A reader wrote the other day to say we should make
a better effort to explain that clients without jobs have to seek work each day
until they find steady employment.
The writer implied that it was unfair to wake clients at 3:30 am and send them
off to the day labor hall to try for a day's work. Further the writer questioned the propriety
of making them spend each day looking for work until they have a job. It was almost like we're mean.
Which makes me ask a few questions:
Should we just let clients sleep as late as they want? Till 8:00? Till
10:00? All day?
And should we let clients hang around the house? Maybe watching TV?
I don't think so. After all, how are they going to pay their $110 a week
service fee?
When I get messages like this I kind of scratch my head. Doesn't the writer
understand that someone has to pay the bills? And how is the client going to
learn to be responsible lying around all day?
It's not like our clients aren't used to going after what they want. Many of
them stayed up all night seeking drugs or getting high. So why is it an
imposition to ask them to put forth effort to rebuild their lives?
After all, the reason people end up on our doorstep is because their lives
weren't working. We try to help them
change that....
Dear Mr. Schwary,
ReplyDeleteI wanted to thank you for allowing me to work and live at your facility here in Tucson. If it wasn't for people like Mike Carmack, Red Mehle, Marvin Stephens, and Jack Miller, I would probably be dead right now. I can tell you first hand that when I first walked into the office doors, I was another addict looking for the easy way out. It was my second time at TLC and I had a balance. I never went to job search and would just sign into day labor to make it appear that I was doing the right thing, Mike Carmack saw right through me and about two weeks into my stay, he called me in the office and said, "You are behind in your service fees to the amount of $550. Unless I recieve some type of payment by Friday, I will have to let you go." I walked outside the office and did another fox hole prayer, praying for another bail out. Someone who was working the gem show offered me a job handing out flyers. I took it. I started to believe in the program and I wanted to tell you that I am grateful for everthing these people and yourself have done for me. I am currently a Senior at the ASU School of Social Work here in Tucson, AZ working toward my BSW. I hope to enter into the Masters Progam and obtain my MSW by the spring of 2015. I just wanted to thank you for giving me the chance to excell and have a rich life once again.
Thanks,
John McGurk, BHPP
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