Mission’s Computers Provide Denver’s Homeless a Link to Literacy, Jobs : Education: One relief agency wants to do more than feed, clothe and save the souls of its patrons. It teaches them to read, write and use computers too.

The Denver Rescue Mission, the oldest relief agency in the city, isn’t interested in just feeding, clothing and saving the souls of the down and out. It wants them to read, write and understand computers too.

Inside the red-brick building with the blue “Jesus Saves” sign over the door, director Del Maxfield is trying to redefine the goals of a shelter for the homeless as well as the needs of the men who seek help there.

The latest innovation is a computer-based program for functionally illiterate adults. It is part of “a new sophistication of the old urban missions” in response to changes in the makeup of the growing homeless population in America, Maxfield said.

In the past, he said, shelters were thought to be doing their job by providing a roof, a prayer and a meal for hobos and alcoholics.

The new homeless are “people who are economically distressed, abused, people from broken families” who need more, he said. “It’s a very complex world of homelessness out there.”

In appearance, the Denver Rescue Mission, founded in 1893, reveals little of its new-wave approach. It sits on a run-down corner a few blocks east of Denver’s skyscrapers. Weeds poke out of the sidewalk and curbs. At mealtimes, lines of ragged men wait at the front door, as always.

Inside, though, a clinic provides free medical, dental and eye care. It gave away more than 1,000 pairs of glasses last year. And not only does it teach literacy, but computer literacy as well.

Its computer room, in the basement, contains three terminals and file cabinets and bookshelves crammed with computer-course materials. The materials include science, math, Bible studies and geography as well as basic reading, writing and spelling.

On a recent day at the mission, two men sat in the computer room, one studying computers and the other Spanish, specialized skills for, they hope, specialized jobs.

One of the men, Mike, 27, had come to the shelter a month earlier from Dallas after losing his job as a truck driver because of “personal problems.” He has a high school equivalency diploma and is studying computer programming in hopes of applying for college soon. Some others who study at the shelter have only an elementary-school education.

Mike said he came to Denver to find “a new beginning, a fresh start,” and showed up at the mission for a meal. He now spends about five hours a week with the computers and works in various jobs at the mission about 42 hours a week.

He wants to become a counselor or perhaps a pastor, he said. “It’s been a dream for a few years,” he said. “I guess I didn’t have enough confidence to make an effort at it.”

The mission provides 140 beds for homeless people for up to 10 nights and feeds about 450 people a day, but Mike is one of 28 “program men.” These are men who live at the mission and are enrolled in its rehabilitation program. They must spend at least two hours a week at the computers and show a commitment to staying free of drugs and alcohol.

One shelter resident, who had some knowledge of computers before he came to the shelter, landed a job with a pharmaceutical company after less than a month in the program, said Aaron Mossman, coordinator of the new literacy program.

Working at computers can be a positive experience for people who lead “negative” lives, Mossman said.

“It’s simple, but it’s positive. They sit, push a button and something happens. They’ve just succeeded three times. They begin to build positive mental attitudes that ‘I can,’ ” he said.

The word “homeless” doesn’t begin to describe the people who need help from the mission, Maxfield said. There are those who are literally without homes, he said, and then there are those he calls “the poor and needy,” who may have a home but no food, or are in imminent danger of becoming homeless.

“One of the things that we have lacked is knowing what these people want to do in life,” Maxfield said. “We’re trying to find a way to test these people, see how they’re wired, so we can send them down a road of success instead of more failure.”

Maxfield, who worked for 24 years in the aerospace industry before leaving to get a master’s degree in divinity, came to the Denver Rescue Mission from the Fuller Seminary in California. He has, he said, an ingrown awareness of the value of education. “I’m a high school dropout myself. I had to learn that a formal education was important. I’ve had some tough times of my own.

“When I got here, I noticed that people would fake reading the Bible and the hymnals. I discovered that a lot of these people couldn’t read.”

So he, along with the chairman of the shelter’s board, Roy O. Howell, a retired schoolteacher, and other volunteer educators began a tutoring program to help the shelter’s wards earn high school equivalency diplomas.

Then, a year ago, Maxfield visited Accelerated Christian Education Inc. in Dallas to take a look at its computer-oriented education courses for schools. He worked with ACE to develop similar programs for adults, from the illiterate to those in need of refresher courses. The resulting program began at the mission a few months ago.

The literacy program and other courses are financed entirely by donations, Maxfield said. In 1988, the Denver Rescue Mission reported revenues of $717,000, all of it from donations and interest. The shelter probably has invested at least $6,000 so far in the literacy program, Maxfield said.

Maxfield believes in taking the mission to the streets as well. He said many cannot leave their camps in railroad yards or under viaducts because they are afraid of being robbed. This doesn’t faze Maxfield. He said he developed street smarts during a previous job as a chaplain in the Los Angeles County jail system.

The mission also has a truck that collects unused food from Denver-area supermarkets and drops it off in poor neighborhoods. And it has a farm in northern Colorado where interested shelter residents can get away from city pressures and help grow food for the shelter.

Now Maxfield is expanding the mission to include a shelter and vocational-training center for women in a building being renovated nearby. It is scheduled to open in January.

Maxfield hopes that the computers ultimately will be used not only for educational and vocational training, but for personal development.

Such as?

“How to balance a checkbook,” he said.