As a write this, the Sophie cat is high on cat nip... I'm such a drug pusher, lol. It's a lot easier to laugh at her antics though, and encourage her to "use" then it is to deal with the human consequences of drug and alochol abuse and addiction. A perhaps little known fact is that there is that the number of people seeking shelter changes every day and there is a definite pattern to it all. We turn away far, far more people on the weekend then we do during the week. More homeless on the weekend? Not exactly, a lot of it comes down to alcohol... It happens like this. While there is a definitely a poorer area in my city, there are social housing developments spread out in various areas of the city. All of these are accessible by bus...during the day, but at night, when the buses stop running, it's a lot harder to get there. It seems, that more people drink on the weekends. I'm sure this is true anywhere. While the bars and hotels on the strip are full of business everyday, on the weekends they're just nuts. And here's the thing, the bars close after the buses stop running. SO when last call comes and everyone's leaving, suddenly there seem to be a whole lot of people who simply have no way to get home and many of them seem to wind up on the steps of the shelter.
When we get someone come to the door who hasn't stayed with us in a long time or stays with us only sporadically we ask them some questions, for starters, "where do you live?" Most people tend to say "nowhere", but then comes the question, well, where did you stay last night, last week, last month, because you didn't stay here. Most of us hate doing this, but really, we're not a crash spot for people too drunk to remember to go home... we just can't be that. We don't have the room or the funding...
But it's hard. I can easily turn away 15+ people, and generally they're far too intoxicated for the sober shelters. This is one of the things which shows me just how real addiction is. When you're so drunk that you just have no way to get home and you're down to the point of sleeping in the shelter or on the street. When do you say to yourself "wow, I slept in a bus shelter last night, this is out of control". People get so mad at us too, because we're supposed to be the shelter and what good are we if all we do is turn people away. It's hard for people to see the big picture when they're caught up in addiction, there's a sense of intitlement and a need for immediate gratification.
None of us are sure exactly what to do about this... as I've posted about many times, when does having the shelter just become enabling, when does it allow people to continue on destructive life style paths and live of the system, who gets to judge that anyway? I hate having to judge who is more and less deserving of shelter, we're supposed to do it by "level of vulnerability" but it's not like we have a formula. It's true though, I'll squish in a regular who I know is completely falling part far sooner then I'll squish in a younger intoxicated male who doesn't stay with us... but maybe it should be the other way, we are an "emergency" shelter after all.
none of the answers are easy, not even the process is...
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