On a cold night, when the shelters are filled with people trying to stay warm, volunteers from A Home For Everyone In DeKalb are in the Decatur library were distributing MARTA cards to people trying to reach the shelters. An exhausted mother with two children arrives, they had been sleeping on the streets. The mother explains her situation to us and we discuss resources that are available in the community. We share some snacks with the children who open their arms to hug us. There's no better reward than that! The Mom is hopeful they will receive motel assistance soon so they can all shower. Each individual has a story to tell and we go over directions to reach a warming shelter run by Frontline. Some prefer to go to one of DeKalb county's warming centers where it will be less crowded. Ellen Gallow, who chairs AHFEID's Cold Weather committee receives a call that there's a man in a wheelchair looking for shelter so she goes to talk to him.
He's in a huge motorized wheelchair, pale and sick and has belongings hanging from every part of the chair having been just discharged from the hospital. All he wants is a night in a shelter and he can get there on MARTA. The shelter has concerns about taking someone in with a medical condition but he tells us he is capable of managing his health issues.
There's obviously issues here that we weren't fully capable of assessing at the moment.
Ellen turns the Decatur library lobby into her office, connecting with health officials, the Decatur Police and the DeKalb Crisis Center to advise her on the best way to assist this individual. Frontline Response's Greg White, agrees to shelter the man for the night but their vans are unable to transport a wheel chair of that size. Ellen finally makes the call to give the gentleman a MARTA card and to meet him at the East Lake MARTA station in order to ensure that he gets on the correct bus to Frontline's shelter. She instructs the bus driver as to where he's going and after a while, we receive the call that he has arrived at the shelter!
If you are wondering what happened to this man after this night, well I can tell you that he's back seeking shelter once again tonight. I can't tell you what the solution was to this issue but there is a community of caring people here, working to make a difference. Thank you for being a supporter of the community called A Home For Everyone in DeKalb.
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