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Christine Moore is the Vice President at the CAMBA Flagstone Family Center. We spoke with her about her role in CAMBA, her experience in shelter, and the partnership with Adelphi University.

HSU: Can you share a bit about your background and how you became involved in working at CAMBA?

Christine Moore: My background has always been shelter. I’ve been working in shelter, this year would make 21 years. I started with CAMBA back in 2014. I wanted to see what other organizations were doing. And so, I joined CAMAB as a per diem. During that time, I was more of an operations supervisor with another agency, and through that time, as per diem with CAMBA, for two years, I fell in love with the agency. I fell in love with what CAMBA was about. It’s a move that was scary, because the previous agency was all I knew for 12 years, and it was scary to jump out there and try somewhere new. But I loved what CAMBA did for the clients and the staff. That’s what made me really fall in love with CAMBA. 

But when I did come on board CAMBA full-time, I came to Park Slope Women’s Shelter as the Assistant Program Director. I worked there for about a year, and I was promoted to Program Director at Opportunity House Men’s Shelter. And I worked there for two years, then I went to CAMBA’s Family Shelter. That’s when I started working at family shelters and worked with Kings Inn Family Shelter and I worked there for about three years at Kings Inn and went to Flagstone Family Shelter, where I’m at currently.

What drew you to work in the shelter environment, and how has your experience been so far?

What drew me to working in shelter environment when I first started and applied, I was a student, and I was looking for work to find some meaning in what I was learning. I applied to be a case manager, and it was so funny. In my interview, the program director was like “you have absolutely no experience” “I will not make you a case manager. You’re just a student”. But he brought me on as a residential aide and from there I fell in love with working with the homeless population. 

It was something that was supposed to be very temporary. As a student, you look for work with a specific population. I don’t think people know just how diverse the homeless population is. Just because someone’s homeless, they can come with so many other things, or maybe nothing at all. They just don’t have a place to live, but there are so many things happening in homeless shelters for the clients that are living in them. I’ve met so many interesting people, and I’ve learned a lot from the clients, about humility, grace and all those other things. But I’ve met clients that were so educated, smart, had experience. It’s just so many different stories of people that have fallen down and built themselves up.

Have you faced any particular challenges while in shelter, and how have you overcome them?

A challenge that I can say that we’re constantly facing is advocating for the families. And I say that because, we’re shelter providers, but there’s so much more the families need than just shelter. A lot of times, families are navigating systems that they’ve never had to deal with before. So, a lot of times we’re dealing with challenges with children getting the proper education and the resources, family members getting the proper medical resources and services in the community. In some families, some family members have social security numbers, some don’t. They’re facing a lot of food insecurities because the benefits they receive are only for the people in their household who have a Social Security number. Maybe one person has a Social Security number, but it’s a family of 6.

And even advocating for them within the shelter system for vouchers, housing vouchers for being placed in places that they have access to the services that they had prior to, helping the families keep their dignity while they’re in shelter. You know, I understand the city oversees shelter. But sometimes they don’t have the opportunity to fully assess the family, to find out that the medical provider for their child who may be autistic is in Brooklyn, and now they get in place in a shelter in the Bronx. And the hardship of that. So those are some of the challenges we face daily. The whole family’s needs have to be met.

What does a typical day look like for you at the shelter?

Waking up in the morning, first thing is looking at emails because it’s a 24-hour program. I wake up to check my emails to see what happened since I left the previous day and from there, I’ll get an assessment of what I’m going to address from the moment I get in or later on that day. 

A lot of it is sometimes following up with families on services. We check to see about children’s attendance in schools, and then there’s also the work I do with the staff in training and development. Teach a lot of teachable moments throughout the day for all of us. Little things that happen can grow into bigger things and we like to be proactive in everything and not reactive. So that’s why I say those emails are so important because I checked to see what something may have happened that we may need to triage right away and not wait for the bigger explosion. So maybe a child came home late that night and the parents didn’t know. We will follow up with the family because we don’t want it to end up being the child didn’t home for two days. 

Referring for services, sometimes we’re connecting with external service providers and internal CAMBA service providers to coordinate different services, whether it be preventative, children and behavior, medical mental health resources. We refer families to CAMBA’s legal resources. We refer families to CAMBA’s ESL. So, it’s trying to find out what can we hope someone with today?

Are there specific tasks or roles within the shelter that you feel particularly passionate about or find most rewarding?

I would say the most rewarding is when we see the family coming together. I had a family who was a single mom and she’s raising four daughters, and her oldest daughter is a teenager. It was an afternoon when the daughter was completely explosive. She was doubting her mom about her mom being in shelter, blaming her mom for her being in shelter, and calling her mom names. And Mom was at the point where she said she wanted to call ACS and have her daughter removed completely. And everyone was on board, but I said let’s slow it down a little bit. Let’s talk to mom, then let’s talk to the daughter separately, and let’s see if we can bring them together. 

At that moment, we were able to find out the daughter was upset because when her mom is having challenges with her behavior, her mom calls her friends and vents to them on the phone and tells them all of her business. And we know how teenagers are, easily being embarrassed. So that’s why she was acting out that way and we gave the daughter a space to explain that to mom, and it became a teary-eyed moment. She apologized and she hugged her. And they’ve been good since then. 

So, in moments like that, where families were almost going to fall apart, they were able to get stronger and build back together. And of course, the second most rewarding is when a family moves out of shelter and gets their own home.

How do you build rapport and trust with residents at the shelter, especially in those first few interactions?

It’s going to sound very simple, but it’s the easiest thing to do. Just listen. When I first meet a family, I do not ask a whole lot of questions. I allow them to tell me what they want me to know at that moment because I don’t want to be intrusive. I’m sure a lot of our families have been through the system. They’ve gotten those intrusive questions. They feel that they’ve shared all of their life story with everyone that they’ve met. But feel that it’s ust sharing, yet no one’s listening. 

So, I really just take it all in and allow them to tell me what they want me to hear and then from that we continue to do our work from there. Following up, restating : “Hey last time when I met you, you stated this and that” or if there’s an immediate need, pointing out the immediate needs I heard then. But I don’t give a whole lot of instruction and a whole lot of talk, because I want them to know I’m listening. I think I get more when I listen than I do when I come in with a whole lot of questions and talking.

And especially when I’m listening and after they’ve spoken. I restate confirm and clarify everything they said. They feel respected and heard. And one rule we have is we address all families by their names. By their last names, Mr. and Mrs. whatever they prefer being called.

What kind of feedback or reactions have you received from the residents about your role in the shelter?

One thing that a lot of residents and staff tell me is that they appreciate the open-door policy that I have. That, whatever it is, whatever is happening, I will make time to have a conversation with you, to discuss with you. Good, bad or indifferent. And I also welcome staff, especially because the staff can sometimes feel burnout, feel overwhelmed with what’s going on, and they need that moment to continue their day. We all need that moment. 

What are your future goals or aspirations, both professionally and personally?

Personal and Professional are kinda intertwined. Personally, I want to finish school, to get my license by the end of this year. Professionally, I would love to obtain a SIFI so that I can have interns and help them learn and develop from working in the shelter and helping families.

What is the most important thing to consider when working in the shelter?

There are so many things to consider. Humility. Respect. Our communication. Integrity. Our professionalism. Consistency. Grace. And being present. It’s rewarding work. You know, if anyone ever wondering what can they do to find something rewarding and with purpose? Working in Shelter definitely is that. But also be prepared for the challenge.

Because with the reward comes a lot of hard work and a lot of moments where you may wonder “What am I doing?”. And whenever I have one of those moments, something happens to remind me why I’m doing it. It trumps everything else that happened that may have frazzled me that day or that week. So that’s one thing I could definitely say about shelter, from working with street homeless people, to working with shelter, to people living in supportive housing, it’s all rewarding and great work.

So, tell me a little more about the partnership that CAMBA has with Adelphi University?

So I was able to work in collaboration with Adelphi, obtained my bachelor’s degree. And in August, I’ll be receiving my master’s. And this has been a wonderful journey, not only professionally, but personally. Just when you think you’ve experienced it all, you learn more about yourself and what you’re able to do and conquer while working. I’ve learned about just being a better supervisor, a better program director for the clients. Personally, looking at situations differently and really putting on the lens of trauma and motivational interviewing, and how behaviors influence other behaviors. It’s helped me make a strong connection in the work that I do with the learning I’ve done with Adelphi. When I first did it, I was wondering, “How will I apply the things that I’m learning in school to work?” It just happened, and I was able to see the concepts and the theories. They were always happening right in front of me. I was just able to now make that connection.

Having other colleagues in the same cohort/classes, how did that affect how you all worked together with each other?

Some of us were in some of the same classes. And it’s funny because when we’re talking about organizations and the organizational context, we were all able to relate and state how our organization operates. We were also able to lean on each other with how we incorporate work with school and internship, tips, and assignments. Trying to figure out how to apply this certain thing to what we do, and we would sometimes come together to try to figure it out. So, it was really helpful to have that cohort. It’s about 5-6 of us. It helps when you have other people going through the same thing. 

I even had to learn a new way of learning, if that makes sense. Because going back, the student I was 20 years ago is not the student I am now. And I remember taking my first exam, and I failed it. Because I studied the way I was used to studying. My brain does not work that way anymore. It really does humble you. And it was funny because the professor was like “What happened?” He’s like “You’re always participating in class. I thought you of all people would have had an A” and I had to tell him I studied the wrong way. Yeah, it was learning to become a student again.

CAMBA’s Partnership with Adelphi University

In 2022, the New York Community Trust sought funding requests for an initiative called, “Investing in Social Work’s Future: Collaboration, Innovation, Impact” that sought to address contemporary challenges and opportunities facing the field of social work and to recognize the racial and social justice issues that will increasingly define social work in the 21st century.  CAMBA applied for 1 of the 3 opportunities called “Community agency collaborations with academic institutions to address pressing social needs in a particular community.”

CAMBA proposed and received the award for 2 years with a 1 year no-cost extension to educate a cohort of 8 staff (scholars) who are employed in any of their family or single adult shelter and/or our Drop-In Center. Through the partnership with Adelphi University School of Social Work, CAMBA was able to provide tuition assistance, an employment-based internship to these 8 staff who were interested in pursuing their education in obtaining a Bachelor’s in Social Work or Master’s in Social Work. CAMBA supported the cohort by identifying an Educational Coordinator to provide oversight, conduct monthly lunch and learns, identify supervisors to be internship instructors. Adelphi provided a liaison for the students to assist with the educational support.  

The CAMBA cohort is to address the impacts of trauma on single adults on single adults and families who are homeless by building staff skills to improve their ability to de-escalate conflicts, to increase their ability to understand how their own emotions impact the work, and to understand the core principles in a staff-client relationship such as mutual respect and engagement, empathy and unconditional acceptance. Additionally, staff can come to their jobs with their own implicit biases about race, ethnicity, sexual orientation or gender, mental health, homelessness and other statuses. Gaining self-awareness and understanding the nature of biases through education and other learning opportunities will increase our ability to provide culturally-affirming care to all clients.

CAMBA has 5 employees graduating in August 2025 with Master’s in Social Work.