I woke up in the tent around 6:00 a.m. I got ready for my day and I headed over to work at around 7:45 a.m.
On my way to work I stopped at McDonald’s as part of my new breakfast routine coupled with work since there are many homeless people at McDonald’s in the morning. I noticed Rod, so after I ate breakfast I had Rod walk over to the shelter where I did a coordinated entry with him onto the housing list. Rod reported that he no longer used fentanyl but smoked a lot of crack, he seemed exhausted and could barely stay awake while I did the intake onto the housing list. I asked Rod if he wanted to stay at the shelter and he said that he did, but then he decided that he wanted to go back out into the street. I told Rod to be back at the shelter before 7:00 p.m. If he wanted to stay the night we could do the intake for the shelter in the morning. Rod never returned to the shelter that night.
At 10:00 p.m. I attended the hub meeting. The hub meeting is a weekly meeting with all the local providers to discuss issues with various homeless clients.
At noon My manager and I attended a meeting with the coordinated entry housing navigators. It was a good meeting and we learned some things and made good connections with everybody there. One big mistake I was making on the housing assessment was accidentally not clicking the level of severity of people’s mental illnesses: mild, moderate, or severe. I will have to go back and have the regional housing navigator help me fix all those assessments. I have about 60 that need to be fixed.
After the meeting with the navigators I received an email from The Northshore housing navigator, she sent me four people I did referrals for that are high on the list for housing.
I began to contact those clients, and then a shelter worker and myself went to the encampment behind the hospital and engaged with a homeless woman who is high on the list for housing and I needed more identifying documents from her. After talking with The homeless woman The shelter worker and I stopped and spoke with Jen and Pedro who used to live behind Mr. Tux and moved their tent down the tracks a little ways, because where their tent was, the building owner is doing construction. They plan on getting on methadone, which is very important considering Pedro has sores all over his body and an infection on his arm that he has been receiving treatment for at the hospital, from intravenous fentanyl use. The wound looks like a chewed honey baked ham.
The shelter worker and I returned back to The shelter a little After 3:00 p.m. and I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to understand how we’re going to do disability verifications for clients who are high on the housing list. A lot of homeless people claim disability, but housing coordinators require a doctor’s letter proving that disability. My plan is to have the doctors at the harm reduction Center fill out the disability verification forms.
After work I drove to Woburn to play ultimate Frisbee with the Woburn pickup League. I had a great time and I got to run around which is my exercise.
I left frisbee around 7:30 p.m. and I drove to my campsite where I settled in for the night.