Jessica

“Jessica, can I have you sign this document?  I just need you to put your signature on this line at the bottom.”  When I had outstanding paperwork for her to look at or sign, or needed her to get a document for an application, I would try to catch her right around the time I knew she had just come in because if not, I would lose her.  To a deep sleep!  Routinely she’d come in, socialize a little bit, eat snacks, and then climb into bed.   “She is literally the sleepiest resident I’ve ever seen”, I laughed to myself while I walked away.  One time when I said it to another staff member  she replied, “I know exactly what you mean!”, and then we both laughed together. I’d obtained the precious signature that night though.  It was a relief, particularly since I had been trying to get the paperwork complete and documents gathered given that the deadline for the paperwork was upon us. 

You could almost always find Jessica snuggled up in her bed with her stuffed lion, trying to get a nap in, even while staff and residents were around her doing all sorts of things.  When she was awake, she was winsome, playful and engaging with the staff and a lot of the other residents.  It was endearing.  Here she was, so far from home.  I didn’t know how or why she ended up here, but she seemed satisfied with her relocation and had a small group of friends, some of whom were also residents who she would leave with everyday.  

But the thing was, I would worry about her often.  She was one of the younger residents, not even old enough to vote just yet, and I just felt like the life she was living was beyond what she was ready or prepared to handle.  She just did not have the constitution for it.  So we worked to get her an opportunity to get off the streets and into a place.  And we were right on the precipice of making it happen for her.  Once the paperwork was all in and all the loose ends tied up, she was going to be able to move into her own 1-bedroom unit in subsidized housing.

“Is this what being an adult is going to be like?”, as she sat across from me with a rebellious frown on her face.  She was on a long hold with the social security department.   “Yes”, I replied, feigning a matter of fact tone in an effort to try to hide my amusement.  I tried to console her.  “But you’ll be able to decide when and how you want to do, um, adulting type of stuff.  You’ll have more say-so.”  I laughed to myself again at the display of youthful innocence once she’d gotten up to walk across the room.

She had been away for weeks and we hadn’t seen her. One of our partners had reached out to us to tell us that they’d been caring for her during a difficult and traumatic episode and that she was doing okay. When she came back, it was with the news that she would be moving on.  While working with the partner, she had found a really good small live-in program that, she related to us with clear enthusiasm, was going to help her begin her new journey of recovery.  “It’s so much fun there.  We do activities with each other and we all live together.  It’s nice.  I have my own room.”

Though we had already secured a subsidy for her, I was secretly happier about this outcome because deep down inside I knew she wasn’t ready to be on her own.  There was still so much more that she needed, so much more than just a roof over her head.  I just wanted her to be somewhere safe and somewhere stable.  I knew for certain that if making calls and gathering her vital documents had been too much of a struggle for her, how much more would holding down a household be?  She simply just wasn’t ready to make that leap yet.

I phoned the program to speak with the Director personally and coordinated her transportation and arrival.

“Do you have everything?” “Yes, ma'am”, she answered sweetly, with a tone of respectful deference.  I wanted to make sure she had everything because she was going to go to a place that was much too far away for her to make a trip back.  Their personal items were always so important to the residents, so much so that they would call months after having left looking for the tiniest of items that they might have forgotten.  I looked over and took stock.  The lion was there, perched expectantly beside her two duffle bags.  She indeed had everything.   “I don’t want to see you back here again.  I want you to do well and to just continue to do better and better from this point on.”  I felt myself needing to hold back a wave of emotion while I helped her load the bags into the Uber.  In true Hollywood fashion, I watched the car as it drove down the street until it was eventually out of sight. 

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My encounter with Jessica  is one of the many that gradually began to shift my paradigm.  I started to see the stark difference between the young adults’ responses when I as the service provider was in the driver’s seat vs. when they took the wheel. It was becoming clear to me that the results can be quite magical when it is them who is driving the process, doing the footwork and deciding where they want to be next and where they want to go in life in general.  Once she’d found a program that she connected to with a home-like environment, not only did she begin advocating for herself to get into the program, she willingly wanted to go and committed to it all on her own.  I observed a level of commitment and focus emerge that, simply put, had been unprecedented up to that point.  

I was so proud of her.  And true to her promise, we didn’t see her back there.  I know she’s doing well and that she was in good hands and I can rest easy now when I consider how her trajectory has changed.