Today a client came to us looking totally defeated. After being interviewed him we discovered that he was homeless and had been sleeping on the street for the last year. In that time, he had experienced violence, hunger, oppression, and stigma. Due to circumstances out of his control he had lost his apartment, his friends, his job and had been residing outside or in whatever shelter would take him in. The first thing we did was fed him. The second thing we did was get him emergency shelter and then fed him again. We put together a food box for him that night so he wouldn’t have to experience food insecurity. At that time, our amazing team of assistance and housing went to work on his situation. We filled out a Permanent Supportive Housing Voucher application and contacted Helena Housing. Sometimes life is all about timing, a woman from Helena housing came down and approved the application, one of our other consumers knew of a place that had an open apartment. We took him down to fill out a housing application and he was approved the same day, he moved into his new apartment that morning at 10:00 am. He came in this afternoon to fill out a volunteer application because he wants to pay it forward to other people in need.

Today we helped a man, a veteran, who was homeless and in need of emergency housing. He is 75 years old and was half frozen out of his mind with hunger. After calling the Volunteers of America(VOA) it became clear that the only way to help him was to get his DD214, his snap benefits, and a letter from Social Security Income(SSI). First, we took him to the Veterans Hospital but they were closed so we then went to the SSI office and it too was closed. Since we were out, we then stopped by the Office of Public Assistance, and yes you guessed it, they were closed as well. The closures were of no fault of the agencies as they were following directives from above.
The gentleman seemed to become very scared and panicky at this point because he was afraid, he was going to be in the elements again tonight. I assured him that we would not let that happen and that should it come to that, we would call the “MAC PAC” from Good Sam’s and we would find him a place to stay. We went back to the office to start calling everyone we could think of that we had tried to visit. Eventually, we gathered all the needed documents this afternoon, a small miracle!

Finally, we re-called Volunteers of America, they asked that we come to their office so that they could enroll him in their program and set him up for emergency housing. It is hard to put into writing the relief he showed when I told him he would not be in the elements again tonight.

George Abraham is a gentleman who has been struggling to find affordable housing for over 3 decades. He tried to stay in California, but it became too hard financially for him to make it by. George came to Montana to start over. George hoped there could finally be a time when he wouldn’t have to worry if he could afford to live in a home. George was connected to Good Samaritan’s Housing Navigator services in the middle of March and was able to get housed within three weeks. Despite community and business changes with COVID-19, George was able to get housed with the help from Helena Housing Authority and Trophy Realty. George is very happy where he is at and would like to give back to the community in whatever way he can now that he has a place to call home.