I woke up in the tent around 6:30 a.m. After my run in with the Law I’m feeling a little froggy about my campsite, but what do I have to lose? I think I’ll stay until I get booted. I do plan on scouting some new spots though. I hung around in the tent and headed to work around 8:00 a.m.
The outreach team arrived at the daybreak shelter at 9:00 a.m. We loaded up the truck with bags filled with cosmetics, drinks, and clothes. We brought a box of sandwiches, we also brought socks, jackets, and a bag full of sweatshirts, and we headed out into the street.
We stopped over at the Merry laundromat right over the line into the next town where we know there is an encampment. We spoke with Holly and Stevie who refuse to give their last names. We checked other encampments but no one else was there. Holly and Stevie have our number and said they would reach out if they needed help with anything but did not want services at this time. We just gave them food, cosmetics, drinks, clothes, and socks. Holly and Stevie told us That’s some of the new campers haven’t using a lot of drugs like crack, and fighting all night. They said at one point in the night someone threw an old sink onto somebody’s tent, which we saw and is included in the pictures below.
The outreach team drove to the bridge to check the encampment that is underneath.
From there we walked along the waterfront to see if we could find anybody else. We stopped by the encampment where Christopher stays. There were two other people there that refused to give us their names. We gave them socks, food, clothes, drinks, and cosmetics. There was one man who wouldn’t look at us, and was obviously extremely high on fentanyl I’m guessing. He was hunched over slightly and he was disoriented. He didn’t want to face us. We didn’t really care about his state of mind. We were not there to ruin his high. Christopher did engage with us though, as he usually does. He has the cutest little cat. Christopher is always polite and conversational. It’s sad that he lives a life on the street involved in drug activity.
After checking the whole waterfront in that section of town we drove over to the faith-based homeless day shelter where we saw Louise, her son Rollin, Phil, Mateo, Lisa and Carol Matt’s girlfriend who is deaf. We also ran into May. I discussed with them possibly coming by and doing coordinated entries into the State’s rapid rehousing system, especially for those who have phones and identification, which makes the process smoother.
We left The faith-based homeless day shelter, and we went over to the West Street Park Camp on the tracks. Carolyn was living in the encampment once again. She had left for a short period to live with her mother, but got kicked out. Probably for various drug-related issues. I only engaged with her. I think her boyfriend was there, but he did not disclose his name or come out of the tent. I gave Carolyn some drinks, food, and a bag with cosmetics in it. I walked over to the encampment where Ashley and Burnaby are and I engaged with them. We also engaged with Carlos and Jose. They walked back to the truck with us and got drinks, food, jackets, sweatshirts, socks and gloves. We also made a pit stop at the waterfall.
We arrived back at the shelter at 2:00 p.m. and finished the day by uploading clients into Vesta and doing updates into the system.
I stayed late at work, and I ate dinner there. There is a community homeless meal every Wednesday night at 8:30 p.m. at the bus station run by The Movement Family, an organization started by Michael Gorman. Michael started doing homeless outreach when he was a teenager, and he never stopped and now he has an organization that helps a lot of people in the area.
At 7:30 p.m. I drove from my work to the bus station and I had a great meal with great people. I saw some of my clients there. And I really enjoyed the dinner. It’s always good to be surrounded by good people. After the dinner I went back to my camp, it was raining and a nor’easter was brewing. I’m sure glad I set up that A-frame and put the tarp over the tent and tied it down. I was hoping that winter was over but I guess that was premature.