The Never-Ending Tragedy

Peace House Community – A Place to Belong

By MARTI MALTBY

I”™m writing this on February 5, during the first really cold spell we have had this winter. Yesterday was not a shining moment in my career of serving the homeless. One of our community members who has serious physical handicaps mentioned in passing that he needed to get his tent and belongings from another part of town because his life was in danger. I commute to work by bike so I wasn”™t able to help him, but his comment about being in danger didn”™t register with me and I didn”™t look for other resources for him. When I arrived at work this morning a garbage hauler was standing over a collapsed tent in the vacant lot behind the Peace House Community building. As I rode past I recognized the wheelchair sitting next to the tent and realized that the community member was probably in the tent. Worse, because the temperature had dropped below zero during the night, I knew there was a real chance that he had frozen to death during the night. Fortunately he was alive, although he was understandably traumatized by his situation. I brought him into the PHC building and immediately started making phone calls to ensure he would not have to spend any more nights outside when the low temperatures (and most of the highs) are forecast to be below zero for the next week and a half.… Read the rest “The Never-Ending Tragedy”