I woke up around 7:00 a.m. The nor’easter was still raging on. It was a cold night with a lot of wind, sleet, and snow. I hung around in the tent for a while, and then I got ready to head out to work around 8:00 a.m.
9:00 a.m. The outreach team arrived at the shelter and we went over to the faith-based homeless day shelter. I had planned on doing rapid rehousing referrals with Louise and Rollin, but when I arrived Matt and his girlfriend said that they would be willing to go to treatment. We spent the morning trying to coordinate a treatment center that could accommodate both Matt and Carol, Matt’s girlfriend who is deaf. We were unable to find a place that would take both of them. I got Matt a detox bed. While we were trying to coordinate treatment for Matt and Carol, Gio arrived at the faith-based homeless day shelter and said he would go to treatment. He called his mother to tell her, and I got on the phone with her to let her know that I wanted to get him in as long as he didn’t leave my sight. Then Gio left because he said he wanted to go use fentanyl one more time. This was deflating. While we were at the faith-based homeless day shelter we also engaged with Phil, May , Sean, Donnie, and Andre. Both Gio and Matt left and never came back for treatment. Matt ended up telling some of the workers at the faith-based homeless day shelter that he felt pressured to go into treatment by me. This was a lie, because he had specifically asked me to get him into treatment and that he was willing to go without his girlfriend. It is very frustrating when you try to help somebody, and then they change their mind and instead of just telling you, they ghost you and then blame you for pressuring them. Ultimately this is part of the job. I will continue trying to help people get the services they need to get better, even if they turn on me.
Since the treatment plans fell through the outreach team came back to the shelter and loaded up the truck with sandwiches and supplies. We went to the tent city behind the Riverrun Church and we gave lunches, drinks, hats, gloves, and socks to the people that were living in tents back there. All the rains and snow had turned the tent city into a lake. The tents were submerged and everybody was soaked. It was still Blizzard conditions so we stayed out until we were nice and wet and we came back to the shelter to do the rest of the data entry work.
I left work around 5:00 p.m. I drove back to my tent and just settled in for the rest of the night.