On a recent hot day, I set out with a friend to deliver water, ice, and fruit to unhoused communities near me. At our second stop, the elder who normally receives the water and makes sure it’s shared with the many others around him, was gone. All of his area was emptied and swept clean as though a city crew had been there. But the adjacent area on both sides looked as it always had, drawing a stark straight line between the grouping of shelters and the now bare pavement. Stunned, I asked the woman sitting nearby where he went. He’s gone, was all she could say. She had no other information.
As we were placing water, a cooler of ice, and strawberries there for the many people remaining, I noticed another woman on the opposite corner. I approached, and discovered she was from a group I normally bring water to, which had been swept the week before. We were wondering where they went, and were thrilled to now find at least some of the former group. Often after sweeps, people go missing, and their former neighbors don’t know if they’re ok or not. Recently, we learned that two bodies were at a local coroners that were thought to have been unhoused people. They seemed to be from an area that some in our group were familiar with, and so we tried to find out who was missing. The coroner could only release that information to the family of origin, not anyone’s street family, nor to service providers who may be responsible for locating them for resources. So we asked in the unhoused communities, but no one knew, because everyone is scattered.
As we were unloading water, ice, and strawberries for the group we had just found, a man came up and stood near my car. He asked if he could have water too. While I gave him some, he shared that he was a veteran, and showed me his VA card. He began talking about his stage 4 cancer and the worry he had about not being able to get to his medical appointment at the VA, which was in another city the next morning. We all got in the car and drove to the nearby station where I bought him a train ticket for the appointment. I asked about his time in the service. He showed me a foot long scar from being bombed in one country, and an equally large scar in another place from being shot in another country. Now, with stage 4 cancer, he was sleeping in a tent, struggling with medicine that needed to be taken with food he didn’t have. I asked if he wanted to be in housing or medical respite and he emphatically exclaimed YES!! I asked if the VA would connect him with that when he went in for his appointment. He said they would not.
With his permission, I collected information I would need to see if there was anything I could do through my contacts to try to help him, but I don’t know if he’ll be helped or not. There is a shortage of medical respite options. They are generally only supposed to be for 90 days, and it’s rare to be able to move into permanent housing from there. As one administrator explained to me a couple of months ago, for every thirty people who time out of medical respite while still in dire medical need, there are maybe two permanent spaces available, and someone has to pick which two get it.
We left him to find someone who had reached out to us the day before – an unhoused mother and child who seemed to be in crisis, especially in the heat. We had a cooler of ice for them, water, and strawberries, of course, and were ready to learn more about their situation and try to connect them with some help. We spent a long time looking, but didn’t find them. Eventually we dropped off the supplies with another community that we hadn’t met before, who immediately began distributing what we brought to other people in need around them who they knew to be especially vulnerable in the heat.