When I arrived at my office this morning there was already someone waiting for help – a former halfway house client who owed us nearly $700 from previous stays over the past 12 years.
He said he was homeless, broke, hungry, and out of work. He also had a court order to attend a year of classes for substance abuse – which he said he couldn’t afford.
Could we help by not charging him for classes? When I told him we couldn’t do that, that we had to pay our counselors for their services, he tried to make me feel guilty.
“So TLC’s all about money?” he said. “I thought you guys were about helping people.”
I told him that we were about helping people – helping them until they were able to help themselves. I told him he seemed smart enough and healthy enough to find a job and support himself – a comment that seemed to make him uncomfortable.
He made a few more attempts to change my mind. He was going to go to jail if he didn’t do the classes. He was from a small town in Northern Arizona and was unused to living in the city. His backpack was stolen.
Finally I offered him a bed in our long-term Hard Six program, which he could enter without money. But he declined, saying he wasn’t that desperate. When he left he said he was going to the homeless shelter in Phoenix.
This man is an example of those we can’t help until they realize they’re responsible for the predicament they’re in.
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