and there were a lot of them sitting at tables playing cards, talking, etc. A lot of the residents have been telling us how they are on lists for housing, half way houses, etc, and that the shelter is only temporary for them. I'm interested in finding out what qualifies someone for a half way house and how long the wait for housing actually is. There are a handful of residents that seem pretty involved in the running of the shelter itself; while we were helping with breakfast, the same couple of guys kept coming in the kitchen to get coffee, clean dishes, and were letting us know how things normally are done. It seems like some of them are on a different level from the others, I was thinking that the ones that were helping out/knew how things run are the ones that stay here permanently. All in all I was very impressed at how organized and smoothly things are run; after each meal the kitchen has to be cleaned and the dining/recreational area as well (they wouldn't let me walk on the freshly mopped floors, they mean business!). I am really looking forward to hearing more of the stories of the homeless that come for lunch/dinner today.
We're hoping to go look around MIT/Harvard today, we'll see what the snow storm allows us to do!

Brit