EPISODE 42
"JUST
WORDS"

Welcome to JUST WORDS.  The stories of working people in our community.

I'm Marc Steiner

On this program we’ve heard from people who experienced homelessness as a result of drug addiction and alcoholism.

But what about those suffering from a dual diagnosis—those that have both addictions issues and suffer from mental illness?

For them, finding a way out of homelessness is doubly difficult.

Anonymous is a woman in her 20’s living in Cecil County.

I got on drugs real bad and I went to rehab, I was in rehab for five months. And then I came to Elkton to the farm, and then they kicked me off of the farm and then I was homeless for two weeks.

“The Farm” is a shelter run by a faith-based organization called The Meeting Ground that can hold 35 people. Why was she kicked out?

Somebody was stealing my pills but they didn’t want to believe me. They thought I was overmedicating myself but I wasn’t. and they give me a little pill bottle to hold and it was broke and every time I would open my pill bottle my pills would spill out because it was broke. Come to find out later on after they kicked me out and someone else had moved in my room, they found the pills behind my bed. So that’s why they kicked me out because they thought I was overmedicating myself.

After being kicked out of this shelter, Anonymous was on the street.

I walked around all day and all night. One person, It was during the middle of winter, and one lady found me. I was sleeping on the bench outside Acme. She said my lips were blue, she took me to the hospital. I slept there, the next day I got out, they released me, I got out. And I just basically walked around all day. And then I was homeless for two weeks because they didn’t want to let me into the rotating shelter because of my mental condition. And, two weeks went by and I finally talked to the person that ran the rotating shelter and then they let me come stay there for a couple of months. But I didn’t like the environment. There was fighting there, I was being threatened and then I went to grace community.

The rotating shelter is a winter time shelter that goes from church to church in cecil county. When it’s full, there is really nowhere else to go. Anonymous was able to go to the grace community church shelter-but that shelter has closed now for lack of funding. She is at a friend’s house now-and is several months pregnant. She is looking for work, but finding it difficult.

Basically, I can’t work because of my mental issues. I have a tendency to lash out on people, and I don’t mean to, so that stops me from getting a job.

Right now, Anonymous is sober and doing okay, and she owes a debt of gratitude to the friend that took her in. But what about the rest of the people in Maryland who suffer from dual diagnosis of mental illness and addiction?

Where will they go?

Just words is a production of the Center for Emerging Media, produced by Jessica Phillips, through a grant from OSI-Baltimore: investing in solutions to Baltimore’s toughest problems, with audacious thinking for lasting change, on the web at OSI-Baltimore.org.
Visit JUST WORDS on the web at centerforemergingmedia.org, or
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Music: Modest Mouse, Capsule