Still Trying

I began to believe that narrating my efforts with officials, agencies and non profit organizations to get Mark off the streets wasn't making any sense to readers because I couldn't make any sense of it myself. I took notes of phone conversations and in-person interviews. I compiled excerpts from emails. I built a glossary of acronyms and stock phrases. There was nothing left to do but keep writing about the bureaucratic abyss and keep reaching out with conventional methods that so far had proved utterly futile and taken me to the brink of abandoning comportment.

My most recent efforts entailed:

Two more calls to 2-1-1. Nothing new, accept new erroneous information. Two emails to the Safe Rest Village in Multnomah. Emails not returned. Email to Joint Office Of Homeless Services. Response: call 2-1-1. My response: I've already called five time. Staffer responded by providing a phone number for the Coordinated Housing Assessment Team. I called. An automated system with a voice sounding like it was submerged in an aquarium referred me to a web site. There was no ability to speak to a person, no ability to leave a message.

I emailed same staffer at the Joint Office of Portland Homeless Services and reported the uselessness of the previous information. Staffer responded: call 2-1-1.

I called Central City Concern, Portland's largest largest non-profit organization serving the homeless and left a voice mail with a transitional housing staffer describing my inability to get Mark the required assessment/referral for admittance to the Safe Rest Village in Multnomah. I employed the phrase, “I need someone to get off their ass” and the word “alacrity.” Why not also teach a little vocabulary while trying to save a homeless man from the destruction of indifference and incompetence.

Staffer from Central City Concern called back the next morning. I didn't pick up because I didn't recognize the number! Staffer left a voice mail. I returned the call immediately and it went to voice mail.

The next day the staffer returned the call. I was informed to contact the Joint Office of Homeless Services. They were apparently in charge of admittance to the Safe Rest Village in Multnomah. It was right there on their web site. I conveyed to the staffer of my interactions with the office. The staffer suggested I call 2-1-1. A 2-1-1 operator could make an assessment/referral over the phone. I informed staffer he was definitely misinformed and also shared my fire station story.

Staffer then said I should call Coordinated Housing Assessment Team, or CHAT. They would send a team out for an on site assessment/referral. I told the staffer I'd already called this agency, couldn't reach a real person, that such an outreach did not exist to my knowledge and I was gaining considerable knowledge on the issue. I asked the staffer if he was familiar with the term”Kafkaesque.” The staffer said he was.

I informed the staffer I was losing my mind and wanted to help one homeless man who wanted to get off the streets to get off the streets.

Staffer suggested I transport Mark to the Transition Projects Resource Center in downtown Portland so he could complete a written assessment to determine eligibility for any type of housing. The assessment, known as a VISPADAT, required half an hour. All his answers would be fed into computers and then the generated algorithm (the staffer used the word algorithm) would determine Mark's eligibility for shelter/housing, including the Safe Rest Village in Multnomah In other words, they were trying to save desperate people and people weren't involved in the process deciding who receives assistance and the various levels of aid offered.

Could I just walk in with Mark, I asked the staffer.

Yes. Wait, I don't know. You may have to go there and get an appointment to get an appointment for the assessment.

I thanked the staffer for his time and hung up.

Onward. Upward? Downward?