Arupa Freeman, aka Arupa Chiarini, is a painter, writer, and the guiding spirit of the HOME (homeless outreach mobile effort) Van. I call her the Fairy Queen because she has a mass of white-blonde curls, a loose dress, a huge Ha Ha laugh, and an invisible magic wand that invariably produces the right answer to the many quandaries that confront the HOME Van.

I knew the name Arupa Chiarini long before I met her.  She and Bob Freeman were founders of the Acrosstown Repertory Theater – they ran it for ten years, writing, producing, directing, acting, administering.  It was Gainesville’s out-of-the-mainstream theater venue.  So Arupa was part of the Gainesville art scene, and though I occasionally attended plays, I was mostly part of the middle-class women’s do-gooder scene.  She was everything cool and hip; I was everything stodgy, even though I’m still a hippie at heart.

I first met Arupa at meetings of the Homeless Coalition – she and her husband were volunteers at St. Francis House, our main homeless shelter.  We were trying to create a Safe Space, where homeless people could hang out during the day. (St Francis and other shelters required residents to leave early in the morning.)  Like all initiatives that include city government, it involved years of meetings, with everyone saying the same things over and over.  It went on for a couple of years, and it resulted in nothing.  But it allowed the city to say it was addressing the problem of homelessness.

image: shelterlistings.org

At one point during the Safe Space campaign some firebrands decided we should camp out in front of city hall.  I ran into Arupa at Goerings bookstore and confessed I was scared.  Sleeping out on concrete in the middle of a crowd seemed like too much for me, and I had never been arrested.  She was scared too, though she had been arrested once for lying down in front of a bulldozer that was about to knock down a tree.

picketing City Hall

The plan for camping dwindled into daytime pickets at City Hall.  Arupa and I shared a two-hour shift, and that’s when we began to talk – about  books, people, our lives, She grew up in Vermont, went to college in Oklahoma, spent years in an ashram in Carmel, and more years as an editor at McGraw Hill.  After many years of talking, now I know she was intimidated by me, as I was awed by her.  She saw me as the Episcopalian – everything snooty and proper and uppercrust.

image:Vermontdirtroad from Arupa’s blog
http://vermontandotherstatesofmind.blogspot.com/ (This blog contains a lot of Arupa’s poetry, and some lovely pictures by her and others, as well as a Willie Nelson song.)

Arupa and Bob quit volunteering at St. Francis House when, after a new director took over, it became a place more concerned with regulating than welcoming  homeless people. They invited a few friends to meet in their living room, to find a better way to help the people living in the woods, and that was the birth of the HOME Van.

We began in September 2002, with 283 jars of peanut butter, 283 loaves of bread, and $283. Arupa and friends rode around town hanging bags at the end of every trail into the woods, with bread, peanut butter, and a note saying we’d return. The drive-outs evolved until we were delivering homemade soup, food bags, medicine, clothes and socks, tents and other items to campsites and parks twice a week. This continued for over thirteen years. We never got government funding or a grant, but the community supported us, and every month I wrote thank you notes for the checks, large and small, that regularly arrived in the mailbox.

The HOME Van and Bob’s garden

Four years ago Grace Marketplace, a homeless services center, finally opened in Gainesville. All the HOME Van volunteers were getting older, some sicker. So the Van stopped running, and Arupa, Bob and a few volunteers continued helping the poor and homeless with a food pantry. It’s officially open one day a month, when long lines of people wait patiently at the front door. But food bags and other supplies are always available for whoever knocks on the door, and there are several visitors a day to HOME Van Central, Arupa and Bob’s small house.

The house is half a block from the oldest community garden in Gainesville, six blocks from St. Francis House. The living room contains a refrigerator and shelves of canned food, dried soups, coffee, crackers, over-the-counter drugs and toiletries. Packed food bags, cartons of more food and supplies, tents, blankets and other donations make an obstacle course as we hurry to fill requests from the people at the door.

The walls are covered with paintings by Arupa and Bob, and Arupa’s easel is always at the ready.   Bob keeps a flower bed going by their front walk.  When their house was Gallerie Bob, there was an art fence festooned with found objects, but that has not been renewed in many years.

The art fence

Arupa and I became close friends through the many years of the weekly drive-outs. She is one of the more literate people I know, particularly well-versed in philosophy, literary classics, and mysticism. She also has an encyclopedic mastery of old G-rated sitcoms and the lives of 1950’s celebrities.  When Elizabeth Taylor died, Arupa delivered a long, loving eulogy to me and Larry, my sandwich-making partner at the kitchen table.

Her opinions are fierce and certain topics recur: the villainy of city officials, the imminent collapse of the economy and the environment, increasing poverty and cruelty, the limitations of allopathic medicine. (Arupa relies on homeopathic medicine and acupuncture, and was only sick twice in the years I’ve known her until a serious accident about three years ago.) She delivers her judgments with a conviction that makes my contrarian self silently argue the other side. These are all topics on which I have fuzzy views, often in line with hers, but too little knowledge to speak in the face of certainty.

In the early days of the HOME Van there were fewer homeless people in town, and Arupa and I had more room for frivolity. The first spring Arupa and I colored Easter eggs for the food bags.  I took her canoeing down the Itchitucknee, one of many spring-fed streams near Gainesville.  She included me in the local art world – once I performed in her play, Primary Colors, at an art gallery, and twice she invited me to read at Wild Iris, our feminist bookstore.  For a perennially unpublished writer, these were thrilling occasions.

Primary Colors
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ayAc-v_erk

Sometimes we’d find time for lunch on my backyard deck, or an evening together with Bob and my husband Joe Jackson.  The conversation was exhilarating; sometimes I think that between them, Arupa and Bob know everything worth knowing.

The HOME Van is not what it was in the days of twice-weekly drive-outs, and I think we all miss it. In the HOME van we had the privilege of operating from our hearts and instincts, unlike the many good-hearted workers in agencies. We’d often hear from homeless friends that what they liked about the HOME van is we took them at their word.  Tell us you’re hungry, we’ll give you some soup; and if there’s enough, we’ll give you seconds. If you need an extra food bag to take to someone else, we believe you.  We would rather be snookered occasionally than treat everyone with suspicion.

Getting goodies at the HOME Van

Despite Arupa’s serious accident, followed by a life-threatening infection, she and Bob have kept that spirit alive. Though food pantry days are pretty frenetic, the three volunteers filling food bags and gathering supplies are always ready with a friendly word and listening ear. And on the other days, when only two or three may seek help, Arupa has the time to talk with people, listen to them.  We deal with a lot of people who never come into the organized agencies.

Some people wear bracelets saying, What Would Jesus Do, though I haven’t noticed them acting particularly Christ-like. Many homeless people, and many people who don’t know Arupa, consider her a saint.  She is anything but saintly, and HATES the accusation, as she hates receiving awards, but when I’m puzzled about helping people who are down and out, I ask, “What would Arupa do?”  She has a clear moral vision that lets us focus on the basic question: how can I help?

From her I learned that if someone is hungry you hand them a sandwich; if they have blisters you give them a bandaid and clean socks.  You meet people where they are, with respect and friendship.  Some will find their way out of the woods, and you stand ready to support and help with that. Many will not, but if they are hungry they need food. Worthiness is irrelevant, and not ours to judge.

Bob and Arupa do most of the work of the HOME Van.  She listens to stories and learns names, and the people who live in the woods have her phone number.  When someone is sick, when the city is once again clearing a camp, Arupa knows who to call.  She is the truest exemplar I know of my favorite saying: “Light a candle AND curse the darkness.”

ARUPA’S BLOG
For many years Arupa wrote a blog about our drive-outs and the people we encountered. I have been browsing through it as I work on this post,. I can’t stop reading; I’m laughing and crying. She writes beautifully, sometimes prose, sometimes poetry. It brings back so many memories, and her soul shines through. I’m giving you just one sample of the hundreds of posts, and encourage you to go find more.

from  http://homevanblogspot.com

A CONVERSATION WITH ‘MOM’ (2009)
       She got her street name because she takes care of people. I met her in the winter of 1994/1995. An overly zealous night manager at one of the local shelters evicted an old man with Alzheimers because he smoked in his room. It was a January night with temperatures in the thirties. After a few choice words about “Why the **** didn’t he just confiscate his cigarettes?” Mom took this old guy to her tent and kept him warm through the night.
       A few months ago she actually managed to get me to do snuff outreach (with my own money, not Van money). She found an old, old man named Earle living in a shack near Tent City. Earle, who was well into his eighties, showed signs of senile dementia. He had a pack of half-starved cats and he himself was not doing so well.
Mom got some groceries and cat food from me and then said, “I need five dollars toward a tin of snuff.” Arupa: “You’ve got to be kidding. We don’t do snuff outreach.” Mom (tears running down her face): “He’s 86 and he’s been   dipping snuff since he was 12 and he’s just sitting out there jonesing and jonesing…”    Arupa: “Okay. Snuff outreach it is, coming right up.”
       Mom and I were discussing the economy yesterday. She said that Day Labor had dried up so bad people aren’t doing drugs out in Tent City because they don’t have the money. I asked if she knew how business was for the ladies who work on SW 13th Street and she told me that it’s really down. Now, this is a side of the economic downturn you aren’t going to hear about on MSNBC – It’s BREAKING NEWS in the HOME Van Newsletter.
       It got me to thinking about the Web of Life with the endless interconnecting tapestry of cause and effect. There is much suffering connected to this Great Recession, and will be for a long time to come. Can it be that there are also little miracles – lotuses growing from the mud – silently sprouting and putting forth roots? People planting vegetable gardens, people playing board games with their children because they can’t afford to go out – people in Tent City getting a “time out” from the nightmare labyrinth of doing drugs and turning tricks – a silent place where something new might grow. I believe in this.

BOOKS! GAMES! SOAP!
       That’s what we need. Hallelujah for Spring and long evenings when people can read and play cards. This summer I am going to emphasize recreation in the Socks 4th Avenue section of the Van, with your help. Art supplies are good also, and anything else you can think of that is fun We are also low on personal hygiene products.
ENJOY THE WEATHER!!!!
Love and blessings, arupa