Practical, Healthy Outcomes for Our Neighbors. . .

The following post comes from one of our Case Managers at the Cottages (CitySquare's "tiny homes" community):  

 

There is a neighbor at The Cottages who for the last several months, if not years, has been struggling with medication and mental health management. One day, I was trying to brainstorm ways to assist her with taking her medications so that she could get back to baseline, when I noticed that the majority of her psych medications had instructions on the bottle to “take at night.”

Because there are no staff on property at night, it made it difficult to help this neighbor with taking her medications at night.

During one of this neighbor’s phone visits with her psychiatrist, I asked her permission to sit on the phone call and speak with her doctor. She granted me permission and I asked the psychiatrist if this neighbor absolutely had to take certain medications at night or if there was a possibility she could take them in the morning. As it turns out, she can actually take all but one of the medications in the morning. 

After this conversation, I was connected with the neighbor’s Metrocare case manager who was able to provide me with a med minder. With the neighbor’s permission, we can assist her with organizing and managing her medications and can bring her the medications in the morning. And, if we are not able to, her home health aide can assist her in reminding her to take her medications.

After a month and a half of this, the neighbor has now ceased to sporadically cry; she has less and less episodes of anger and she is able to have a competent conversation about her own wellbeing.

We really are better together. We cannot do things alone. When we work together, we elevate the situations of our neighbors and even ourselves sometimes. Together, we rise!

THE FORCE

There is a "force" out there in our Opportunity Center courtyard. And, I confess, it always draws me toward it.

Very, very poor people, most without a home, a pillow or a bed, populate this wonderful space most days. Every morning we roll out the sacred coffee pot and serve cups of red hot encouragement.

There can be no glamorizing the poverty resident in the lives of these precious people. Poverty never deserves such a narcissistic response.

It isn't the poverty that draws me.

What pulls me toward the people, one at a time and in their small groups, is the heroic courage lived out day after day as each wages a battle to move on and up and out. Poverty remains a hard go.
The experts fill our courtyard every morning. Want to know poverty? Come here and ask folks about it.

When the air is chilly, as it was this morning, the magnetism feels strongest.

So, as usual, I find that I cannot possibly go to my office before sharing a cup with some friends. Several conversations ensued, all pleasant and full of smiles, as well as curiosity about each other. Watching these friends, talking to them, hearing their stories forces tears into my eyes and down my cheeks. . .every time.

As I prepared to leave, I stepped into a serious, intense conversation among four or five men who invited me to join their conversation. The focus of their hilarious conversation: March Madness and the Final Four!

Next year, if things go right, I get these guys to help me fill out my bracket with one change: everybody has a permanent place to live. I'll bring breakfast, and I know "the force" will be present to draw me in.

BELONGINGS

Possessions.

Properties.

Things.

Stuffs.

Effects.

Paraphernalia.

By about any name, people protect, accumulate, gather, pile, clutch, grasp, drop, trade, discard their "belongings."  

We all do it in our own ways, subject to the norms and necessities of status, class, opportunities and options.  

Rich people usually take great care to secure their stuff.  Most all of their effects rest in safe surroundings.   Banks, funds, accounts, cards, wallets and any number of other secure stations provide protection for my stuff, my belongings. With little thought of a concept like "privileged" or "entitled," the well off , like me, devise philosophies or ideologies to argue their right to protect what they have  worked so hard to earn.  

Belongings often define where it is that I belong.

Poor people often imitate the rich in their own ways.  Only difference is the secure places often end up being on their persons in all sorts of creative ways.  Like their better off brothers and sisters, the  poor don't mind displaying their good fortune from time to time.  They also turn out to be willing to share, even from their meager holdings, just like the wealthy often share freely when given the facts and some measure of security.  


Belongings often define where it is the poor belong.

Just this morning I observed a dozen very poor people displaying, bragging, sharing, withholding, enjoying, organizing, stacking, dropping their belongings.

Belongings, as  in "belongs to me."  I've got something that I'm trying to manage. . . even though its not much.  It is an important part of who I am.  Body language and attitude declares that this collection of my effects belongs to me.

Later in the day we hosted volunteers from Texas Instruments, people with much more in the way of material belongings.  They brought lots of stuff to share.  Belongings changed hands.  Lives connected.  Stories exchanged, people connected.

All of us have belongings.

All of us seek to belong.  

As different as we appear, we all remain the same, pursuing belonging and packing our belongings.  

While I get all of this, more and more often these days I catch myself wishing for more courage to surrender my stuff, my belongings for the sake of a total redefinition of where people actually find belonging.  

There has to be more.  

I suspect I'll find this "more" in belonging with my friends who know poverty like a well-worn blanket carried about from place to place in search of what I need to learn to give up.  

His tear broke my heart

I try really hard to avoid stepping into any ongoing, in-progress, encounter between a CitySquare staff member and a neighbor. 

Occasionally, I fail.  At times I fail miserably by injecting myself where I shouldn't.

Yesterday, I ended up in the between position completely unintentionally. As I approached my JEEP to leave the Opportunity Center with a partner from Paris, Texas, I found myself in the middle of a dispute.  One of our most competent team members had dealt with a gentleman who brings with him a reputation for anger and temper flairs. 

By the time I got into the mix and realized where I stood, the man seemed calm.  He even told me he understood our basic inability to solve every problem or to respond to every request. 

We have limits.

"I understand what they are saying," he told me.  "I just need to wash my clothes."

What happened next felt like a blow to the head.

As we talked, he repeated, "I just need soap to wash my clothes."

As he spoke, a over-sized tear rolled down his cheek.  Both of us were silenced by that tear. 

We found detergent, but I'll never forget this man's tear, one more reminder of how fundamental my lack of understanding remains after all these years.

De-bunking the mythology of homelessness 4