Note: This article includes brief references to sexual assault. 

Sarah Swan was apprehensive about moving from a camp into Pallet shelter village. Now, as one of dozens of people who have been exited back to the streets, she’s angry, sad and concerned about how the program is being operated.

Pallet, aka the Village, is a community of 50 cabin-life emergency shelters meant to serve people transitioning out of homelessness. The City of Lawrence purchased the units with COVID-19 relief funds, and the site, on North Michigan Street, is run by employees of the Lawrence Community Shelter. The village has rules, including a 10 p.m. curfew, and guests sign an agreement to stay there.

Swan, 42, had been living at the camp behind the Amtrak station in East Lawrence. Her best friend, Dustin Boldt, had moved into Pallet before she did. She wasn’t sure yet whether she wanted to go. 

“He was going; I was like, ‘Well, I guess I’m anchorless. I’ll go,’” Swan said. She moved into Pallet in early August. 

Swan was arrested Thursday, Sept. 5 for failing to appear in municipal court for a February 2023 trespassing case — “from when the Community Building was a winter emergency shelter, which never made sense to me, because they let me come right back,” she said — and an expired tag ticket. She was held overnight in jail on $311 total cash bond, but the judge authorized her release the next afternoon. 

Swan said she arrived back at Pallet that Friday evening and found out she was being exited because staff found alcohol in her unit. She was incredulous — as were the friends she later told. She doesn’t drink. 

“They picked the wrong lie,” she said. “But it wasn’t fully fabricated, as it turns out.” 

Boldt had always wanted to have a drink with Swan, she said. So on Boldt’s last night at the Amtrak camp, they each drank a mini bottle of liquor in celebration. Swan said she’d kept her empty bottle as a memento and brought it with her when she moved into Pallet.

Swan said she was told later that typically an empty container would just be a warning — not a reason to exit someone. Lawrence Community Shelter administrators did not directly respond to a question asking whether an empty container is typically grounds to exit someone.

“Due to our client confidentiality policy, we cannot comment on individual cases or circumstances. The Village’s rules strictly prohibit the possession or use of drugs or alcohol on the property,” Lacee Roe, a spokesperson for LCS, said via email. “Violations of these rules are taken seriously, as they are in place to ensure a safe and supportive environment for all guests.”

Swan said she was later told that she was kicked out because she’d been absent overnight and jail records showed that she’d only been in jail for an hour. They do not — she was arrested at 5:40 p.m. Sept. 5 and released at 3:44 p.m. Sept. 6, according to the jail’s booking log. 

An overnight absence without permission can be grounds for dismissal under the current intake agreement that Pallet guests sign. The agreement is not clear about absences that are beyond someone’s control, such as an arrest or hospitalization.

Swan agreed during an interview at the Amtrak camp on Wednesday that she already felt like she had a target on her back, though.

A few days prior to being exited, she’d spoken with this publication about issues detailed below — and she’d told the staff as much. She said she’d also shared her concerns with a member of the Lawrence Community Shelter’s board of directors. 

“I’m not actually scared of anything happening to me, and I would rather be here. But, like, what are they doing, you know?” Swan said, becoming emotional. “And there’s people that would not be able to stand up to this, I think, and they just have to accept whatever they’re given, and it’s not right.”

“… I don’t understand how this is how things are supposed to operate.” 

Pallet exits by the numbers

Since Lawrence’s Pallet shelter village opened in mid-March, nine people have left to move into permanent housing or a long-term care facility, Roe said. 

As of Thursday, 40 people had been exited for other reasons. Nine of them left on their own, and three found places to stay temporarily with family or friends, Roe said. 

“Other exits were due to safety violations or repeated policy violations including prolonged absences without notice, possession of weapons, drug or alcohol possession, or violence and threatening behavior,” Roe said. “The majority of exited guests are still eligible for services in the Night by Night program or the 90-Day Housing Program at the main shelter.”

Nine of 49 people exiting Pallet to a permanent living situation would be a success rate of 18.4%. 

“Our goal is to ensure that individuals continue to receive support and have access to resources that can help them achieve stability, even if they are no longer residing at The Village,” Roe said.

“LCS remains committed to helping all guests on their journey toward long-term housing and self-sufficiency, while also upholding our agreements with the city and maintaining the safety of both our guests and the (Pinkney) neighborhood.”

Roe said 44 units are currently occupied, two have move-ins pending, and LCS has five interviews scheduled with people wanting to move in soon. There are 80 to 90 people on the waiting list. 

‘Subject to search at any time’

One of the best things about Pallet is that guests can leave their possessions locked in their units and confidently expect to come back to them. 

“Managing your items is such a stressor. It’s huge,” Swan said, orange backpack demonstratively strapped onto her shoulders and a handful of items sitting next to her. “And that’s really what I hear from most of the people. Any compliment toward there is that you can leave your stuff — you don’t have to carry it.”

But all Pallet guests are subject to being searched or having their units searched at any time, whether or not they are present. Searches “may be done on a random basis or based upon reasonable suspicion,” according to the agreement guests sign. 

Jeremy Meuffels, 46, said he moved into Pallet the day it opened. After he got off work last Thursday, his swipe card wouldn’t open the gate. 

Meuffels said a staff member told him he had been exited because they found drug paraphernalia on a chair outside his cabin. 

“I’m like, ‘OK, I can’t control what happens outside of my cabin, so how am I getting punished for it?’” Meuffels said. Then staff told him they’d found something inside his unit, too, he said. 

Tools. Meuffels said he’d kept basic hand tools — a hammer, a screwdriver, allen wrenches, pliers — in his unit from the day he moved in. 

The intake agreement he signed when he moved in said nothing about tools. A later version of it states that guests must “Surrender all weapons and alcohol to Staff upon intake. All items will be returned at exit if they were surrendered to staff. This includes any tools or construction items.”

Some tools could be used as weapons. “I was raised to use tools as tools,” Meuffels said. 

He had not signed the updated agreement. He also noted that the updated agreement doesn’t say guests must turn in tools they already had with them. 

Roe said that “Possessing tools in a unit is generally not grounds for exit. Our focus is on preventing the presence of weapons or objects that could be used to cause harm or damage to the cabins.”

The paraphernalia they found, Meuffels said, was a straw that had been cut and a rolled up bus schedule, apparently to do lines of cocaine. 

He said he later asked another Pallet staff member about it, and they told him they’d found it in the cabin they searched before his and set it on the chair outside so it wouldn’t get mixed up in Meuffels’ things. 

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That was last Thursday; he said Friday he hadn’t heard yet whether that mixup was going to get squared away. 

Meuffels said he felt like his case manager was starting to help him make some progress toward getting housing near the end of his stay at Pallet. He has a drug felony on his record, and not many landlords will rent to him because of it, he said, but his case manager was trying to find one who would. 

He’s now staying at the Amtrak camp. 

‘Trauma-informed’

Swan worked at the Sexual Trauma and Abuse Care Center back when it was called GaDuGi Safe Center. She’s had multiple experiences with LCS that have snapped her back into “rape crisis center employee mode,” she said. 

Swan shared this story with permission from her friend, but the friend did not wish to be interviewed for this article. 

Swan’s friend had previously stayed at Pallet. She had been exited because she had stayed out without permission — her sister was in the hospital. 

Swan said her friend returned to one of the camps. She was raped there about three weeks ago. She was taken to get a sexual assault exam and went back to the camp the same day. 

It took some convincing to get her friend to go back to Pallet, Swan said. But a few days after the assault, she did come back, and the two got permission from a staff member to bunk together for a while, considering the circumstances. 

Under a recent policy change, guests are not allowed to have anyone else in their units. Swan said that makes it really difficult to have any private conversations, and Meuffels said it felt like they were trying to isolate people from each other. 

“Seems that most of us have mental health issues — kind of seemed like that wasn’t the right step to take,” he said, also describing the policy change as the reason he thought Pallet had been great when it first opened but “kind of went to shit.”

Swan said she was talking with her friend inside one of their units when James Chiselom, executive director of the Lawrence Community Shelter, came and “pounded on the door.”

Amid the back-and-forth, he told Swan to come out or he would exit her right now, Swan said. 

“‘Do you not understand, like, why we’re in here talking privately? Do not know what happened to her?’ — and I knew that he did know,” Swan said. “And there’s a little more exchange, and then he looks at me — she’s right beside me — he looks at me, and he goes, ‘It’s not happening to her right now.’” 

Roe and Chiselom were asked to respond to that for this article. 

“Due to our strict client confidentiality policy, we are unable to comment on specific individuals or their circumstances while staying at The Village,” Roe said. “However, we can confirm that The Village operates under clear guidelines, which include a rule that guests are not permitted to be in cabins to which they are not assigned.” 

At that point in the exchange, Swan said, she started going off. She doesn’t recall exactly how the situation dissipated, but ultimately, she and her friend both left — telling staff, rather than asking, that they would be absent that night and probably the next night, too. 

“I didn’t get in trouble for that, and they like, automatically granted (my friend) a pass too. So somebody knew they had to placate us somehow,” Swan said. 

Swan’s friend was exited from Pallet again within a week of coming back — “I think because she didn’t come back. I’m not sure. Pretty sure it’s that. I mean, that’s what they said, and she didn’t, but she was also still moving in again.” The friend is back at a camp, too.

But Swan said she felt that Chiselom’s statement was not very trauma-informed. And moving people in just to move them out again quickly just exacerbates the issues.  

“Regarding trauma-informed care, LCS is committed to supporting individuals who have experienced trauma,” Roe said. “Our staff are trained in trauma-informed practices to ensure that interactions with guests prioritize their safety, dignity, and emotional well-being. We are continuously working to improve our practices and ensure that every guest receives the care and respect they deserve.”

‘Walking on eggshells’

Swan said she didn’t really think people were generally putting much trust in Pallet.

Still, “You can not trust something, but the second you accept it, you are relying on it, and it does change,” Swan said. 

Boldt, Swan’s best friend, is still staying at Pallet, but he got in trouble because staff found a hot glue stick in his unit. It was a solid stick of hot glue, but a staff member apparently thought it could somehow be used as a pipe, Swan said. 

The false accusation has made Boldt feel like “one of their staff members had me in their crosshairs.”

“You’re dealing with people’s shattered lives as they try to pick up the crumbles of that,” Boldt said. 

He is even more concerned as the city plans to close the Amtrak camp on Oct. 15, calling the camp “my last lifeline.” He said everything is on the line right now. 

“What you have while you’re in there is the sensation of walking on eggshells,” he said of Pallet. “That once you make a mistake — credible or not credible, legitimate or not legitimate — that you instantaneously feel like you’re walking on eggshells, and you’ve already come to terms with the fact that I have to think I might have to go back to Amtrak, even though they’re shutting it down, which leaves a person in a very frightened position.” 

Swan said she’s been hurt because people staying at Pallet are now afraid to talk to her. 

“LCS is committed to maintaining a welcoming and supportive environment at The Village. We encourage open communication and respect guests’ right to voice concerns without fear of retaliation,” Roe said. “If a guest believes they have been treated unfairly, we offer an established appeal process to ensure their concerns are thoroughly reviewed. Additionally, we host bi-weekly open meetings in the community room where all guests are invited to share feedback and ask questions in an open forum, promoting transparency and collective problem-solving.”

Swan said Friday afternoon that neither she nor Meuffels had heard back about their appeals. 

“It’s a lot of proof that they do not care at all what happens to somebody, because they knew that the only place I had to come back to is out here,” Swan said. 

If she’s ultimately allowed to go back to Pallet, Swan said she thinks she will — but not for herself. 

“I’d rather be here, but I need to keep an eye on shit and also encourage other people … like, you’re better than two-week-old donuts as your only breakfast,” she said. 

Find out what’s really going on in your town. Read The Lawrence Times.

Mackenzie Clark (she/her), reporter/founder of The Lawrence Times, can be reached at mclark@lawrencekstimes.com. Read more of her work for the Times here. Check out her staff bio here.

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