September 8, 2008.
Mondays at the Mission are always exciting. I arrived about 5 minutes early for my morning shift, and found out that three people left our program over the course of the weekend. One was a guy on my case-load, who left to live with his girlfriend [the positive side of this story is that the guy is going to be a father, and is really motivated to be there for his girlfriend and their baby]. Another was a quirky guy who, although he is extremely opinionated on every subject imaginable, was also extremely likable and, most likely, the hardest worker at the Mission. The third was a lady that I didn't really know.
We begin every morning shift with a 10-minute meeting to discuss the goings-on of the previous day, to figure out if there are things that need to be taken care of throughout our shift, to delegate smoke-break responsibilities [we provide intermittent smoke breaks throughout the day for our residents, one every 1 1/2 - 2 hours], and to pray for each other.
After the meeting, the men and women in the Post Detox and Re-Entry programs [see http://www.brm.org/index.aspx?sec_id=14&page_id=238&page_url= for a complete description of our programs] gather for a Daily Goals Group, where we go around the circle stating goals for the day, read from a Narcotics Anonymous Devotional Book, and then delegate morning chore assignments. After the morning goals group, I headed upstairs to make sure that the 5th floor met the cleanliness standards [this has been a big deal in the past couple of weeks] and then I did the smoke break. "Doing a smoke break" is the typical phrase used around the Mission, and basically means that I stand outside with our residents for 15 minutes at a traffic island and ensure that nothing dangerous happens. After the smoke break, I facilitated a therapeutic group with the Mens' Post Detox residents about the importance of cleanliness, and then we took some time to put our discussion to practical use, and they cleaned their bed areas. It was really productive!
Around 12pm, as I was finishing up my lunch in the kitchen, one of my female colleagues came downstairs and said there was a "situation" upstairs and that a male case manager was needed. I walked upstairs, and there wasn't really anything going on, and then I was directed that the man stirring things up was standing outside the Mission. I walked outside, and, sure enough, a 6'3" African American male was there, screaming about the injustice of the situation. The "situation" was this: He came by the Mission and asked to use the restroom so that he could wash up and beat the heat. He recognized one of our residents, and proceeded to walk through the door onto the main floor [this door is supposed to stay closed at all times in order to prevent situations like this from happening in the first place...this is also one of the hardest things to enforce because the front desk workers never remember to close the door] and began screaming at him when he was told he couldn't use the restroom. When I came outside, apparently he was still screaming about it, and had lots of things to say that didn't really make any sense. He screamed for a while about "truth from the sun" and how the political system is unjust, from Bush all the way down to organizations like us, and how we were just enforcing our "Greek rules" which were influenced not by God, or the "truth from the sun," but by a "little man with horns and a tail." He also yelled about having choices, and how we were choosing to "perpetuate the injustice of the political system," since we were not using our "skills in social services and human services and such" to be kind to this man and let him use our restroom to "wash up, and shave, and get out of the heat for a minute or two." When he finally stopped screaming after about 10 minutes, I told him that we chose to keep our bathroom locked until 3:00pm, but that he was welcome to return at 3:00 and use the restroom. I also suggested that he go to Wendy's or to South Station because both of those places have public restrooms. He seemed surprised by these suggestions, and then complained about how Wendy's would probably be "shady in their dealings," but he began to walk away, screaming more about Bush and the injustice of not listening to the "truth from the sun."
The afternoon was not nearly as eventful, but one of my colleagues and I were able to "do a referral" for a new admission to the Mens' Post Detox program. "Doing a referral" just means looking through a potential client's paperwork, and, after judging that the client would be a good fit for our program, calling the detox and conducting a phone interview. We spoke with the gentleman for about 20 minutes, and were pleased to be able to accept him into our program.
