“Do you know where I can set up my tent and be safe?” Jane* asked us, slightly breathless, over the phone. “I asked the police and they told me to call you.”
“I’m not doing very well. I haven’t eaten in two days,” she continues, excusing her slow and scattered speech. “I’m just looking for a safe place to be.”
She explained how she has a hernia, and has the runs (most likely from lack of sufficient food and water). Every few minutes she’d gasp “oh 💩” and hang up, and call us back.
She was homeless because she was escaping domestic violence, and because of grief, trauma and the deprivation of homelessness, she lost 3/4th of her hair and her vision since landing on the streets.
But that day, then and there, she was also reduced to an animal. A feral one crapping behind a bush, unable to hold in her bowels or her tears, all hope seeping out.
Our ED was out of town but begged Michael Valentine who owns Six Sailor Cider just a few blocks away to bring her some food, water and cider. 🙏
Meanwhile, she told her to call a local DV shelter, and by some miracle they had a room for her if she showed up by 6:45!
The incredible Michael dropped off the food and water and came back after she had packed up and transported her to her new home, a room of her own!
It took only four hours from her first call for Jane to be housed!
Days later she says:
“I’ve been eating and eating and eating thanks to you. I had all these wrinkles, I looked a thousand years older but my wrinkles are almost gone!
I was really at wits end, I was just wondering where I can legally pitch a tent and you gave me so much more.
I was reduced, by my circumstances, to becoming feral. What I went through was pure hell. If it could happen to me it could happen to everybody.
Kseniya, you have changed my life, saved it and changed it.” ❤️🙏
*name changed to protect identity
*** bless and thank you Michael for dropping everything to help someone out of a truly shitty situation. You’re an angel!