When we have been blessed in our lives and never had to walk in poverty to the extreme that our clients do we often think ourselves better than this kind of a life. We aren’t addicts, our parent didn’t abuse us or give us up, we didn’t have to survive on welfare, and we have fully functioning mental capabilities. We rarely stop to think of the far reaching grip homelessness can have, even on those more fortunate than us.
In my first few months working with the single women’s program I encountered a woman named Linn, at first glance she seemed like the typical client suffering from mental instabilities and I didn’t give her much more thought than usual. Linn had a particularly odd quirk for someone in her circumstance; she was consumed with cleaning everything. She spent the majority of her day sweeping the stairs and the sidewalk in front of the shelter’s entrance. It wasn’t until some weeks later that I had my first one on one encounter with her; I was sitting in my office filing papers when a very distraught Linn came in. She had been outside sweeping when one of the male clients came out and spit on the sidewalk where she was working. She wanted me to address this problem as soon as possible. Could I please tell the men not to spit on the sidewalk? Naturally I asked her if they couldn’t spit on the sidewalk outside where should I tell them to spit? “I don’t care” she replied “but it is very unsanitary and disrespectful for them to be spitting where they obviously see me working”. We went back and forth for a few minutes with me unable to give her the kind of response she wanted and her unable to see my reasoning that the sidewalk is probably the best option for someone to spit.
She eventually gave up trying to reason with me and left my office in a huff muttering under her breath about how unreasonable I was being. Naturally I found this exchange to be amusing, as I would expect anyone else would and I laughed it off. A day or two later she was back in my office with the same complaint. I gave her the only answer I could, “Linn if you would like to write up a grievance against the men downstairs that is probably the best I can do.” She begrudgingly agreed and soon had written over a page explaining herself and why she found this to be completely unacceptable behavior.
As I was adding the grievance to her file I got curious, exactly what kind of mental illness was this woman suffering from? I began to read through her file notes and intake. Turns out she was a licensed Medical Doctor; she made it through med school and residency only to have a breakdown sometime after completing her medical training. Needless to say I was floored, a doctor? I couldn’t believe it. Sure I had seen people come in who had degrees, some even had Master’s Degrees, but a doctor. In our society doctors are put on a pedestal so high we consider them almost untouchable.
Linn continued to live with us for over a year; she never seemed to recover from whatever it was that caused her to lose so much of herself. But she seemed content to sweep and clean any surface she could find. And I was taught a very valuable lesson, no matter your situation, no matter your intelligence, or education, no one is ever one hundred percent removed from the threat of homelessness. I am not saying at any moment we are all a paycheck away from a shelter, but rather when we picture a homeless person in our minds we generally all (myself included) see a very specific image, it probably goes something like this; grew up in and out of the shelter system, lived off welfare, uneducated, raised by a single mother, possibly suffering from mental illness, and more likely than not a substance abuser. The purpose in this story is simple, not every person we see here is the same. But all of them are equally in need. And sometimes the need is simple; sometimes it means asking a group of men not to spit on the sidewalk. Sometimes it means putting aside stereotypes and fully recognizing the face of the homeless. Sometimes it teaches us that no matter our occupation we can all give something back, because no one is ever fully immune, not even doctors.
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