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Hi there. I am starting a thread for the first time. I hope that I don't get flamed out and banned. The subject I want to talk about is not funny or humorous (but I do have funny stories). I work in the field of homelessness. I am not a social justice warrior so please bear with me. A bit about me: As a young man I grew up on the west coast. I moved to the east coast and worked as a medical chemist for around 9 years. I started a family and the city I was in was not conducive to raising children safely. I returned to the west coast and was having a hard time finding work as a medical chemist. My first job offer was from a scary man who offered me 25k to start a meth lab. At this point in my life it was hard to say no due to the level of my desperation. I took some time to think and decided that there was a future in addiction counseling (shocking right?). I took a college course on addiction and community support and incurred about 25k in student loans to be able to sleep at night. What happened next is the most exciting chapter in my life. I decided to perform my practicum at the local homeless shelter. I started out as a petrified student going to a place that always had firetrucks. ambulances and police on site. From student I went to On Call staff for 4 months. After that I became "Front Line" staff for 14 months. Then I became a Caseworker to the homeless for 3 years and 14 months ago I became manager in charge of Casework, Street level Outreach and Internships for the organization. Please don't think that I am bragging in any way. My intention with this thread is not to talk about how "great" I am. I am in search of understanding and catharsis. I hope to share knowledge and in the sharing reach a better understanding of myself. Where I live we are in a state of emergency due to fentanyl. Area-wide we have lost approx 1k people due to overdose in the last 12 months. I go to work every day wondering who died. I don't necessarily want to focus on overdose deaths but this is a large reason on why I am here. I cannot vent to my employees, I cannot vent to my superiors (as they are faith based and have agendas) and have few professional supports to talk to. I hope to share experience and knowledge with those that are interested. Rules for you: Please don't ask me to identify clients/coworkers/locations Please don't flame for the sake of flaming Rules for me: I will endeavor to keep clients and coworkers anonymous I will try to use numbers and percentages out of things unless I have personally performed the research (call me on this) any statistics I am not totally sure of will be worded in terms like majority/minority or anything not having numbers attached and should be considered as opinions I will answer honestly (even if it makes me look bad) I hope to share some of my experience and knowledge. I hope to even perhaps help others to understand and look at things differently. Fire away, ask anything to do with the homeless and those that work with them.
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May 5, 2017 06:37
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I have actually talked to a counselor as it comes in my benefit package. I'm not really looking for a pity party here, I just thought to share some knowledge and experience.
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May 5, 2017 13:08
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@ photomikey 1) Many of the issues causing homelessness in my region are systemic. It is a mixture of low wages, no government intervention and unbridled greed from landlords in a hot market that is not regulated. As an individual I would say that one thing a person can do would be to not instantly judge homeless people or make assumptions. This vulnerable population is already disenfranchised and dehumanized by society at large and the simple act of giving respect might push them in a new direction. Some of the biggest impacts that I have made were with off-handed remarks that I did not think much about. I have learned through error that off-handed remarks cut both ways so I am quite careful about any potentially negative things I might say. 2) Money always helps in supporting programs that are already in place to help. If you interested in giving my personal advice would be to find a charity with a philosophy that you agree with and donate that way. Just throwing money at it does not help. There needs to be structure, accountability and good shepherding of resources. Also this cuts down on waste and duplication of services. @Mumby Box Not too personal as my personal experiences have led me to the life I live. When I was 21 my first son was born. He saved my life. I stayed home with him as he was allergic to sleep and I was helping my wife. 2 weeks after he was born my best friend got a $5m inheritance from his grandfather who worked in the oil industry. So while I stayed home with my family my entire circle of friends started smoking crack. When my son started sleeping through the night I started visiting my friends and I saw the devastation that had happened. I missed the party. I did not see the "fun" part and only saw how low all of my friends fell. It was shortly after this that I decided that my home town had nothing to offer me. That is how I ended up moving my family across the continent. I took the lessons that my friends taught me and never personally fell into addiction. To this day I credit my son with saving my life. Here I will list what I will call single track avenues to addiction and this will be very simplistic (there can be many different combinations of interplay between avenues) From my personal observations I believe that there are 3 main avenues that lead into addiction #1 would be excitement and peer pressure (the party), #2 would be traumatic events and #3 would be depression/hopelessness/loss. Something I find interesting is that there are trends in what types of substances are used depending on which avenue. Avenue #1 will quite often be stimulant addiction such as crystal meth, crack/cocaine or even prescription amphetamines. Avenue #2 will quite often be opiate addiction such as oxy-codone, dilaudid, heroin or fentanyl. Avenue #3 will usually be alcohol. Again this is personal observation. A sad thing that I am seeing is that all tracks seem to lead to fentanyl these days. In my city we are seeing overdoses happen from fentanyl being mixed into all street drugs including marijuana. Hmmm, the "key" to recovery. That's a tough one. For most addictions I would say that learning effective coping strategies through either inpatient or outpatient treatment programs with a balanced mixture of professional, personal and hopefully family supports. There needs to be a recognition of triggers and a preset response to stressors. However, the most important ingredient to recovery is healthy self worth. This can be achieved through a "Higher Power" such as 12 step programs and Christian approaches (the assumption being that this Higher Power loves you thus giving you worth). It can also be achieved through social positive reinforcement and a sense of purpose. This purpose can come from employment, volunteering or care-giving. There is a very successful recovery centre here that assigns puppies to all new program participants. It is pretty new but is showing positive results. @f1av0r Yes it is heartbreaking. At the shelter I work at 1247 people accessed our shelter program from Jan 1, 2016 to Dec 31, 2016. 9% (112) of shelter users were canadian/american veterans and 11% (137) were over 65 years old, the oldest being 86. I live in a city where disability benefit rates can barely get you a bedroom and regular income assistance cannot get you anything. There is a 0.3% vacancy rate in the rental market so a lot of people are turning to selling drugs in order to make ends meat further exacerbating the problem. I apologize if my spelling or grammar are off, I am typing responses to questions after a 10 hour work day and my brain hiccups a bit.
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May 6, 2017 02:25
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@Horrible Lurkbeast The shelter I work at is funded for 60 low barrier men's beds in a community of approx 120k population. I started out in the industry in 2011 and then we were averaging 45-50 men in the winter and 70-75 men in the summer. Since 2015 we have been averaging 90~ men and we opened up a women's dorm that sleeps 20 and is always full. When I started there were a few somewhat functioning heroin addicts and the big problem was the growth of crystal meth and all the behaviors that come with that. Since the advent in fentanyl we have seen an explosion of opiate addiction that renders people completely non-functional. Now by no means are the hard drug addicts the majority. We serve a very diverse population that found many paths to homelessness. @f1av0r Wow sounds like your community has a lot more housing than mine. Hotels here cost about $2k in the winter and $4-5k in the summer making that route impossible. I totally agree that in every aspect of the social system single dads get hosed. Here if a single mother loses her housing the whole community bands together to find a solution; if a single father loses his housing the Ministry sends social workers to gank the kids as dad must be a deadbeat. Numbers are up so high that today for the first time in history we put up a full shelter sign. It was heartbreaking to tell people that they would have to sleep outside but the dorms are full and our dining room looks like a mash unit. As serious and important I find this thread I think that at the end of every post I will share one of my favorite memories be they funny or warm and fuzzy. (I apologize if I have black humor sometimes but that comes with the turf and isn't meant as insensitive). Today will be a two-for. 1) In my area there used to be a long term mental health hospital. Then the government decided that there should be no MH hospitals and that it was A-ok to be as mentally unwell as you wish. When the hospital closed they just released all of the patients into the wild with no care plan. I met on of these individuals after he had been drifting homeless for a number of years. This man had un-managed disorganized schizophrenia, severe diabetes and an overeating disorder. It was not unusual to call an ambulance when his sugars spiked to 35-40 (you want it under 10). Well after working with him and his mental health worker I was able to get him into independent supportive housing. When we gave him the key he went into his apartment and turned backed to me. He said " I am 49 years old and I have never had a key to anything". I cried like a little girl. That is one of my favorite memories. (he is still housed and mentally and medically stable after 3 years) 2) I have worked with a guy ever since I was a practicum student. This guy is the loving man. He is totally out there, a raging meth addict, Mensa level intelligent and fearless. One day he found an old Adidas kilt and decided that that was his new style. He cleaned it up and wore it constantly... traditionally. He also picked up Yoga. His new favorite thing to do was to walk up next to people eating lunch in the dining hall and do deep stretches with his foot on the table. His bits would poke out of the bottom of the kilt while the poor hapless diner would recoil in horror and pretend not to see. I spent many a hilarious lunch hours watching front line staff chase this guy around trying to stop him from stretching. (I have many small stories about the guy)
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May 11, 2017 04:24
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