In an East Baltimore shelter, a testament to pain, patience
   STANDING THERE Tuesday morning in Earl's Place, a transitional shelter for homeless men, with Sheila Helgerson, who runs the place and who appears to be blessed with most of the patience God scattered on East Baltimore, I was struck by one of those truisms that seem at moments both trite and profound -- helping men who used heroin for a good part of their lives is hard. It's just ... hard.
    Many of those in recovery do fine; they smarten up, clean up and make good choices. But others fall off track, or keep going back to the drugs and booze that caused all their problems in the first place, or they make bad choices that frustrate those who try to help them. Any of the hundreds of men and women who work in this field - as professionals in hospitals and clinics, or volunteers in shelters - know this. They live with it. They are missionaries in drug-infested Baltimore, trying to rebuild the soul of the city from the inside, one man and one woman at a time. Theirs is the quiet work critical to getting this city fully on its legs again by reducing the demand for the drugs that create the violence that mars municipal progress.
    On the way to Earl's Place, I passed a remarkable neighborhood rising across Pratt Street from Little Italy, where there used to be high-rise public housing. There are new, smart-looking rowhouses and apartments everywhere, and more coming, all around Corned Beef Row. You can get downright optimistic about the future, especially if you remember the immediate past - the crime-ridden Flag House projects that for decades cast a long, sad shadow over this part of Baltimore.
    Earl's Place is at the corner of Eden and Lombard, and it's where men coming out of addiction and homelessness can find a place to live and get their meals while they move into the working world. Helgerson and her staff have a lot of success stories to tell, and that's probably what keeps them going.
    Tuesday, I finally met a man Helgerson has been telling me about for a year -- Perry Johnson.  . . . he's a graduate of Earl's Place.  . .  . He's 53 years old. He started using drugs when he was 22. When I asked what he did all those years, Johnson said, "Heroin." A few years ago, when he came out of a recovery program and moved into Earl's Place, he was clean. He worked in a big catering hall, and when he was ready to leave Earl's Place, he found an apartment and moved in with his girlfriend.         -- Originally published Thursday, February 3, 2005

A REPORT from the weekly house meeting at Earl's Place, a transitional home for 17 formerly homeless drug addicts and alcoholics in two renovated rowhouses at Eden and Lombard streets in East Baltimore:

    Greg, a graduate of Earl's Place and now its resident manager, led the meeting in a prayer that all the men knew: "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." Sheila Helgerson, executive director, thanked everyone for helping with the Dec. 9 dinner celebrating the third anniversary of Earl's Place. Helgerson explained that Earl's Place is named after Earl Johnson, a homeless man who fell into the harbor in 1993 and drowned. Four years later, an ecumenical group called United Ministries created the transition house to help men like Earl.
    Helgerson said most of the men have their own room. They share a kitchen, dining room, large living room and the long journey back to a more normal and healthy life. They can stay at Earl's Place for up to two years. Their average age is 38. Since 1997, 10 graduates of the program have found and kept jobs and homes, and stayed away from drugs and alcohol. Not every man who enters Earl's Place stays. But "very few" have left because of addictions relapse. When men graduate, Helgerson gives them a gift-wrapped copy of Dr. Seuss' "Oh, the Places You'll Go." Helgerson is a social worker who once lived on a farm in Iowa.
    Greg, who once lived in an abandoned house - an "abandominium" - in East Baltimore, said he had had a "blessed week," though it was difficult with final exams at Baltimore City Community College, where he's studying to be an addictions counselor. He went Christmas shopping with his daughters. "Just seeing life on life's terms," he called it.
    Neal said he had a good week and likes both his jobs. He loads ships and works at the Baltimore Convention Center. He visits his parents on weekends.
    Mel, whose nickname is Sparky, said his first week at Earl's Place had been good. "Everyone has been real nice." He said he was an alcoholic who once had - and lost - his truck-repair business. He said his son, who lives with the boy's mother, has brain cancer.
    Chris, also new to Earl's Place, said, "My family life has not been all peaches and cream." He said he used to have a good job in the emergency room of a Baltimore hospital. He also had an apartment. He lost both with a deep dive into drugs, "set off by small things that you might be able to cope with, but that I couldn't." Chris, who got addictions treatment and came into Earl's Place "clean," as all residents must, said he is still learning that he has a disease from which "I'll be in recovery the rest of my life." Chris said he was anxious to return to work, maybe even the hospital job he had before. For now, he said, he was thinking of volunteering one day a week at a downtown lunch program for the poor. Chris was asked if he was "happy" to be in Earl's Place. He said "relieved" was a better word.
    Dwayne announced that he planned on getting married next year, after he leaves Earl's Place. He said he has two jobs - as a prep man for a car rental agency and as a courier for a messenger service. He sleeps at Earl's Place between jobs and attends a 12-step program on Sundays to keep his heroin and cocaine addictions in check.
    Sam, perhaps the oldest man in the group, said he had been ill, but went to work anyway. He has a job as a custodian at the Social Security Administration. He stopped drinking after a seizure on the street that led to a frightening experience in a hospital. As doctors worked on him, he said, he felt he was "being buried alive." Sam was asked what he saw himself doing in another few months, after he leaves Earl's Place. "Sitting in a rocking chair and playing with my grandchildren." 
-- Originally published Monday, December 18, 2000