A heart for the homeless

It's Monday evening, which means it's time for Allysen Hoberg to play lottery official.

Hoberg is director of the St. Stephen's Shelter, one of three Minneapolis facilities for homeless men that hold a joint weekly "bed lottery" -- a game of chance that's no game for the nearly 70 men hoping to score one of fewer than 30 mattresses available on this cold, snowy night. Each Monday, Hoberg joins other shelter workers in the grim task of pulling numbered bingo balls out of a jar for the lucky minority.

Many men have been in line for an hour outside the Simpson Shelter, the only one big enough to hold the lottery, waiting for the doors to open at 6 p.m. They shuffle in, submit to a Breathalyzer test (only the sober are accepted), pick a bingo ball and sink into one of a dozen dilapidated couches set in front of a donated wide-screen television. When "Wheel of Fortune" begins, the irony isn't lost on several pairs of eyes that flick between the roulette wheel spinning on TV and the big glass bowl full of balls.

As Hoberg greets clients, she is sidelined by Adolph, one of her longtime regulars. He had been kicked out of the transition apartment he moved to a few months ago, was back out on the street and said he felt like killing himself. "The other people there were drinking and drugging," he mumbled in an exhausted monotone. "They stole my stuff. They wrecked my stuff. A face hit my hand. They said I swung, but that wasn't what happened."

That turn of phrase might have elicited a snicker from some. But Hoberg regards Adolph with big brown penetrating eyes, framed by a short blond shag. She carries herself like a sturdy sprite, someone whose open expression and tempered optimism hide a core of steel. Which is how she has not only survived, but thrived over the 14 years she's been listening to such tales of woe and making each hard case feel like someone cares.

An early calling

Hoberg, 32, has been working with the homeless since she began volunteering at St. Stephen's at age 18 -- not a first career choice for most teenagers, but one she was drawn to from childhood.

In grade school, she remembers riding in her father's car down Lake Street, where Bob Hoberg would point at hunched-over people lugging four or five grocery bags and say, "Boy I wouldn't want to be them." He would occasionally pick them up and give them rides. Hoberg's parents remain her strongest source of support and strength, she says, and don't hesitate to offer opinions: "My dad told me when I pick movie rentals for them, no emotional dramas, only action films, because 'They're men; let them watch what they want!'"

In sixth grade, she announced that she was either going to be a homeless advocate or a corporate lawyer: "'L.A. Law' was on TV then, and I wanted to wear power suits like Susan Dey," she said.

She traded that dream for jeans, sweaters and suede sneakers, a standard uniform for someone whose job description ranges from clearing dirty underwear out of a locker, to running interference with police, to standing up for clients in court (there's the Susan Dey part of the job).

Cathy ten Broeke is Hoberg's former supervisor at St. Stephen's and now coordinator of a city project to end homelessness in Minneapolis and Hennepin County. "Lots of people have worked with the homeless for a long time, but very few started at 18," she said. "Allysen is incredibly compassionate. One of the key reasons she doesn't get burned out is that she meets people where they are, not where she wants them to be or thinks they should be. She doesn't write people off."

Heart and smarts

Going on its 29th year, St. Stephen's is the oldest church-based shelter in Minneapolis. Located in a squat brick building next to the church at 22nd St. and Clinton Av. S., the shelter has old Army-issue iron bunk beds and crude wooden lockers with padlocks. Paintings made by clients warm the starkness; one hall is flanked by two white-buffalo murals, another is a "hall of fame" featuring portraits of human-rights leaders from around the world.

It's 3 p.m., and Hoberg is getting ready to open the locked doors to let in those waiting for warmth and the chance to nuke a cup of ramen or a cheap frozen burrito in the small microwave oven.

"We used to not open the doors till 5," she said. "But the drop-in places all close at 3, and these guys don't have anywhere to go, and sometimes get picked up for loitering. We usually just do paperwork between 3 and 5 anyway, so it's no harm to let them in and it's not costing any more money."

Decisions like these are why Hoberg's boss, Mikkel Beckmen, executive director for St. Stephen's Human Services, calls her "the heart of this place." Columbus Person, one of the men who has just come in, seconds that emotion. Homeless on and off since Hoberg was a teen volunteer, he is one of the clients who have known her the longest.

"I can't stop appreciating how she is," he said, accepting a borrowed sweatshirt from another client. "She goes outside to tell the cops don't worry, she'll take care of it, then comes back in and tells us to get our act together. She can deal with a lot of these attitudes -- like mine. But she really cares. Once when I got stabbed, she visited me in the hospital with a fruit basket. She does a lot out of her own pocket. She's always giving you a second chance."

Person, who recently earned a plumbing apprenticeship certification from Dunwoody Institute and is looking for work, cracked wise at the lottery two days earlier: When he saw a reporter's notebook and video camera, he called out, "Where you from, the Homeless Channel?"

When you're homeless, a sense of humor helps.

Although many of the men struggle with mental illness or have high levels of frustration that make them volatile, Hoberg doesn't fear for her safety. "The guys are much less likely to confront a nice, polite woman smiling at them" than another man who's in a position of authority, she says.

Hoberg truly enjoys the people she's worked with over the years, Ten Broeke says. "She approaches it not just as wanting to help but as something that's good for her, that helps her. These are important relationships in her life."

Even new clients seem to pick up on this and seem comfortable unburdening their souls to her. One after another, they recite their litanies of needs.

One after another, she listens.

Kristin Tillotson • 612-673-7046