Summer is a more challenging season than winter for people who live in the streets.
In fact, summer is not necessarily a time our homeless neighbors look forward to. Here’s a tale of two summers, starting with the story of Mark from last summer:
Mark was stumbling through the crowds outside the College World Series as dehydration from drinking, added to the heat, was bringing on side effects he’d never had before from his medications. For the homeless, dehydration in the summer is actually a bigger cause of death than exposure in the winter.
But this summer, a friend began bringing Mark to lunch at Open Door Mission’s Garland Thompson Men’s Center to help him escape the heat and to get at least one nourishing meal a day. Today Mark is sober, out of the heat and in recovery at Garland Thompson Men’s Center in our New Life Recovery Program. His life and treatment are more stable than they’ve been in years. And the public benefit for bringing a homeless person off the streets is $35,000 per person, per year.
It’s a tale of two summers for our hurting and homeless neighbors. One summer some people can be stumbling and wounded through a haze of illness or intoxication; the next they could be sheltered and in recovery.
It’s a tale of two summers, and thanks to people like you, the tale is getting better at Open Door Mission for hundreds of people in need this year.
Candace Gregory
President/CEO