One patient who I see on a regular basis has really made Sea Mar his home. This is in part because he has been coming here so long that the clinic staff treats him more like that quirky uncle than a patient, and in part because he is homeless and really has no place else to go in South Park. I am like the gatekeeper of his home. He will walk in the door, raise a hand and shout "How's it goin, Miss Erin?" then continue forward seating himself in the chair in front of my desk and hand over one of the many tattered business cards of social support services that are the thread holding the remaining fabric of his life together.
His situation broke my heart a little further right before Thanksgiving. As temperatures dropped, he came in each day with a new layer of clothes and with a little less excitement in his greeting. His usual smile started to droop and the glimmer in eye grew dimmer and dimmer. I searched for housing downtown, but without a guarantee that he would have a place to sleep, he didn't want to make the trek to the city.
One day it was finally dropping below zero and emergency shelters in the city center were opening up. I urged him to go to City Hall, but he pushed back, not wanting to have to wait in line for hours just to be kicked out early in the morning. "But it's a warm bed" I pleaded with him. He replied "Its not a bed. Its a cot on the floor." I had no response. He was desperately trying to hang onto his last shreds of dignity. He would rather sleep with blankets under the bridge than wait in line to be packed into a dirty, smelly room with other people without homes hoping for a few hours of warmth on the City Hall floor.
There was nothing I could say to convince him to go. I can make the resources known, but protecting your pride when you have nothing else is sometimes a bigger priority.
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