First Shift: Seattle Homeless Outreach

...351 days to go...

There’s an invisible wall between the housed and the homeless. You know the one I mean. We (the housed) walk or drive right by. If we do engage, we quickly deposit our dollar in their hand and move along. They (the homeless) don’t trust us - rightly or wrongly, they think we see them as drug abusers and blights on our neighborhoods.

It’s hard to help people when there’s a wall between you.

My first shift with Seattle Homeless Outreach was the first time I felt I’d really broken through that wall.

SHO is a small organization. About 50-60 volunteers meet monthly (twice monthly in winter) and disperse teams of 6-8 people to neighborhoods across Seattle to provide homeless people with sleeping bags, tents, food, and other basic survival supplies. I joined their University District team under the direction of our team lead, Eric. Over the course of the day, I saw the wall come down three times.

First, we found a tent in a small pocket park, on well manicured flat ground: an ideal tent site. We ‘knocked’ and introduced ourselves as Seattle Homeless Outreach. The lone occupant was an alert looking man in his 50s with medium-length black stubble on his face and neck. He opened the tent flap hesitantly at first, but when he laid eyes on our carts brimming with coffee, sandwiches, peanut butter crackers, oatmeal and hygiene kits his demeanor changed almost instantly. You could tell he’d been expecting someone to tell him he had to disperse, and was relieved to be greeted by a friendly face instead.

As we fueled him up, he accepted our offer of a brand new sleeping bag and tent, and you could see the trust continue to grow. He asked what we knew about the area and Eric told him the park was frequently ‘swept’ by police to clear homeless encampments, so he probably wouldn’t be able to stay long-term. He asked if we knew of any available shelter beds; unfortunately our information wasn’t real-time but we did provide a list of area shelters that could potentially accept him. As we made ready to move on you could tell he was disappointed that the conversation was coming to an end. Often homelessness can be very isolating, and people are grateful for a listening ear.

A bit later in the morning, we came across a blond man in his 30s or early 40s in dreadlocks, jeans, and a tough leather jacket that had more in common with body armor than fashion. He seemed confused as we approached him and introduced ourselves in an alley behind a Safeway. He said he had everything he needed, but listened to our list of supplies anyway. Then a thought occurred to him. “Actually, do you know where I could get glasses - maybe even contact lenses? I need ‘em but they’re expensive, and you have to pay every month.” One of the volunteers went back to our cart and grabbed a copy of The Emerald City Resource Guide, a pamphlet published by RealChange. We quickly found the dental and vision section, and located a few places he could go for free or sliding scale vision services. I couldn’t believe we likely played a big role in helping someone see better just by being in the right place at the right time with the right pamphlet.

Toward the end of our three-hour outreach, we were running low on supplies. We were out of sleeping bags and tents, our two biggest ticket and most popular items outside of food and coffee. We found two young homeless men outside a 7-Eleven who seemed well enough fed and didn’t want anything we had to offer. As a parting thought, another volunteer asked if they needed any Narcan (for those who, like myself, need some introduction, Naloxone or Narcan is a medication that can reverse opioid overdoses).

They looked at each other. “You got Narcan?” they asked, a bit incredulously, seemingly not believing this group of cleanly-dressed white people could have something actually useful to them. My fellow volunteer fished one out of our cart and the two men stashed it away gratefully. But as they did Heidi, another volunteer on our team, noticed a gash in the younger man’s thumb. “I’m a nurse” she said, “can I take a look at your thumb and see if I can help?”

He hesitated. Many homeless people are deeply distrustful of the medical establishment, which will sometimes turn them away if they are not sober. Even when they offer treatment, it sometimes comes with a heavy dose of judgment. But the trust we’d built up by not judging them for their drug use and helping them to practice it more safely had already done its work. He held up his hand, and Heidi showed him an employee badge from Swedish Hospital to give him a bit of extra confidence in her abilities. The wound was worn down so much that you could see the tendons underneath. He said it was from a scrape that started out small but he hadn’t gotten treatment and it had gotten progressively worse. Heidi irrigated the wound, covered it with a sterile bandage, and gave him instructions for wound care. In spite of Heidi’s recommendation, the man was unwilling to consider seeing a doctor, but he did seem to understand the instructions and Heidi thought the injury might improve if he followed her instructions for care. I’m deeply hopeful that it will.

In the end, I think we made a real difference in a few short hours. We provided one man with a clean place to sleep, nudged another toward better vision, and passed on the knowledge to decrease the chance of severe infection for a third. But none of it would have been possible without first breaking down the invisible wall.

Are you inspired? I’d love to have you join me for a shift with Seattle Homeless Outreach in the future. To do so, sign up for the email list here. They’ll email you a week before each outreach and you can decide whether or not to participate. Let me know if you’ll be joining them!