 The past couple weeks have been especially tough for 'Elizabeth'. Her boyfriend has not shown up during the weekends, even though he has promised twice, to take her to the zoo. This upset 'Elizabeth' quite a bit last Saturday, but this Saturday was different. This Saturday, she learned how to make jewelry with beads. She said that instead of waiting around for her boyfriend to show up today, she wanted to do something, because she couldn't stand the thought of being by herself all weekend.
A few weeks back while taking 'Elizabeth' to one of her appointments, she noticed that there were some crystals hanging from my girlfriend's, Sara's, review mirror. 'Elizabeth' had mentioned how mcu she had liked the crystals. I asked 'Elizabeth' if she liked to bead and she said she did. I told her that my girlfriend loves to bead and works for a company that would probably donate some beading supplies to her. A few weeks later, I delivered some basic bead making supplies to 'Elizabeth'. And this weekend, seeing as though she wanted something to do, I arranged for Sara to give 'Elizabeth' some beading lessons.
This morning, Sara, our dog and I picked 'Elizabeth' up at her apartment and took her to the Steele Indian School Park, where I could play with the dog while the ladies beaded. While I was at the dog park, Sara helped 'Elizabeth' make two pairs of earrings and a bracelet. As I was returning, I wondered if 'Elizabeth' liked beading or became frustrated by the focus it required. I was pleasantly surprised upon returning, to hear the 'Elizabeth' had a great time. She even said that 'it made her happy to bead' and this was the first time in her life she was 'happy doing something'. She optimistically said, that beading should help her live a happy life and that she was glad that Sara helped her make the jewelry. She was also excited about the park and the possibility of visiting the it again.
I learned a few things during this experience. First, 'Elizabeth' likes to bead. Second, she hasn't ever had a hobby that has made her happy. And last but not least, it's the little things in life that make the difference. Sometimes as social workers we forget the human element. We end up viewing the people we serve as 'clients' with whom we develop a case plan to get into housing. The people we serve are just like us though, they have very human needs like companionship, joy and self worth. They need more than housing, food and income, and although we do our best to provide the people with the resources to obtain companionship, joy and self worth, too many times, myself and others, are too focused on the basic necessities of life that we forget that it's those things that give us joy that lead us to look forward to the next day and remain dedicated to staying healthy and clean.
This is especially true for those people diagnosed with a severe mental illness (SMI). Most likely, people with a SMI will not make above the $600 they may receive from the Supplemental Social Security Income. This means they end up living in marginal housing with only a small amount of disposable income. To make matters more difficult, most people who come to our homeless shelter and are diagnosed with a SMI, have never learned how to drive, and even if they had the money to buy a car, they wouldn't be able to safely drive it anywhere. These factors alone make it very difficult for a person to have a healthy social life and thus a happy life. The lack of a happy life often leads a person to poor choices and too many times people end up coming back to our shelter, to get them healthy again. This cycle, although only experienced by a relatively small amount of people, does have large implications on how we serve people returning to the shelter. Ultimately, people who are 'chronically homeless' end up using a disproportionate amount of the resources available. When one imagines that all that is need is some more individual attention for the person to be successful, once in housing, it's hard to believe that service is not often provided to people once they obtain housing.
There are day programs for people in these situations, under these circumstances, but they are still limited by what kind of support they can provide. For instance, they most often are not able to provide one on one individual attention on a consistent basis to the participants and they definitely aren't able to pay house visits two or three times a week to see how the person is doing. In my experience, the individual attention is crucial to the person's success; as is the personal relationship that develops between the person being served and the service provider.
Imagine if 'Elizabeth' didn't have Sara or anyone else take her to the park today and show her how to bead. Not only would she be missing out on a hobby that could bring her tremendous satisfaction, but she would most likely be sitting at home by herself, frustrated, sad and lonely. That's enough to drive the healthiest person to moments of despair. Now imagine, if you weren't so healthy and used to coping successfully with such circumstances. It's easy to see how someone in that condition could end up reverting to poor habits and start slowly sliding back to homelessness, substance abuse and a whole host of other poor choices.
This isn't just about the opportunity to bead and sharing some time with someone though, it's about 'Elizabeth's' resiliency. It's hard to imagine that without any support 'Elizabeth' would be able to successfully live on her own, it is also important to note that she has been through hard times before and gotten through them.
Hopefully, with the extra support she is getting this time and the attention paid to the 'smaller' needs in her life, she will be able to carry on as she is now, happy, reasonably content and healthy.
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