First Helping

The Homeless on Hospitals…

Recently, especially in the Golden Triange BID, there’s been a large number of clients in need of medical attention. Whether this is due to a skin disease, broken bones, or severe sanitation issues, often these people go without assistance for long periods of times. There are a multitude of reasons for this, all of which are frustruating for an outreach worker.
Many don’t have any type of health insurance, and for that reason stay away from hospitals altogether.
Others have been thrown out of hospitals for disorderly conduct, or for demanding treatment when exibiting hypochondria, and aren’t necessarily welcome back.
Then there are those with mental health issues, who believe the hospital is a dangerous place or that doctors and nurses are out to get them.
Whatever the reason, there is a homeless population out there that doesn’t get commited to the hospital in times of true illness and injury, and this can turn extremely dangerous very quickly.

Just this winter I tore a few ligaments in my ankle, and was unable to walk for at least a week. With medical attention, xrays, and an aircast, the problem was quickly diagnosed and the solution to a healthy recovery was presented to me. I was also warned, however, how dangerous it was if I chose not to comply with the healing process. If I had continued to half-walk on my ankle, insted of leaving it for a month, the injury could turn permanent and much more serious.

This warning is all I can think about when we observe a client who is trying to walk on a broken knee, or who continues to sleep outside with a flu. Because many of our clients stay away from the hospital for one reason or another, they don’t get the warnings and advice, as well as material help, that is essential to their recovery. In fact, they could just as likely be injuring themselves to a greater extent by continuing to go on with their regular pattern.
This result from the lack of medical attention is what scares me about these clients we see in the BID. Often we send doctors out into the field to check them out, or in extreme cases FD-12 them, (a forceful trip to the hospital). But for mild enough cases of illness or injury, often the only solution we have is to wait until it turns worse, when the clients are a risk to themsleves or others. It is then when the government steps in and FD-12-ing is necessary.

Overall, when clients don’t visit the hospital and they have a threatening condition, we’re stuck in a catch-22. There’s little we can do for a client in need who doesn’t want to be helped until their situation turns critical, and by then it’s often too late.

People often ask me why I’m in DC this summer. They stare at me, faces saying, “What is this wide-eyed little girl from Alabama doing here?” Some get even more concerned for me when I tell them I work with people on the streets. Even some of our clients lecture me about the dangers of this work. Occasionally I’ll climb onto my soap box, look people in the eye, and get preachy about how incredible DCCK is, how passionate I am about the work that we’re doing, and how we’re all in this together. People, glossy-eyed at this point, slowly nod, pat me on the shoulder, and tell me they hope I have a good summer.

I’ll admit it. Perhaps their worry isn’t terribly misguided. I can be naive. I can be idealistic. I can be thin-skinned. And maybe I can’t actually lift the orange water cooler.

……..

One lesson (out of many) I have learned in my first few weeks with First Helping is that this work, and life, is all about being aware of our perceptions. A terrible trap we often fall into when thinking about people in poverty or those without homes is to slap on stereotypes: lazy, uneducated, mentally unstable, violent, drug addict. This is what we fight against daily. A big portion of the work in the Golden Triangle BID is to help those with homes to meet people on the street and those on the street to meet people with homes, and hopefully get a home of their own.

Yet, I would like to propose that we have an even bigger trap that we can fall into – the perception that everyone is actually equal and we must treat everyone just like it was my sister/brother/mother/father/next-door-neighbor in the line. Of course this sounds absurd. This is DC for goodness sake. Equality is literally written in stone around here. It’s not a BAD thing to treat everyone like they are equal. Right? The trap starts to open up when we allow respect and equality to be synonyms. Respect is crucial to this work. We all deserve it. Each one of us. Equality is also something we deserve, but we haven’t quite made it there yet. If we were all equal, there would be no need for First Helping. We would all have homes. We would all have a high school diploma from a school where teachers care about our success. We would all be employed and receive a living wage. We would all have access to services, no matter our criminal record. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case.

So why do I bring up the issue of this type of trap? The point is each person we come into contact with, whether it be in line for breakfast on Division Avenue or on the Metro home, has a different story and a different set of needs, wants, and issues. I am the first to say I fall into this trap all the time. When I fall victim to this mentality, I tend to forget the hardness that comes from living for fifteen years behind the National Geographic building. I tend to forget the signs of coming off a high. I tend to forget the quick shift in personality of someone who lives with bipolar disorder.

To move further, there is a reason my mother is not in this line. She doesn’t have a mental illness. She’s never taken drugs. She graduated from high school. While she, too, has her problems, they don’t stop her from having a home and going to work every day. So when I talk to clients like I would talk to my mother, I do both of us a disservice.

……..

I began with the story of how people perceive me to highlight the importance of really trying to be exactly who I am as well. So often I fight the perceptions of myself, trying to prove that I am so much more intelligent, realistic, and powerful than I am able to be on a daily basis. It always seems to fail. Our clients, especially, can see right through when I’m faking it.

What I know now is that I must come to the table (literally and figuratively) willing to see the real person I am handing coffee. When I talk to Karl, I can’t ignore that he has an untreated mental illness. When I talk to Robert, I can’t ignore that he’s lived on the streets for 30 years. I also can’t ignore that Karl tells me that he loves Michael Jordan and that Robert knows a great deal about Jimmy Carter. And I must come to them with my own honesty and humanity.

So here, in my somewhat disjointed blog post, I’ve got three small things to keep in mind. The first is to accept that the situations we step into each day are real – full of love and joy and pain and sadness. The second is to step into that world just as I am. Thirdly I must be willing to listen deeply to each person to see where they are really coming from, or in the words of my friend Jeff Rustin, “You have to listen to what people AREN’T saying.” Maybe after that we can make some real change together. Maybe, then, we can work on achieving the equality our foremothers and fathers promised us.

“I don’t want to be helped.”

How are we to respond to this?

When it is clear that a client requires help but doesn't want to work with us, what are our obligations?

I should be more clear, however. "I dont want to be helped" is often a line given one day, while the next day the client might be upset or angry that we haven't done anything for them yet. It's surprising how regularly we see this type of behavior.There seems to be some dispute in the social worker's field on this issue, and even in the First Helping office.

Perhaps a client has been to detox 4 or 5 times, but is asking to go again, promising once more that this is the time they'll stay clean.
Or we're going to pick a client up to take them to a doctor's appointment they scheduled yesterday, and today they're drunk and irrational.
Maybe a client is asking to fill out another housing survey, even though they've already deserted the two apartments previously given to them.

At what point, if any, do we have to draw a line as an organization? Do we continue to help a person in need if they refuse to show signs of changing their self-destructive behavior, or do we turn our focus and limited resources towards another client who may be more willing to work with us?

This is one of the more difficult questions that the First Helping Staff has to continually ask themsleves, and there are different opinions floating around the office on how to deal with a disrepectful or unwilling client. For that reason, the answer to this question is often situational, and dependant on which outreach worker is currently working with the controversial client.

This post was intended to help think about this type of circumstance, and to give reason to ask yourself what you would do in a similar situation. Please share.

I sat on our stoop a few days ago. Big alligator tears were rolling down my cheeks. It was 2:30 in the afternoon, and I had locked myself out of the house. My landlord never gets home until after 9 pm. My other housemate was in Toronto. The lady across the street with the spare key wasn’t home. And a terrible storm was rolling in, thunder was already rumbling overhead.

It seemed to me that I was stuck. I didn’t know my landlord’s number, nor did I have any way to call her if I did. I couldn’t take the bus; my wallet was sitting inside next to my keys. Plus, it was absolutely sweltering outside, and I was completely spent from the morning at work. The only place I could think to go was the Starbucks down the street, and pray that they wouldn’t kick out 20-something white woman for loitering. It wouldn’t have been pleasant, but I could have done it.

Luckily only a few minutes passed before the next-door neighbor walked out of his house. He was bringing in the recycling bin. He noticed me, but he had no reason to question why I was sitting there. It’s always embarrassing to be locked out, I think. You’re so helpless. Everything you need is locked away. I sat there for a second while he carried on with his chores. I couldn’t find the courage to simply ask him if he knew where Sandra kept her spare key. Somehow I blurted it out. And you know what, he actually had a copy. He muttered something about how did he know that I wasn’t there to steal something. I promised him I wouldn’t. I muttered something back about how he was a lifesaver, especially right before a big storm. I went in and flopped on my bed. Yesh. A small miracle, I supposed.

What I learned in that moment doesn’t have anything to do with the kindness of strangers or divine intervention. It has to do with how helpless I felt. In the moment I felt utterly alone. Perhaps my story is a little over-dramatic, the whole episode took place in the matter of five minutes. Yet, I think it illustrates something I constantly find myself wondering about – how do our clients can manage often 15+ years on the street, often with no cell phone, no family, no ID, no place to rest for more than a few hours. They do it. Bravely. They are survivors. Heroes, I think, fighting against whatever it is in society, whatever it is in their mind that keeps them out there.

I also know how hard it was to ask the neighbor to help me with my mistake. I can’t imagine how hard it is to rely on us at First Helping for help, for the key to unlock the door. I don’t hold hardly any of the keys for our clients. What I’ve come to see for myself this summer, though, is that I’m here to provide that extra bit of encouragement, extra bit of love, extra bit of grace for our clients, so when the time comes, and they hold that key in their hand, they can unlock that door with pride.

It was the winter time in 2007.

This writer, an outreach specialist at the time was working the breakfast truck and writing referrals for First Helping. Trying to make sure everyone that morning was fed and warm.

There was a nervous new face in the crowd. She came and went.

This new face came through a few more times. Eventually, little by little she shared her situation with the writer.

A chronic crack user. Homeless. No income. Estranged from her family. No desire to make any change.

Time ticked on.

There were moments where this writer saw her strung out. In withdrawal. Lying. Surviving.

On one occasion this writer remembers a week where she called all over Virginia for a Detox center, that to this day it isn’t clear whether it exists or not. She was trying to work with this new face to build trust. It was the best that she could do.

This writer has her own memories of this new face’s experiences over the last few years, her words tell it best.

Over the next few days her story will told through her words and this writer’s memories.

Recently I found a great blogger, Christine Schanes, from Santa Monica, California who writes about her work with homeless individuals. She often writes for Huffington Post. She posted the above video by a friend in her most recent blog, Homelessness Myth #4, regarding bad weather and the homeless.

What do you think?

As the holidays approach I (like many people) listen to familiar holiday music and songs, look forward to gatherings with families and friends as well as consider how my time and money will be spent.

This year I thought about the words to a very old and popular song entitled Do You Hear What I Hear. In this song, the questions (Do you hear what I hear as well as well as do you see what I see?) are asked of the listener as he or she (the writer) tries to describe the scene that they are witnessing as best they can. There is clearly a sense of urgency implied in this song.

I would like to ask community a question – Do you hear what I hear?

Read the rest of this entry →

Giving at the holiday time is nothing new and something that non-profits bank on.  But how do you make sure your donation is doing the most good for the most people?  Who are those people?  What is the most good?  And what should you donate?  Time?  Money?  Items?

As the Manager of First Helping part of my responsibility is to figure out how to appreciate the efforts of our supporters, best utilize items so that it compliments our mission and meets the needs of our clients.

Here are the Top 10 Things to Think About/Do When Deciding How to Donate to your favorite program this holiday season.

Read the rest of this entry →

I had a great conversation with one of our clients the other day about the condition of city shelters. It went something like this:

The Shelters in DC are pieces of s***. I’m not staying in them!

And that was that.

While I continue to pursue other angels this conversation seemed to be closed.

Shockingly, this reaction is not new. In fact, it’s actually par for the course.

Read the rest of this entry →

In my first year here at First helping Outreach has been great.

One story that really touch my heart is a young lady that was on drugs for almost twenty years.  People never saw the potential that she had in her because of her substance abuse.

Despite her cursing, even through her refusing service I never looked at the outer.  I could see a hurting women.  A hurting woman who so many people had given up on.

Now she is one of us working as a volunteer at the Kitchen. So I want everyone to remember that what you see on the outside is not the real person in their heart.

So never give up.