it shouldn't have to happen...but what to do?

One of the things that has puzzled me in my job is knowing that there are many homeless who don't sleep in shelters, and yet not knowing where they are sleeping.  As I've gotten to know more and more people I've been able to gain insight into this, and some of the stories simply blow me away.  While some of those who sleep in the "great outdoors" do so by choice, others have simply burnt all their bridges, this is a story about one who burnt his bridges time and time again, and also, a story of survival.  

Devon was one of those kids who never quite fit in.  Like so many others in the homeless community, he comes from a broken home and his addictions began at an early age.  Inside Devon there is A LOT of rage.  He's angry about his circumstances, and while he tends to be in control of his impulses while sober, when he drinks, he's a very scary individual.  Devon managed to make his way to a permanent restriction from our services, and had to spend a very cold winter living outside and trying to keep from dying.  

During the summer Devon would find spots by the river or hidden away in back alleys.  As long as he could stay off the radar, he was able to go about his life in relative piece.  When winter came however, it was too cold to sleep in the open.  Devon, like many others before him, and I'm sure many to come, moved into new accomadations...dumpsters. Packed full of garbage and rotting food, these metal conainters make a good place to curl up.  Unfortunately, the garbage bags can act like quick sand, dragging someone to the bottom where it's hard to get out in a hurry.  

One of the other tricks to staying, or at least feeling, warm in the winter is to drink large amounts of alcohol.  As the alcohol runs through the blood you feel warm making it easier to fall asleep and easier to bear the cold.  So, one night, as Devon slept drunkenly in a dumpster, he didn't wake up when the garbage truck came, instead, he woke up as he landed inside the garbage truck.  The details of how he survived are a bit of a mystery, but he did, and realized he needed to change his living arrangements.  

Devon moved from the hidden away dumpsters to a prominent heated bus shelter.  Here we covered him with blankets many a night on van patrol, waking him up to make sure he hadn't gone into an advanced state of hypothermia.  As Devon was brought to the drunk tank more and more often it became clear that the police, like us, felt sorry for him and wanted to protect him from freezing to death on the coldest nights of the year.  Despite the horrible things he had done in the past, staff advocated for him and Devon is now allowed to use our services, and to this point, he's shown a lot of respect and thanks.  

In talking to Devon, it's hard to imagine him as a horrible monster.  To me, he is kind and gentle.  I think perhaps the dumpster was a life changing experience for him.  While he hasn't stopped drinking, I haven't seen him in a drunken rage in ages, and he's connecting with the people around him in the community and with the staff at the shelter.  They say everyone has to hit a rock bottom before they change, I wonder if this will be his rock bottom, even though he hasn't decided to abstain.  Maybe he's already started making the changes needed for survival... 

laughable

When I interviewed for my job at the work placement team (yay for new job) I really did NOT think I had done well.  I knew I had gotten some of the questions bang on, some of them half on, and only completely made up one answer (oh how I wished I'd actually done some research).  There was one question though, a very serious questions that I grinned and started laughing at...I thought it was definitely worth sharing, although I do realize that it is kind of morbid, and it shows me just how calloused my job has made me.  

So, the interviewer asked me to desribe a time when I'd intervened with someone who was suicidal.  Now, she wanted a professional answer of course, so I could use anything to do with my sister and her multiple issues (which reminds me of another post I want to make) but in my head I was thinking that I've dealt with enough suicidal people to think of something!  And that's when I started laughing, see this is what came to mind.  

A while back, I wrote about a man who tried to strangle himself in the drunk tank.  In this case, he was extremely drunk and high on an unknown substance(s).  Talking, as it often does in cases of intoxication, did me no good and right infront of me he took he shirt, wrapped it around his neck and began to pull tighter, and tighter and tighter.  I ran for a coworker and by the time we got back he was unconcious.  We opened the door and untied the knot.  When he realized he wasn't dead, he went nuts and it took six police officers to carry him out and take him to the hospital to get checked.  

But that's just one story, if it was just that, maybe I wouldn't have laughed.  When the police who apprehended him came back the officer looked at me and said "weren't you here last week when we took someone out who tried to kill themselves" and I had to ask "which one/which time".  Because it happens SO often.  I mean, people are really creative.  I've dealt with more then one hanging, more the one strangulation, attempted wrist/throat slashing, and of course, the good old bang head into wall until you pass out.  One of those ones fought the cops for a good long time begging them to just let him kill himself.  This was all I could think about.  All the lives I've potential saved with "suicide intervention", and I laughed, because I knew this was not at all what they were asking for, but it was all I could think of.  

Finally, I smiled, and said something like "I spend a lot of time with intoxicated people and their situations can be kind of exreme, let me tell you about a time I dealt with someone sober..." I based my answer on a client experience, but in truth, I just walked through the steps of a suicide intervention and ended with a likely outcome.  One of the reason I want this job, is so that I can have those experiences.  Right now, if someone's suicidal, once their sober, we pawn them off on the crisis team, we don't have the time to deal with them, I'm too busy watching out for the one in the cell beside them ripping his mat into ropes or watchign 71 other people in the shelter making sure they don't kill each other after a percieved sock theft.  

Suicide is not a laughing matter... just one of the reasons I got a new job.  

the night of 18 turnaways

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... 

just an all around sad story

This is a story about death.  This is a story about everyday life.  This is a story about the poor and the middle class.  This is a story about people struggling to get by.  This is the story of inequality, unfairness and injustice.  This is truth.  

Everyday in our society people work towards earning money to acquire things.  The nature of the earning and things varies, but in Canada at least, it's neccessary.  Even those who have no official earnings, the kind declared to the government, are generally working to gain income, small though it might be.  While many people think of the homeless as being beggars, theives and panhandlers, there is an entire underground trade system, a black market, which trades not just in weapons and drugs (as many people believe) but in the items of everyday life.  

The poorest area of my city is void of the big box stores one finds in the suburbs.  Most of the stores are tiny corners stores, almost all which are run by imigrant families.  In order for these stores to exist they have to charge more for their items and put in long hard hours just to eek out a living.  Unfortunately, some of these stores turn to less honest ways of gaining money preying on those even less fortunate then them.  

One store in particular, was famous for this, they were known on the street as being willing to buy just about anything from a person in exchange for money, mouthwash or hairspray (to drink).  When we gave out brand new winter jackets this Christmas we found out quickly the owner was buying them from the homeless and reselling them for a higher price... once we started cutting the tags off this petered out, but it continues to happen with a variety of other things.  Because it's not a pawn shop, the police don't run the same checks for stolen property and it's less regulated... and besides, it all happens under the table anyway.  

For whatever reason, the owner of this particular store couldn't handle life anymore, and so, he hung himself, in the back of his store, in the middle of the work day.  My clients were there when his wife found him, my clients cut him down, my clients comforted his wife, my clients called for help, and my clients were there when there was nothing left that could be done.  And it hit them hard.  Staff from one of the other organizations in the area came and did CPR while they waited for the ambulance.  They got a whole debrief session.  The clients who cut the rope, got nothing.  

One of my clients hasn't been the same since then.  Sober for almost three months he's started drinking again, and is now using injectable drugs.  He's in horrible shape.  He talks about the wife of the owner, how she just cried, and cried, and cried.  He was planning to draw her a picture, I don't know if he ever did though... why are there no services for him?  Why is it that staff are more important then clients.  And for the clients, this wasn't just some stranger, this man was a part of their community, someone they knew and interacted with on a daily basis.  Do people assume that these clients have seen so much that it just doesn't effect them anymore?  Because that's just not true... Why is it that we forget about the clients in the midst of a crisis?  

I've had a few conversations with the clients about this.  But my time and resources are so limited.  It's hard to have a deep conversation about death in the middle of a shelter full of people while the phones ring, the intoxicated scream and people are constantly interupting.  I've mentioned it to my boss... but still... just a sad story all around.  

James goes to the hospital

It's funny, some of the homeless WAY overuse the medical system, constantly presenting to emergency services and emergency rooms.  There are others though, like James who don't get medical care until it's almost too late.  Because James' drinking is a little more controled then some of the others, he doesn't wind up passed out in the street quite as much and so he doesn't have the (sometimes daily) frequent medical care of others in his cohort.  So, when James got pnemonia, it wasn't till he was passed on in a pool of his own vomit in the back of the shelter that he started his contact with the medical system.  

The paramedics, were horrible.  I seriously, have so much respect for them, they do a crazy job, but each time they insult one of my clients or talk about them like they're stupid and just a burden on society I get more and more angry.  There's some good ones, and the first responder fire fighters are usually awesome, but the paramedics... wow, they're getting to me!  Anyway, they treated him like crap even though he was super cooperative and friendly with them.  There was no rudeness on his part, just some smiling (he loves to grin) and he did his best.  

There's a funny part to this story though.  I was talking to one of this client's good friends at the shelter and asked how he was doing.  Turns out though, somehow, none of this client's friends knew what had happened to him, infact, they were all quite worried as he'd just disappeared into thin air.  So, I made an oops with client confidentiality, assuming they knew he'd been hospitalized, but I think it'll be okay.  

Anyway, the client I was talking to was super relieved and decided he'd get the whole gang together to go visit their friend in the hospital.  These particular clients are the very, very chronically homeless.  They're the ones you see passed on in doorways and on sidewalks.  They're the ones who haven't bathed in years.  One of them wears a hood all the time, dresses all in black and has ear buds, which I discovered in one of his less intoxicated moments are to keep the voices out.  They're almost always intoxicated to some degree and well, if you didn't know them, they'd look pretty scary.  

What I laugh at, is the poor staff at the hospital as these guys come through the door.  If you or I was to visit a friend it would be one thing, but these guys are something else.  I'm so glad they're going though.  It shows the strength of the community.  Hopefully these guys don't pull a fast one though... our clients have been known to bring drinks and get their friends drunk while visiting!  When you're wearing 8 layers of clothing (you only think I'm exagerating), it's pretty easy to get stuff in.  

I felt his pulse stop...

Most of the people reading this have probably taken CPR at some point in their lives.  Most employers require it these days and even if they don’t, many people take it for personal interest.  Most of the people reading this have never had to perform CPR... I used to count myself in that number. 

 

It always sucks to be short staffed on a Friday, and when it came to me to be shift manager on Friday the 13^th I had this nagging feeling that something was going to go wrong.  Of course, I didn’t want to be so convinced of this that it would up becoming a self fulfilling prophesy, but still, there was something that told me the night just wasn’t go off as planned... and it didn’t, but even though we were busy, things stayed calm until around six in the morning when I overheard the phrase “I’m calling 911”.  This is never a good sign as we try and avoid calling it as much as we possibly can.  So I went down to the drunk tank...

In the drunk tank, one of the staff had a discovered a c/n not breathing when they went to check on them (this being why we check on people every 15 minutes).  The staff member had already begun CPR and the client had started breathing again... and stopped again, twice.  So I joined in.  2 person CPR is SO much easier then 1 person CPR and my co-worker was just a little panicked.  And when I say a little, I mean he was definitely in need of a deep breath.  So I got him to do the breathing, because you have to take slow deep breaths. 

 

After the third or fourth time we revived him I felt his pulse with my fingers, to time it, and to reassure myself that it was there...and it was, until it stopped.  My co-worker started doing chest compressions and I could feel those, each one created a pulse of its own (which I find fascinating, even though I know that’s what it’s supposed to do).  I lost count, but my co-worker says we revived the man seven times.  By the time the paramedics finally got there he was sitting up, conscious, holding my hands as we breathed, in and out, together. 

 

Then the paramedics arrived.  And the guy FREAKED out.  It took six people to hold him down while they gave him some haldol.  I have NO idea what he was on, or how a person can go from no heart beat to seemingly psychotic within such a short amount of time, but he did.  I’ve never seen anything like it, and I hopefully never will again.  

Actions and Consequences

When I was a child, my parents taught me that there was a consequence to each of my actions, good or bad, and often, if I did the wrong thing, they were the ones to enforce the consequence.  For example, leaving my room in a mess despite repeated warnings to clean it up might result in not being allowed to watch TV until it was clean.  And more serious for me, my mom almost took my entire collection of books away because she caught me reading after lights out one too many times.  As adults, there’s no parent standing over us handing down consequences, but that doesn’t mean they are no longer there.  Bestest bud, for example, expected the house to be clean when she house sat this week and so because I hadn’t cleaned in ages I had to spend the two days leading up to my vacation cleaning like mad trying to make a dent in months of clutter. 

 

Many people believe that the homeless are simply living out the consequences of their actions and because of that they do not need our help.  Rather, they simply need to take new actions which will have more positive consequences.  If unemployment led to loss of housing, finding yourself employment will then lead to housing.  This way of looking at things looks at things on a more macro level and is easily generalized to many different situations. 

On a micro level however we look at individuals, their situations, their actions and what the consequences of those actions are.  It can become easy for my coworkers and I to take on a parental role (often quite unintentionally) and become the one who hands out consequences.  A client does something wrong, we punish them.  Sniff in the shelter, kicked out for 24 hours for example.  One would expect this to be a deterrent, but if losing housing wasn’t enough to force someone to find employment will 24 hours outside force someone to stop sniffing?  I think that’s what gets to a lot of us.  We kick people out over and over and over and over again, and they’re mad, really mad, and yet month, or a week or even the next day, they’re doing it again. 

 

One reason for this is addiction.  Addiction is very powerful.  I didn’t really just how powerful until I started working in detox.  I hear people whose hearts are just breaking because of the horrible consequences of their addictions, who want more than anything to stop, and yet are somehow still held captive by their substance of choice.  Further, after you use drugs/alcohol for a while your brain starts to go.  You actually kill brain cells and damage parts of your brain, including your memory.  Further you may not remember what happened as you “blacked out” from drinking. 

 

Another reason is FASD and/or other brain damage.  One of the frustrating things about working with children with FASD is their inability to understand the consequences of their actions.  This is true for adults with FASD as well, only we expect adults to have mastered this concept.  No matter how many times we tell someone, they may simply not get it (one of the reasons we tend not to use sliding punishment scales in which the punishment increases each time the action occurs).

A third reason people do not seem to learn from their consequences as we expect them to is mental illness, bet that depression, anxiety, schizophrenia or anything else along the spectrum.  It’s hard to care about the consequences when you don’t exist in the same reality as the one who makes the rules.  Sometimes a person can be so depressed they just don’t care, don’t care at all.  Watching that can be scary, people with zero regard for their own lives are not only a danger to themselves but to those around them as well. 

 

So, how then do we create a safe environment for all people?  

old and drunk

Whenever pension cheques come out the drunk tank fills up with those over sixty five, many of whom are definitely elderly.  Some of them are still quite spry, but others are just WAY to old to be sleeping in a cold cell on an inch thick mat.  And yet, every pension day, there they are, drunk as anything and creating a fuss or making a "nusiance" of themselves somewhere.  Often it's as simple as they can't get themselves home because they're too drunk to walk.  I have one person who forgets to use her walker when she's drinking and forget's she can't walk well without it.  She holds it in one hand and carries it.  

And then, then there's mr. nicholas.  Somehow, he manages to get drunk almost every day.  He hobbles in with his walker, usually after passing out somewhere, landing at the hospital and getting picked up by the police.  Everyone knows mr. nicholas, he's a fixture.  And sadly, he has no memory left.  He often does not remember that he has an apartment in a nice area or even where that area might be.  What he remembers, is how to drink, and drink he does.  I'm not sure there's a record for drunk tank admissions, but I think he'd probably get it.  

What do you do with a person like that?  He spent some time in psych after being declared incompetant, but you can't hold him forever.  Once he was "stabalized" he was found really nice housing and set free.  He returned right back to where he was, drinking on the strip.  If he was placed in a nursing home I suppose he'd have to be locked in the way my grandmother is.  Only in her case, she thinks the nursing home is a nice hotel and that she still lives at home.  

The thing is, the guy is happy.  This is his life, and this is what he likes to do.  The problem is, it's a drain on the system.  He drinks, he passes out, someone calls an ambulance, then there's the hospital work up, then the police car ride and then the drunk tank fee.  And once he's released, the cycle starts all over again.  

and again

and again

and again

leap frog...or something

My last post about finding a person passed out in the snow reminded me of another story, a kind of weird and slightly embarrassing one.  This happened a while ago, but I don't think I ever got around to posting it.  

A coworker and I are driving around on van patrol one night when we come across a person passed out in the snow.  We'd scene this guy earlier in the evening wandering around seeming intoxicated but he had denied our help and since he was conscious, walking and not creating a disturbance there wasn't really anything we could do.  

Of course we do the usual things and try and wake this person up.  We get nothing, so I do the whole 911 thing, or maybe he did, anyway, we call an ambulance and continue our efforts to get the man to wake up and come into the van where it's warm.  Because we'd seen him not that long ago we knew he hadn't been down all that long and we were kind of hoping we could just take him back to the shelter (this before we had to call 911 of course).  

My coworker says the guy is coming around a little and so we try many things to try and get him to get up, or at least get his face out of the snow so it doesn't freeze.  Finally we just stick something under it as he is just not moving...for anything.  Then the ambulance gets there.  The paramedic says to him "get up, come in the warm ambulance".  The guy then LEAPS up, stumbles, and then walks with the paramedics.  It was seriously embarrassing, we looked pathetic with our "unresponsive" guy positively leaping up!  He was definitely on some weird drugs or something, because that is just not normal.  

Much as we love our clients the next time I called an ambulance for an unresponsive client part of me was praying they'd stay that way...at least till they got to the ambulance!  

digging deeper - treating people as people

I'm not entirely sure why, but this photo evokes really powerful emotions in me. Tonight was my night off, and I spent some time working on a project for church. I was looking for photos which so a variety of different people from a variety of different walks of life and cultures. Seeing all the people reminded me that one of my intentions for the year was to see people as people and that got me thinking about my job.

It's all fine and well for me to say I want to remember that people are people, but I realized, when thinking about things, is that part of the way I cope with my job is to forget that, it makes things easier. Maybe that's good though, and maybe that's bad.

For example, when I have someone screaming and calling me unspeakable things (or at least things I won't publish here) it is much easier to think of them as "that intoxicated person" rather then give them a name. In fact, I generally refer to them as their cell number (interestingly enough though, i tend not to do that with clients I know well). Then there's example two, again, working the drunk tank. A girl sobbing, crying, begging me to help her, telling me of her horrible life, about the abusive relationship which wound her up here. So much easier to give quick reassurances and move on. Experience and practical reasoning has taught me that there's no use arguing or doing interventions with intoxicated people. In these situations, it's fairly easy to justify, whether that's good or not, I'm not sure.

Then though are the turn aways. It's really, really hard, to look someone in the eye, call them by name, and tell them they can't come inside the warm shelter when it's -30 outside. Exposed skin can freeze in less then 10 minutes, and what do I say? "I'm sorry sir, we're full, you have to get here early, we're usually full by 9PM". "I'm sorry, all the shelter beds in the city are full, you'll have to figure this out for yourself". Those, and other things, but generally those. Nothing can prepare you for that, and it's so much easier for them to remain Jane and John Doe then to dig deeper and ask their names, and how they wound up at your door that night. For some, especially the 2:45 crowd, it's simply that the bars don't close till 2:30, but for others, there are most deeper issues and we're their last hope.

So what I need to work on finding, as I've said many times before, is balance. A little pain keeps us moving, it's what keeps us fighting for change. Making things too black and white, and blocking out the suffering of people hardens us, and getting harden to far makes us, well, hard. I don't want to be like that. I also don't want to be the girl who runs to the bathroom and cries after each turn away (for the record, we don't have one, I just don't want to become one).

something to ponder as I fall asleep, what is it that dehumanizes people, is it our actions or our attidudes, must it be one, the other, or both?

examining evil aka examining my biases

There's one client who for a long time I was scared of, petrified of even. Ever since I started working on the side of the tracks where he makes his home, I've been scared of him. He's the kind of person who has a reputation in the neighbourhood. He's the kind of guy who throws rocks at cars during rush hour on busy streets. He's the kind of guy who rapes intoxicated women; where people can see him. I could go on for hours, but I think it's sufficient to say he's the kind of guy who just inspires fear in those around him.

So how does this relate to me. Well, a month or so back I was cruising around in the van with a coworker and we were talking about said client, Gavin, and I mentioned that I felt like he represented pure evil. My coworker agreed and from then on that's how I thought of him. Over time I've defended him to other coworkers saying he must have a lot of hurt in his life to have so much anger which comes out in so many ways, but still, this guy to me just seems so... horrible.

Of course I continued thinking, and I got curious and one quiet night I sat down and read through his entire file. It took quite a while, but as I read through the short entries over the course of ten years I began to piece together pieces of his recent history as well as get a sense of what made him into the angry adult he became. This man has had horrible things happen to him, things that shouldn't have to happen to anyone. He was born into a bad situation to start with, and history took a tole upon his future. His life was rampant with drugs and addiction, things he still struggles with today.

And see that's the thing. Gavin is the most scary when he's been using. When he's sober, it turns out he's a pretty nice guy. It kind of freaks me out, the juxtaposition of the two characters. And who knows, there very likely could be some kind of dissociation going on, the two people are just so different. One is this screaming person who throws tables and the other a nice, quiet, polite man who has serious health problems he is quite conscientious about taking care of. It's hard to evaluate someone abusing multiple substances for dissociation, and that's if anyone would even care to try.

So what I realized, is that you can't put people into boxes. I've always known this, I'm not a black and white person, but in this case, I was very black. Evil. Plain and simple. But the thing is, life is never that simple.

what you do unto the least of these

There's a verse in the Bible which has been on my mind a lot lately. Jesus is telling a parable about the Kingdom of God and what things are going to be like in the end times. Jesus tells his followers, as recorded in the book of Matthew. In the story, the righteous are puzzled because Jesus thanks them for feeding him, clothing him, and taking care of him and they say they have never done this for him. He answers, "Truly I tell you, just as you did to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me".

I am so blessed to have a job in which I am able to provide things for people. I able to feed the hungry, give clothes to those who have none, shelter to those who are cold and give hope to those in pain. My job is awesome. The problem, of course, is that I cannot do this for everyone who needs it, or who wants it.

Saturday night I was shift manager which meant I had to spend the whole night in the shelter as well as answering phones and the window and such (no escaping to the drunk tank for me!) Thankfully I didn't have to kick anyone out, unfortunately I had to turn 20 people away at the door. That is the most people I have ever had to turn away in one night, and to say they were unhappy about it would be a HUGE understatement. I had to get the police to remove one of them because they were banging so hard on the window.

I found out that the shelter across the street was referring people to us even though I had told them already that we were full. I called and got lectured by them about how they don't accept intoxicated people so what else were they supposed to do (we accept people in any state of intoxication as long as they're not disruptive). I told them I didn't know, but they asked them to please stop sending us people we couldn't take. They called the police about a client, so then I had the police inside the shelter looking suspiciously at the empty mat of someone in the bathroom, so that they could put someone there the other shelter had kicked out. I had the hospital phoning getting upset when I couldn't take someone who was done in emergency - note, just because they use us as a mailing address does not mean there is a guaranteed mat for them, we are an emergency shelter.

I was able to get one person a ride home, and someone else a cab. Why would you want to sleep in a shelter if you have a home? In this case, they were too tired and drunk to want to walk there so thought they'd sleep it off on the province (we get some government funding for the shelter). So that's 2 out of 20, the police took the 1, and 2 others wound up in the drunk tank after they went back to the shelter who referred them to us and got annoying. So 5 out of 20. I have no idea what happened to the other 15.

We started taking turns turning people away, I couldn't take it anymore and neither could anyone else, because the same people kept coming back and just begging me to let them in, and I couldn't. We were already five over. And they screamed and pleaded as they stood outside shivering. Imagine being at the point where you have to beg and plead to come into a homeless shelter. If these aren't the least of these, I don't know who is.

Now rationally, I know that we have to set limits. I know that it would have been impossible for us to be 25 people over and that it would have created fights, chaos, and a standard we couldn't live up to in the future (people need to know that the full sign means full). I know that homelessness is a far larger systemic issue then I can tackle alone or quickly. I know that other people's housing crisis are not my crisis and I don't make them that no matter the guilt trips they use. I am not responsible for their shelter. They had plenty of time to look for a place to stay, it's been cold for months, 2AM is not the time to scream at me.

But then, as I stood in church singing Christmas carols it was like that verse was haunting me and I started cry. I really couldn't handle crying right then, so I bit my lips and quit the tears, but the verse was still there. "What you did for the least of these..." What did I do for the least of these? I turned them away to freeze in the snow. I shut the blinds so I didn't have to look them in the eye as they screamed at me and pounded on the window (this is a last resort for us, we really like to treat people as people, but once the screaming starts...) I told the least of these to go away, even though I used much nicer words.

I came home and cried. I think it's a good thing I have five days off.

overwhelmed - or something

I'm feeling a little overwhelmed these past few days. The enormity of the problems I see on a daily basis can be kind of consuming. For the most part, I'm quite good at maintaining a healthy distance, putting things in perspective and staying positive. This past week however there have been a few situations which have been hard and the mind numbing cold just doesn't help anything.

This week for the first time I found someone sleeping under a heating vent, by choice, not because they were passed out drunk. For some reason, this really touched me. When I asked them why they made that choice, they simply said they had no place to stay. Another person, in a doorway, refused even our offers of a blanket, let alone a warm place to stay. A man what I believe was an actual heart attack. I have a lot of people with chest pains, most of the time they beg for the ambulance. This man, clutching at his chest, gasping for breath, wanted no help at all (note, we called and he was taken to hospital). An unrousable man later told us he wished we had just let him die. And of course, the girls working the streets just keep getting younger and younger.

I am sick of fighting with the other shelters. The politics of homelessness are stupid and frustrating. I'm sick of watching my mouth and having my actions be dictated by our directive not to do anything to make the clients go to the media. Why, because they are, they're making good on their threats, and we can't afford the negative publicity. I'm sick of not being able to say what's really happening because we're not allowed to say negative things about the other shelters (although I do understand this). I'm sick of not having enough space for freezing people.

Working in the drunk tank is also difficult. Until you've done something like that, it's hard to explain. It's hard to explain the death threats, the law suit threats, and the constant insults. It's also hard to explain how it can break your heart to have to lock someone up and forceably hold them. On the flip side, it's also hard to explain what it's like to have to kick people out of a safe warm place because there are drunker people coming in.

Of course, my heart is not literally breaking, and for the most part I am able to put aside all this stuff and effectively do my job. I'm able to go about my everyday life and not think about this stuff. These past couple days though, it's just seemed a little much. Someone at church said I looked sad, and i just didn't know how to explain. There's just so much, so much I see, and sometimes it just gets to you, especially as my clients start to worry about Christmas. I'll go to work tonight, and I'll do my job with a smile, just like always. But inside, inside I'm a little sad tonight. Sad because a job like mine has to exist, and sad because its just seems like we're not doing enough. Sad because people are hurting, and there's only so much we can do to change that.

maybe I just need a good cry...

just another day on the street

They say you can tell a lot about a society by the way they treat their most vulnerable, the way they treat their very young, and their very old, the way they treat those who are unable to care for themselves. In Canada, for the most part, I think we like to think of the homeless as being young to middle aged, I think we tend to forget what happens when the homeless get "old".

For someone who's lived a good proportion of their life on their streets, the aging processes is accelerated. It's very hard to judge age by appearance. For example, a man may look like he's pushing 80, but upon reading his chart one can discover that he hasn't even hit 65, he's not a even a "real" senior citizen yet.

Adam is a man just like that. A man the you look at and think "wow, he's old". The thing is though, Adam is not really that old, despite displaying physical and mental signs of much increased age. Adam can barely walk anymore. He's had surgery on his legs, he's got arthritis, and general aches and pains. Arthur doesn't have a walker though, or even a cane, these things cost money. Of course, he may have had one, he may have had several, unfortunately though, they're gone now, leaving him to slowly inch his way along.

It snowed here, and Adam now has to slog his way along across streets slick with ice and through snow drifted, and piled high where the plow pushed it up against the curb. Slipping hurts when any of us do it, for Adam, slipping poses an extra danger because he can't get himself back up again. Once Adam is down, he's down, until someone picks him up again. Of course this poses a problem, because people don't generally want to go around picking up random homeless people off the ground.

Adam doesn't just sit inside and mope all day however, Adam goes out and parties with his friends, just like always. The beverage of choice? Mouthwash. Plain, old fashioned, unflavoured antiseptic mouthwash, known (and sold) on the streets as "anti". So they drink their anti, living the good life, and as the friends drift off home or to the shelter, Adam sometimes gets forgotten. This may mean an ambulance ride to the hospital, it may mean the police picking him up and sending him on his way, or sometimes, it means the drunk tank.

This week, Adam wound up in the drunk tank. It was probably the best place for him in the situation, but it sure isn't a good solution for Adam's situation. Lying on an inch thin mat, soaked in urine, reaking of antiseptic (because let me tell you, the urine of someone who has been drinking anti, after it's sat awhile smells totally horrific), and unable to get up off your mat to do anything about the situation. And so we helped him up, and found him new clothes and were ready to send him on his way, when I realized that Adam was never going to make it across the street to the place he stays. Fortunately, it was quiet, and I walkd him from our door to their door.

But see the thing is Adam shouldn't have to live that way... but, would he chose to live any differently?

false alarm

I think I've written about this before, but it happened once again. When people come into IPDA, they're supposed to be searched. This may seem rather trivial, but a bad search can lead to bad consequences, hangings, cutting, or fire. Yes, that's right, fire. See apparently, it's amusing to light one's toilet paper on fire when stuck in a small from for an unknown number of hours. Personally I can't imagine why one would do that. (Okay, so I totally can, I mean, I'd be going CRAZY, or using the time to catch up on some sleep, on the other hand though, starting something on fire when you have no access to water or say, a way OUT of the room, well, that doesn't show much common sense, of course that's why they're being held though...never piss off the cops).

So, rant aside, we have very sensitve smoke detectors. When people do things like light their toilet paper on fire they pretty much instantly go off. And being a shelter full of vulnerable people, this of course triggers a pretty giant fire alarm down at the main fire station as well as an alarm with the police. It's well, a big deal. Besides that, we have special systems in place to release all the detainees in the drunk tank, unless we put a certain key in a certain whole within 90 seconds, which means we only have 90 seconds to determine if it's a false alarm. Fortunately, we have a panel which tells us exactly where said alarm is coming from, but still. This time, and we're still not sure why, the doors all opened anyway. And one of our IPDA's escaped... I manged to run around and lock everyone else in though!

Then of course, we still have to deal with the fact a fire alarm bell is ringing throughout the entire rest of the building...loudly. So then you have to find a different key, in a different place, and open a different panel and press a button, to shut that thing up. And then you wait, and then the fire fighters come and have to inspect the scene for a fire. Then the wonderful fire fighters reset your fire alarm (in both places) and life carries on.

Except, in a shelter, with 70+ people sleeping, life doesn't just carry on. Because now instead of having 70 sleeping people you have at least 40 awake people who have been woken up rather harshly. And they want food, and drinks, and companionship and they get rowdy. And when asked to calm down, they seem to remind you that THEY WERE SLEEPING, and somehow the entire situation becomes your fault.

Yay. because really, it's always your fault.

or not.

gong show

Sometimes, the only way I can get through my shifts is to have a mantra that goes like this "i love my job, i love my job, i love my job". And the truth is, I really do, it just has it's moments... take one of the days this weekend for example.

I have this girl coming out of the drunk tank who wants to talk to the mobile crisis team. When I phone, they don't want to talk to her, they don't have "time" (uhh, okay?), they were super rude to me. I wanted her to phone in the first place, but she chickened out, so I said I would make an introduction and hand her the phone. They kept me on the line not wanting to talk to her, talk about not empowering! Anyway, they finally talk to her, and they wind up arguing, and then she hands me back the phone. Apparently she has "attitude". Bah. I gave her so different resources, and bus fare.

While this is going on, ccf discovers a girl has hung herself in her drunk tank cell. Freakyness. I have never seen a hanging, and frankly, I never want to again. We're still not sure exactly how she got the string, but in anycase, we cut her down and saved her and she was consious before the paramedics got there. Just another day in the life of the drunk tank, because back I am with girl calling crisis services, and opening the doors for firefighters, paramedics, medical supervisors, police etc... answering questions for the police, doing intakes and discharges, and oh, somehow, ccf and the guy with the knife decided I should do all the documentation cause I have the "nicest penmanship" (I do, but still...).

Fast forward a couple hours, two of my coworkers are sick and throwing up, but can't go home because we're so short staffed and they feel "guilty". Ccf is in one of his silent moods and not communicating well with others; me included. We discharge someone from the drunk tank who is on our permanent barred list (or to be pc, his "service has been suspended"). He almost takes a swing at my supervisor, and we have to seal IPDA to protect me while I discharge him. It takes me 20 minutes. Why? Because he decides I'm a sweatheart and starts to tell me about his deep emotional pain.

Another couple hours. I walk past doing a life check and find a guy talking on a cell phone inside an IPDA cell. Uhhhh they're supposed to be searched! And what's he saying? "Yes, I do need an ambulance, yes, and ambulance". I yell for my supervisor, who throws open his door and starts yelling, "don't send one, he's in the drunk tank and fine!" She yells at him to give up the phone, and eventually he does. He throws it accross the floor and yells, get this, "you might not want to touch that, it's been up my ass". sigh. ass phone. So then, i have to call and cancel his ambulance and get the police to come re-search him. Oh, and convince the ambulance people that, you know, he's FINE!

and that's one day...

wait till I tell you all about last night when everyone but me called in sick!

Halloween in the tank

Friday was one of those nights on which I had to remind myself numerous times why I like my job. Friday night was not a day on which my job was likable. Why? Well, it was Friday, it was Halloween, and month end welfare checks had just come out. Oh, and did I mention we were short staffed?

During the week, the drunk tank is populated mostly by your average street person or low income minority inner city dweller. These people may have been drinking in public, got in a fight with a family member, or been passed out on a bus bench. Maybe they were playing chicken with the cars on Main Street, who knows. The point is, the majority of them have been there before (and will be there again sometime). They know the routine, they know what they have to do, they come in, they go to sleep, they leave when we ask them to. The weekends however, are different.

Weekends at the drunk tank are filled with middle and upper class suburban white young people who think they are entitled to better treatment then "those people". A large majority of the people who come in on the weekends are first timers, maaaybe second timers, but usually once is enough for people. These are the annoying people. The people who make demands, the people who threaten to sue, the girls who cry for hours, the men who kick their door. Now, this is not to say that your average homeless person doesn't also kick their door sometimes, but generally, they're a quieter crew.

Halloween, was a mixture of both sets. And they really didn't get along all that well. Halloween had us seeing costumed white people coming from the halloween bashes at night clubs as well as dirty, urine soaked street people picked up off the curb. Halloween had some of the most annoying people I have ever dealt with (although definitely not the most annoying). Upon release, one man wrote down every single tiny detail off his form, and then told us we'd be hearing from his lawyer. He can't sue us, but somehow his calm attitude unnerved me a lot more then the usual screaming. Of course, the one who screeeeamed at us about suing us, was also annoying, so really, you can't win.

And so, I shall end this ramble as my eyes begin to close. Good night world, the dreamer's off to sleep.

sad story

We have some frequent fliers in the drunk tank. They're people who wind up there time and time again. Some of them are shelter goers, street people, people who've gone through detox and treatment many, many times, and some of them aren't. It's a lot harder to get to know the ones who aren't, because the only contact I have is when they're discharging. I heard something a few nights ago though which really touched me.

There was a frequent flier in one cell and beside her a girl who I'm sure will quickly become a regular if things don't change. The two got to talking, which at least kept them from harassing me each time I walked by. As I listened to their conversation it gave me incite into some of the things they're dealing with and facing.

The first woman began to speak of her daughter, and how proud she was of her. Her daughter was eight she said, and most importantly to her, she had never laid a hand on her. To her this was the most important sign of a good mother, no physical abuse. She then began to reveal her own history of abuse and how much she had struggled as a child. The girl beside her in turn began to reveal her own history of abuse at the hands of her parents.

While it doesn't excuse the fact that these two women were drunk, disorderly, and a potential danger to themselves and others, it gave me incite into why it is that they were drinking so much on a regular basis. Fascinating. I have in mind to do a post about the different kinds of people who see in the drunk tank and then further analysis each sub group, but not today... today, i need to sleep!

dear intoxicated person

Dear Intoxicated Person,

It has come to my attention that there are some issues we need to address. You've been getting upset a lot lately, and frankly, it's starting to get to me. Here are some basic ground rules to follow during your stay in the intoxicated persons detention area while being detained under the intoxicated persons detention act.

1. You do not have the right to a phone call. You will get one, I promise you, when you are released. Your lawyer does not want to hear from you at 4AM drunk, 75 year old mother doesn't want you to wake her up, and if your wife's the phone who phoned the police, well, she probably doesn't want to hear from you either.

2. We do not give out blankets. Blankets obstruct our view, and our job is to keep you safe, we have to be able to tell if you're breathing. No matter what you tell me, I will not give you a blanket.

3. I do rounds every fifteen minutes, this is when I will talk to you. No matter how many times you kick your door I will not come any sooner. Now, If you were to yell, "I'm having chest pains" or "I can't breath", that would be a different story, then, I would come very quickly, and help you.

4. On that note, if you tell me you're having chest pains, I WILL call and ambulance, and they WILL take you to the hospital, who has the option of sending you back if you're fine. Chest pains are not a get out of a jail free card although you will get that blanket you wanted...until you get back.

5. I am not opening your door to give you water, particularly if you're angry, violent, harassing and call me a bitch (or one of those million other things I've been called). That just doesn't work for me. If I have time, you're polite, and you've been there awhile, then I will consider opening that door.

6. If the police didn't get you a mat, it was for a reason. Chances are you were violent, or you have a history of shredding our mats. Or, maybe you were just the unlucky 18th, 19th or 20th person, and have to pay for the other people who've shredded our mat's mistakes. Whatever the reason, I'm still not opening the door to give you a mat no matter how hard you kick.

7. By law, I have to hold you 4 hours, even if I think you're stone cold sober. I have the right however, to hold you up to 24, and I cannot be sued, or charged for this. IPDA is busy, with people constantly in and out. I cannot guarantee when you'll be out, and it honestly depends a lot on you anyway. I will not let you out after 4 hours if I don't think you are ready.

8. Being from the suburbs does not make you better then the other people in there, in fact, many of them are from the suburbs as well. Telling me you're "not like them" will not raise my opinion of you. And, it won't get you out.

9. Type 2 diabetes is not a free ticket out of the drunk tank. Neither is arthritis. You knew you had these conditions, and yet you chose to drink to the point of high intoxication. I don't feel sorry for you. you made your choice.

10. I will not let you kill yourself, but if you did, it is not my fault, even if you tell me it is. See the thing is, if you're trying to kill yourself, I will get the police to take away all objects in your room, including your bra, socks, and clothes if necessary.

So there you have it IPDA, behave, I see drunk people every day, I'm not making an exception for you.

Love from,

The girl who locks you up.

sexual harassment and me...sigh

I'm mad enough right now that I'm going to post a fairly real story. As usual, details and stuff have been changed, but really, I don't know how I could even begin to make this up. Did you now I have "buffalo breasts"? Because I didn't!

So I have this IDPA. He's crazy. And by that, I mean he's intoxicated and has a severe and persistent mental illness. I'm not one to use the word crazy, but in this instance, it seemed fitting. The police who gave him to me apologized for doing so. I said, oh, I'm sure it'll be fine, little did I know.

Stuck him in a cameraed cell...mistake (or well, actually a good thing). Guy gets naked and starts masturbating. Guy is very harassing towards me when I'm doing checks, but whatever, I'm ignoring him for the most part. This guy is very creative when it comes to finding ways to please himself, which is hard when all you have is a mat. I am trying very hard not to watch, but when he's not busy with himself, he's doing stuff like throwing himself against cement walls at high speed or shreding his mat into tiny pieces.

I have never been talked to the way this guy talked to me. Asking me to come "suck his dick" and offering me sex even though I'm "ugly". I won't get into it, but it was incredibely vulgar, and I had no choice but to ignore it, or argue, and I don't argue with intoxicated people. My supervisor came and told him to put "it" away and all he said was "isn't it big". So fine. I'm busy ignoring him. Then the police come to drop off another IPDA, and this, is why I'm mad. And, I don't have to protect their privacy, only my IPDA's.

So anyway, one of the cops sees my IPDA who by now has semen all over his cell and window. Cop tells IPDA that I'm at the front laughing at him masturbating for the camera (yes, he was totally thinking of me, and looking right at the camera). So then the police officer comes over, around the counter to my side, and tells me what he told the IPDA (i couldn't hear because it was the other end). Then he says "so are you watching" I said "no, actually I'm trying not to, he's been harassing me all night". Then the officer says "I so caught you, you like it, I know you liked it, I'm just going to go tell him how much you like it", and then he takes off down the hall, again, I couldn't hear what he said. There was more to the conversation, but yeah. The freaking cops are egging the guy on, and harassing me. BAH!

So, I talked to my supervisor, who got me to file an incident report. Talked with my boss this morning, who's never dealt with this before, but is glad I reported it and is going to talk to our executive director about it... he also lost the incident report in the 24 hours between me reading it and talking to him... i should have photocopied it... oops. I hope he finds it, because it has the best description of the incident. Also the car number of jerk face. Sigh. We'll see what happens, hopefully something. I mean, i'm not a big whiner, and I can deal with intoxicated people being jerks, but the police, they're supposed to be professionals.