DATE: Tuesday, September 30, 1997           TAG: 9709300274

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B10  EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY NANCY LEWIS, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:   59 lines

GROUP'S HOMELESS SHELTER TOUR SPOTLIGHTS HARD TASKS

Dave Gungle spent last winter sleeping under a freeway overpass in Norfolk.

This year he's luckier. A friend let Gungle camp out in his garage.

The 49-year-old homeless man is a member of a Task Force on Homelessness that Monday took group tours of four shelters.

None in Gungle's group asked him how he had come to be homeless.

If anyone thought about asking, they backed off.

That can be an uncomfortable topic - not for the homeless, but for others, said Alice Taylor, executive director of St. Columba Ecumenical Ministries. The nonprofit ministry operates a day program for the homeless in Fairmont Park, one stop on the tour.

At The Dwelling Place, an emergency shelter for families, task force member Bernard Liedl asked a 4-year-old boy, ``Are you good at putting puzzles together?'' The child looked up from his puzzle and smiled.

Woodrow Booth said he and his family will leave the shelter soon. He's gotten a job as a car salesman since entering the shelter a month ago. Daphne Pitt also will leave soon, a Cox Cable partner who's going to go back to school.

At the Salvation Army's 19th Street shelter, four men bent over paperwork at a round dining table while task force members got briefed on the upcoming tour.

In one of the vans, Joshua Paige, task force member representing the Inner City Federation of Civic Leagues, discussed the difficulties the advisory panel faces as it enters winterlong deliberations. A final report is due City Council in May.

``There's going to be more (homeless) this winter,'' he said. Norfolk shelters turned away 2,000 people last winter for lack of space. They served 1,500. ``We're all going to have to take some . . . but the inner-city community shouldn't bear all the burden.''

Iris Jessie, assistant city manager, said she found the shelters to be more ``houses, homes for people'' than her preconceived idea of a shelter.

Evan Van Leeuwen, task force member, also left The Haven with a new perspective:

``Now, that's not an overlap,'' he said of the agency's five-step program toward independence. ``You get to thinking everybody's doing the same thing.''

Dave Gungle helps out at St. Columba. It's not required, but he does it just the same.

Homeless for about seven years, Gungle stops for a hand-rolled smoke before going into The Haven Family Center's eight-apartment complex. He didn't hesitate when asked to tell his story.

The Newport News native's life fell apart when he split up with his wife.

``I felt like dropping out,'' he explains. He said getting help was such an obstacle course that discouragement turned to despair.

Things are looking up a bit now for Gungle, thanks, in part, to St. Columba and Alice Taylor.

``You can go and talk to Alice and not feel like you're getting judged,'' he says. And as far as life on the streets goes, it's not all bad.

``You meet all kinds of people out here.''

Alice Taylor knows why some shy away from asking Dave and other homeless people about their lives:

``They think it could be them.''

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