Cops and the homeless (with mental illness added, too)

This winter, I have a part-time job at a local homeless shelter. This past week has been a busy one vis-a-viz the cops nabbing people who've been staying with us.

One night last week, they came to the shelter three different times, looking for the same guy. By their third visit, he was there and they took him away in handcuffs.

That particular guest had been hungry and tried to steal food from Stop & Shop. When a security guard caught him, the guest unwisely said that he had a gun and that the guard had better let him go. The guard did so but called the cops. The guest didn't actually have a gun, but that didn't matter. With that one sentence, he went from a sixth-degree misdemeanor to a felony arrest. As far as I know, he's still in jail.

A couple of days later, the cops nabbed another shelter guest, this time for drugs. A day or two after that, they arrested a third guest, this time at the soup kitchen, for failure to appear in court. As if that weren't enough, just tonight they busted the latter's girlfriend as well (for what, I don't know).

In another matter, we've had a mentally ill woman staying at the shelter for the last two-and-a-half weeks. During that time, she has worn the same suit of clothing and hasn't bathed or showered once. As if that weren't bad enough, now she's having her period and won't use sanitary napkins! As a result, we've had to set aside a specific air mattress and bedclothes for her use only.

Just tonight, I was about four feet away from that woman. The odor she emanated was rancid beyond words! It was like a yeast infection, only a whole lot worse.

With such malignant neglect of her health and grooming, coupled with with overtly schizophrenic behavior, that poor woman should be in a mental institution, with a doctor prescribing meds and monitoring her condition. Instead, she's wandering the streets, slowly destroying herself. And no matter who my boss talks to, he can't find anybody willing to take her case! Un-fucking-believable.

During staff orientation, the shelter's executive director advised us to maintain a professional detachment from the personal affairs of our guests. Now I see what he meant. Some of those people are messed up pretty goddamned badly!