Charity, et al
There's this 87 year old woman that has lived in the neighborhood where my job is for what she says is 40 years. (I don't know about that, she seems a bit not entirely grasping what has and hasn't happened, though she comes off as entirely lucid) She lived in what amounted to a hole of an unfinished basement apartment: no bathroom, filthy, slept on a board, but the city shut the brownstone down and fined the owner a LOT of money, however, she's been homeless since, I want to say a month?
I've tried to help, got people at city hall to help her. He said the got her an apt and appts with the hospital and whatnot, and she just didn't show up. Her little cart got stolen with what little she has in the world in it. Her money, her documents, some little porcelain figures in case she got another apartment. She thinks the trash guys took it, and went to the cops and has no place to sleep. I try to get her to come to my place to at least bathe, and maybe feed her. No, too far (it's 12 blocks) even with a cab, she says. I try to get her a hotel no, they're filthy and she'll get diseases.
All I can hope is that she goes by my job and asks them to call me so I can run over and get the guy at city hall to get a crisis team there to help her. I'm afraid she'll get beaten, or violated or just something else awful. Oh, and she speaks no English, just Spanish. She's a citizen and gets SS benefits and all that but wow, I can't deal with the fact that she's so stubborn and insists that no one offered her an apt and all that. I think she just doesn't understand, OR she forgets.
I want to help her, but she won't let me, really. She says she'll let me, but then gets all upset when I point out that I tried and she didn't accept the help offered.
Anyone have experience with this sort of thing, elderly people homeless and alone and not entirely lucid?
It really bothers me and I'm having trouble walking away. I just can't.
I've tried to help, got people at city hall to help her. He said the got her an apt and appts with the hospital and whatnot, and she just didn't show up. Her little cart got stolen with what little she has in the world in it. Her money, her documents, some little porcelain figures in case she got another apartment. She thinks the trash guys took it, and went to the cops and has no place to sleep. I try to get her to come to my place to at least bathe, and maybe feed her. No, too far (it's 12 blocks) even with a cab, she says. I try to get her a hotel no, they're filthy and she'll get diseases.
All I can hope is that she goes by my job and asks them to call me so I can run over and get the guy at city hall to get a crisis team there to help her. I'm afraid she'll get beaten, or violated or just something else awful. Oh, and she speaks no English, just Spanish. She's a citizen and gets SS benefits and all that but wow, I can't deal with the fact that she's so stubborn and insists that no one offered her an apt and all that. I think she just doesn't understand, OR she forgets.
I want to help her, but she won't let me, really. She says she'll let me, but then gets all upset when I point out that I tried and she didn't accept the help offered.
Anyone have experience with this sort of thing, elderly people homeless and alone and not entirely lucid?
It really bothers me and I'm having trouble walking away. I just can't.