The pandemic had a stupefying effect anywhere it got a foothold.

For the thousands of people in Memphis experiencing homelessness, it gutted the distribution networks for street gold like shoes, belts and sleeping bags.

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In her third-floor office of the Grosvenor Building on North Second, Pam Scarbrough, executive assistant and office manager at Community Alliance for the Homeless, did what any den mother or problem-solver is trained to do: she made a list of key contacts and went to work.

Since March, the Alliance has distributed $15,000 worth of shoes, size specific, because Scarbrough asked each agency that works with homeless people not only how many shoes they needed but what size.

The orders flooded in.

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“Some asked for big sizes like 12, 13, 14 because people don’t donate big sizes,” she said. “Some asked for children’s sizes. It really has just been a variety.

“It’s nice to be on the giving-away side,” she said. “I’m hearing back from our organizations: ‘So and so got their shoes, and they’re so excited.’ ”

The next stroke of genius was ordering through Amazon, nixing the need to build a COVID-safe distribution system.

“We send each organization their shoes, that means they don’t have to come here,” Scarbrough said, gesturing about her small office, partially packed for a July moving date. “The package goes directly to the organization, and they get their shoes right away.”

If the pandemic scorched a scarcity mentality in mankind, it also allowed people broader latitude to serve.

That is the case with Scarbrough, who created detailed spreadsheets of all the orders, including sizes, gender, where they were shipped and on what date.

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Because of the way she thinks, homeless people in Memphis also got string backpacks filled with toiletries and hygiene products. The Community Alliance has given away more than 1,000 of them.

She is also spearheading its project to give out cleaning supplies and other necessities in new “home-warming” boxes to the formerly homeless people the Community Alliance has placed in housing.

They have been more than 100.

“It’s just showing them that someone is thinking about them as they are moving into their new home,” said Dustin Kane, planning administrator for the continuum of care, the chain of commend the Department of Housing and Urban Development mandates that each community have to coordinate services for homeless people and to work to keep it from growing.

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The Community Alliance manages the continuum, administers HUD money and keeps track of the numbers of homeless people through its annual count. It has more than 9,000 people in its database.

In the pandemic, it has stepped out in broader ways.

“The Community Alliance found a creative way to still get those shoes out despite the fact that we can’t all come together.”

Mary E. Hamlett
MIFA vice president of family programs.

“This is the first time I have seen them give away shoes. Calvary has never received shoes before,” said Christine Todd, director of outreach ministries at Calvary Episcopal Church.

With the end of the fiscal year now less than three weeks away, Scarbrough is putting in orders for $10,000 more shoes, wrapping up a $25,000 project that, at $35 apiece, will provide 714 homeless people a pair of shoes — tissue still in the box — plus a clean pair of socks.

MIFA ordinarily takes care of shoeing the homeless, but in the pandemic, it could not have people in its buildings. When its vendor, Payless Shoes, went bankrupt, the distribution got even thornier, said Mary E. Hamlett, vice president of family programs.

“The Community Alliance found a creative way to still get those shoes out despite the fact that we can’t all come together,” she said.

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In the past 12 months, private donations have bought $50,000 worth of shoes for people who are homeless in Memphis. MIFA this year is managing the needs of families that qualify for its rapid rehousing program or that MIFA places in family shelters.

Community Alliance, at MIFA’s request, is managing the other half, the thousands of people who make up the general homeless population in the city.

Typically, they receive shoes once a year at a community event for homeless people sponsored by the Community Alliance.

“For years, it was at the Cook Convention Center,” Hamlett said. “The last time they had it, it was at Georgia Avenue School. That was nearly three years ago.”

That means for three years, getting shoes has been a hit-or-miss deal for people who are homeless, and grueling if they have hard-to-fit feet.

Calvary Episcopal received its second shipment from Community Alliance on Monday, including dozens of sizes 12, 13 and 14. It will give them away next Sunday, starting at 6 a.m.

“It’s very difficult to walk on hard pavement all day long. That is what our neighbors experiencing homelessness have to do.”

Christine Todd
Calvary Episcopal Church
director of outreach ministries

“It is going to be amazing because as you know, it’s very difficult to walk on hard pavement all day long,” Todd said. “That is what our neighbors experiencing homelessness have to do. They can’t loiter. They can ride the bus, but that takes money.

“We’ve never been asked what sizes we needed,” Todd said. “And the shoes Alliance sends us are beautiful. They’re really lovely.”

That is due to the group think at Community Alliance, which created a team of people to look at a sample of shoes, flex the soles, check the heft and lace quality, and ultimately decide if they would wear them themselves.

“Nobody wants an ugly shoe,” said Scarbrough, a former teacher’s assistant who chose another path after volunteering with Room at the Inn, a project to house homeless people, a week at a time, through local churches.

“Oh, my gosh,” she said. “It was life-changing.

“This is my dream job. Just working with these people and learning about what they are doing, the energy of this place for the homeless,” she said over the Downtown traffic noise rattling on the streets below. “There is so much to be done and so many fascinating people.”

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The Lisieux Community, which serves women in peril and often in sex trafficking in a 2-mile radius of its drop-off center on Summer Avenue, received 20 pairs of new tennis shoes from Community Alliance, all in large sizes, said Whitney Fullerton, program director.

“If you think about donations, people don’t get rid of shoes as much as they do clothing,” she said. “It’s just been very helpful to have shoes, especially in larger sizes.”

The need for large shoes is often a measure of swollen, hot feet from standing all day, said KC Warren, who works in the clothes closet at First Presbyterian Church.

“I am looking at these ladies we serve and thinking, ‘you do not wear a size 11,’ just looking at their hands, but their feet are a mess,” Warren said. “They want big shoes.”

First Presbyterian has an order in for 100 pairs of shoes.

Todd, direct in her assessment of the silent suffering of people without shelter, cites the hierarchy of need.

“First is underwear,” she said. “Second is a pair of pants, and third is probably shoes.”

Because there are few to no places for homeless people to wash clothes, the clothes are worn for few weeks and tossed out, she said.

“But shoes have to last until they can get another pair.”

She’s seen so many of what she calls talking shoes, soles separated from the toe and flapping on the pavement, that all she can do is sigh.

“Every person needs shoes, and they go through them so quickly,” Todd said. “The soles are so bare; they have holes in them. And their feet are just frightening-looking.”