Another Friday Blog.

After submitting applications for the December Homeless and Caring court, I finally heard back this week from the council with the list of clients they accepted. As always there were a few clients that didn't make the cut—most were understanding but a few were bit perturbed. A client came in last week to check whether he'd been accepted, I hadn't heard back but I told him I thought things looked good and that'd I'd give him a call when I received the list. He didn't have a telephone number, so I told him to check back before he went to the meeting with the public defender on Thursday. Probably through some fault of mine, he went to Hayward for the meeting with the public defender without checking in again and ended up waiting for three or four hours before he found out he wasn't on their list.

This morning he came in to see me, and as you'd probably expect, he was fairly frustrated. I let him know what he could do to improve his chances of being accepted for the next court date, but he still wasn't happy. He asked me why I was ruining his life. I told him that I was neither a public defender nor a judge, and that I didn't have anything to do with the final decision. I gave him the number of the person in charge of the homeless court and he used the phone in the men's center to call, but there was no answer and he was convinced there was some sort of conspiracy against him. I apologized for not being able to do more, but he just stared me down as I explained the next steps in the process, and then after thirty seconds or so he asked why I was looking at him "funny" and dropped a few other expletive-laced comments before leaving.

It's slightly disheartening to have something like that happen, but I guess it comes with the territory when dealing with a volatile population. A minute later, one of the guys knocked on my office door and asked jokingly if the coast was clear, and like that it was on to the next problem. And it's not that I didn't care about the last guy, it's simply that there are always way too many current problems to get bogged down with past failures and situations that you can no longer affect.

In other news, my time as interim men’s center director came to an end today. I will still be spending plenty of time out in the center, but on Monday there will be a new director. It will free me up to be less of the father-figure and more of the kooky uncle who comes in and plays card games.

Being in charge of the men’s center has been a really good learning experience. At first it was somewhat intimidating, and there have been more than a few unruly and disgruntled clients, and they’ll steal your toothpaste, deodorant and just about anything else of value, but in general the guys who frequent the men’s center have all been really nice and respectful. The main thing I’ve found in dealing with the guys is that you have to be honest and direct and willing to genuinely listen, but I suppose that’s true of all people and populations.