My husband and I have been helping an “unhoused” friend. It’s been an eye-opener.
Our first task was to get this person to medical treatment. Drugs, booze and living outside – well duh, that makes a person sick, mentally and physically. Our friend was acting psychotic, and it’s really scary having a person like that in a moving car. When we were trying to get another friend to the hospital one evening he jumped out of the car at a stoplight, jogged off and leapt over somebody’s back fence, disappearing from our sight. We were eventually able to help that person into a happy lifestyle, so we decided to give this friend a chance.
We knew he would not be welcome at Enloe so we went to Ampla. Ampla doctors will see people who don’t have any address, don’t have insurance, and don’t have money. They sat our friend down, signed him up for MediCal and assigned him to a doctor. Things moved along smoothly, and he was in the doctor’s office within 45 minutes. After a brief chat, the doctor gave him a prescription to counteract the effects of coming down from booze and narcotics and told him to come back in within a few days.
And then we were on our own with this guy, who was rational one minute and hysterical the next. We were worried about the medication – we read online that the medication itself was habit forming, but we also noticed the effect it had on our friend. Within 24 hours – two doses of medication – he became himself again, a person we had not seen for about a year.
So we took him to our home for the weekend. We live in a very tiny house. We put him in our bed, because he was starved and sick, and we took turns sleeping on a cot and a pair of those self-inflating camp pads. I’ll say, the medication was like a miracle. For months, this guy had only been sleeping in snatches, drinking booze right out of the bottle to calm his nerves, and then doing drugs with people he didn’t even know. He was filthy and refused to take a shower – he said he was afraid of the shower.
But after one day on the medication, he slept soundly a full eight hours, woke up refreshed and cognizant, and wow – asked if he could borrow a towel. His hair had been unwashed for so long it fell out all over the bathroom floor.
We spent a pleasant couple of days having meals together and talking about the future. We helped him replace his driver’s license and sign up for Cal Fresh – basically, we just drove him to the assigned locations, which are spread out all over town. He was in the process of applying for General Assistance so he could get into a sober living arrangement with some friends who were also trying to get their lives back together.
Here’s the two mistakes we made: we let him talk to his user friends, and we let him supervise his own medication. I really don’t know what else we could do – you’re not allowed to hold a person against their will. We felt he’d stay with us longer if we trusted him, but that was short lived. His girlfriend, who said she was trying to help him, was still using, and as soon as he was out of our sight he was using again. We realized the woman had an interest in keeping him high so she could control him. She took and sold his medication immediately, telling us it was making him “crazy”.
So we finally had to do what all the experts say to do – we cut him off. We told him that as long as he was associating with his druggie friends, we didn’t want anything to do with him. God that was hard, I woke up at night wondering where he was, if we’d ever see him again – would we get another call from jail?
Here’s the surprise – he called us about a week later, we could hear his girlfriend swearing at him from the other end of the line. I’ve dealt with people on coke – I’d bet my last $5 she was on coke. He was sober, and he was asking us for a ride to a friend’s house, to help him move what possessions he had to his new sober living arrangement.
We were still kind of mad at this guy, wondering why we should get involved. He promised us he’d quit the drinking and drugs, and then bailed out acting as though it was all our idea.Then another surprise – my husband said, “Why not…” And I realized, this was no time to be proud or petty. This was our chance to get our friend back, and let me tell you, in times like this, friends are Gold.
So, we got him to the new digs, we talked to his also-struggling new roommates, we looked around at the dump he was moving into, and we pasted big plastic smiles on our faces and shook his hand. No, he’s not out of the woods yet. He has no job, he has food stamps and an ID, but his new roomies are expecting him to come up with $400 a month for rent. We don’t know how this story will end. I’ll keep you posted.
Here’s what I learned – neither the city, nor the county, with their huge budgets, will do anything for these people. The director of Butte County Behavioral Health refuses to admit that stable housing is the center of drug/alcohol and mental health treatment. Ya got ta have FRIENDS – you need supervision, you need a clean bed and you need three squares a day.
I don’t see Patrick Newman, or Charles Withuhn, or any of those preachy motherfuckers taking anybody into their homes, giving up their beds, or nurse-maiding a person detoxing off booze and/or drugs. If they’ve done that, they need to talk about it, because that’s the solution. It takes more than handing out food and offering an occasional shower to get people off drugs and into stable permanent housing. It takes a lot more than where you got arrested to make you a productive and positive member of the community.
So, that’s my experience, and here’s what I’ve drawn from it, and past similar experiences. The county and HUD need to step up to provide supervised housing for drug addicts and mentally ill people. When these people commit crimes they need to be committed to these facilities before they are sent to jail. And yeah, they need to be sent to jail – the atmosphere of lawlessness we are now living in will only perpetuate itself – it makes people fucking crazy.
Chico Taxpayers Association 