Interviewing homeless men is rich with anecdotes and stories of life experiences. One can become jaded after a few years, but every so often you get an intake that's memorable.
Joe showed up at the Mission last week after spending 2 months living on the Appalachian Trail (he's been homeless in one way or another for two years). The downturn in weather brought him in as the cold temps were becoming more than he could manage in the open-front trail shelters.
Joe is a white male in his late 30s with an engaging smile, excellent communication skills and schizophrenia. He opened the intake interview with a statement about my apparent loss of weight. I looked at him and remembered that he had be at the Mission before but I had no idea when. Joe reminded me that he was with us in 2007 for about two weeks. He said: "You must have lost 25 lbs...but you look good!". I agreed that I had lost that exact amount after taking up bicycling. He also wanted to know if I still rode motorcycles and I told him the long saga of giving up the passion for the open road at 80 MPH after my aging eyes weren't providing the depth perception and peripheral vision needed for sport bike riding.
I asked the standard intake questions about income, jobs, family members and medical issues and he was quite normal with all responses. When I ventured into the immediate cause of his current homelessness his normal responses took a different turn. Seems Joe has been followed these last few years by six witches and a warlock. They follow him everywhere and sabotage his efforts for a normal life. Asked if these witches were in the area or had followed him here, he answered that he left the Appalachian Trail in the middle of a cloudless night and he was sure it would take them some time to find him.
Probing deeper, I asked if Joe was taking any medication and he shared that he hadn't taken any meds for two years to avoid the feeling of being out of control with his functions. This is a common complaint with many men taking prescribed psych meds. The medication helps eliminate the voices but the client feels out of touch with the world around him. Better to have the voices and actually feel what's going on around them than to be voice-free and numb.
I asked Joe about the "witches" and why they would be following him. He related that he was a "fallen man" and the witches were a testament to his fallen nature. Whoa, have some serious work to do here.
Interviewing homeless guys is probably one of the most fascinating parts of my job. Not to say that I have answers for the myriad of social service problems that surround these men but the rich texture of life experiences gives me pause. Consider Joe; he remembers things about me that he observed four years ago and is able to discern my appearance and lifestyle while battling inner voices, and to him, physical beings bent on doing him harm.
We're going to try to have Joe see one of the psychiatrists that align themselves to the Mission to see if there are different meds available to allow him to function without the side effects. I'm not confident in the outcome.
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Monday, September 26, 2011
9/26/11
Gearing up for the cold weather; it's our "busy season". Many homeless men will forgo an organized shelter during mild weather to be able to use whatever substance they wish, as much as they want, whenever they want. Shelters put a crimp in one's mood-altering routine. But with the onset of colder and wetter months, the men will come in. The winter of 2011/2012 is looking like a potential record season for admissions. The bed count has not significantly dropped since March. Running bed counts at 60% capacity during the summer months has never occurred before. Here's my take:
1. The number of men entering the shelter after losing their room or apartment has tripled. These men are the "marginal poor". They have no financial safety net. No family. No friends. When they're laid off and unemployment benefits lapse, they're out on the street.
2. Social service programs have lost state/federal funding. Housing assistance programs are scrambling to provide for women with children. Single men are at the bottom of the list for aid.
3. Hospitals have reverted to "shipping" indigent discharge patients anywhere to get them out of their facility. In the business this is called "dumping" and hospitals are very good at dumping.
Gearing up for the cold weather; it's our "busy season". Many homeless men will forgo an organized shelter during mild weather to be able to use whatever substance they wish, as much as they want, whenever they want. Shelters put a crimp in one's mood-altering routine. But with the onset of colder and wetter months, the men will come in. The winter of 2011/2012 is looking like a potential record season for admissions. The bed count has not significantly dropped since March. Running bed counts at 60% capacity during the summer months has never occurred before. Here's my take:
1. The number of men entering the shelter after losing their room or apartment has tripled. These men are the "marginal poor". They have no financial safety net. No family. No friends. When they're laid off and unemployment benefits lapse, they're out on the street.
2. Social service programs have lost state/federal funding. Housing assistance programs are scrambling to provide for women with children. Single men are at the bottom of the list for aid.
3. Hospitals have reverted to "shipping" indigent discharge patients anywhere to get them out of their facility. In the business this is called "dumping" and hospitals are very good at dumping.
Sunday, January 2, 2011
How Many Days?
Emergency Shelters are located in cities throughout the United States. The perception when emergency shelters are mentioned is that of sadness, hopelessness, alcohol and drug abuse culminating in a sense of overwhelming desperation. All these perceptions have validity; but the emergency shelter where I work every day, harbors some of the most unique individuals you'll ever meet.
Ordinary solutions don't work with these men. For instance, the landlord has just notified that you are to be evicted from your apartment/room in 30 days. Common sense would dictate that you need to start making some phone calls. You need to excercise your social network and start calling in some favors. You have to find out if there are any relatives who can put a roof over your head. You have to do SOMETHING! Not my guys. They wait until the 30th day, pack up some clothing and walk the streets looking for soup kitchens. Procrastination and denial are the enemies in the fight to end homelessness.
In our emergency shelter, new applicants sit and recount their tales of woe to an intake clerk through a 4" circle of thick safety glass. The stories that pass through that circle of glass are the basis of this blog.
Keep in mind that the overriding desire of each man that comes into the shelter is: "How many days do I get?" and “What do I have to do to stay here longer?” They've wasted months and sometimes years getting into the predicament they've found themselves and NOW they're going to worry about how many days they will receive. Their plans to extracate themselves from a homeless condition are a plethora of pie-in-the-sky hopes and aren't as rule, sound. “I'll get a job and find an apartment” is the usual response to an exit plan; never mind the facts that one needs one month's rent and a month's security deposit. All in two weeks!
Most men in a homeless sheltr have exhausted their social contacts. Grown children drop their fathers off at the Mission because of a lengthly bout of incontinance. They're tired of washing smelly sheets. So, let's get rid of the problem. The practice of “putting our parents somewhere” is a statement about our generaton and society as a whole, but's that's another blog.
My staff and I formulate treatment plans to provide an exit stategy from the shelter. I'm blessed with some of the best case managers on the planet. Men that can place broken, sometimes deranged and usually addicted clients rather than turning them back out on the street. The process of conjuring this “social services magic” follows in future episodes.
Ordinary solutions don't work with these men. For instance, the landlord has just notified that you are to be evicted from your apartment/room in 30 days. Common sense would dictate that you need to start making some phone calls. You need to excercise your social network and start calling in some favors. You have to find out if there are any relatives who can put a roof over your head. You have to do SOMETHING! Not my guys. They wait until the 30th day, pack up some clothing and walk the streets looking for soup kitchens. Procrastination and denial are the enemies in the fight to end homelessness.
In our emergency shelter, new applicants sit and recount their tales of woe to an intake clerk through a 4" circle of thick safety glass. The stories that pass through that circle of glass are the basis of this blog.
Keep in mind that the overriding desire of each man that comes into the shelter is: "How many days do I get?" and “What do I have to do to stay here longer?” They've wasted months and sometimes years getting into the predicament they've found themselves and NOW they're going to worry about how many days they will receive. Their plans to extracate themselves from a homeless condition are a plethora of pie-in-the-sky hopes and aren't as rule, sound. “I'll get a job and find an apartment” is the usual response to an exit plan; never mind the facts that one needs one month's rent and a month's security deposit. All in two weeks!
Most men in a homeless sheltr have exhausted their social contacts. Grown children drop their fathers off at the Mission because of a lengthly bout of incontinance. They're tired of washing smelly sheets. So, let's get rid of the problem. The practice of “putting our parents somewhere” is a statement about our generaton and society as a whole, but's that's another blog.
My staff and I formulate treatment plans to provide an exit stategy from the shelter. I'm blessed with some of the best case managers on the planet. Men that can place broken, sometimes deranged and usually addicted clients rather than turning them back out on the street. The process of conjuring this “social services magic” follows in future episodes.
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