So the other day, I was sitting at the Cafe smoking cigarettes and an old guy in a wheelchair rolls by. It’s about to storm really heavily, and he’s clearly struggling, so I ask if he needs help getting inside. I normally don’t just ask disabled people if they need help because it can come across as infantilizing, but he was clearly struggling. He accepts my help and asks for a cigarette, so I give him a few to hold him over.

Him and I get to talking. He became homeless after he couldn’t use his legs anymore, and a bad mental health episode followed that led to him losing access to his disability check. I did not ask specifics, as I don’t believe disabled people have to give me their life story to get help. I told him that I was going to help him as best as I could. He’s not an addict, but he needs housing. I call around sober livings in the area and none of them that I called were wheelchair accessible. However, he also gave me the phone number of his last living relative. We call her, and she asks when the last time he ate was. He didn’t remember, so it certainly had been at least 24 hours. I’m about to go into work and it’s about to storm really bad, but I know he needs food. I walk to my work, order my shift meal and with my last $5 buy him a meal. Walk it back to him in the pouring rain, walk back into the rain to get to work.

Fortunately, the cafe that I hang out at is very friendly to homeless people, it’s pretty much the only place I know of in the city that has a bathroom that non-customers can use. I normally don’t have the money for coffee and the staff is still kind to me regardless. So I tell him to hang around this cafe so I can find him in future days. One day I visited him during my break and one of the staff got him a blanket out of their car.

I called his old case manager and left a voicemail because she didn’t pick up, but I’m trying to get him services that’ll get him access to his disability and a roof over his head.

One night, we’re hanging out and he asks if I can call around shelters to find him a place to sleep that night. It’s pretty late into the day, so I know that nowhere has open beds right now. So I ask my house director if he can sleep on our couch. He says as long as my housemates are okay with it, he is. Call all my housemates and they’re fine with it, until I actually bring him to the house and we have to help Bobby onto the toilet because our house isn’t wheelchair accessible at all. Then one of my housemates throws a huge hissy fit and I have to kick him out. I was able to wash his clothes, get him a shower, and a meal though so it wasn’t a total loss. I also had to drug test him (house rules) and the only thing that was in his system is weed. He says it helps with his pain issues.

Cut to today, I am completely out of money, I can’t even afford my discounted shift meal to bring to him. I have 10 cigarettes to last me until tomorrow night when I get paid, and when I see him today I’m gonna give him half of them. I’m not even sure how I’m gonna get home from work tonight.