Greetings from a very tired ED. I have come to appreciate how hard our field staff works in a whole new way this month. This week has been a whirlwind. We hired the first of our LA field staff team (Sade, above)! If you recognize Sade, it's because she is the volunteer that I wrote about a few weeks ago. Sade is one of the most selfless and kind young people I have ever met. She is a social work graduate student who spends all of her spare time working to help people find housing and get connected to resources. That's actually how we met. And now we are so lucky to have her working with us.
In this picture she is intaking her first client, who was so excited to find out that she was Sade's first that she announced "I'm her first client!" to everyone who passed by. Sade's first day started at one of LA's new tiny house villages, marvelous little settlements of (very) tiny houses posted in empty lots around the city. The spaces are clean, safe, have laundry, food, even a little dog park, and plenty of staff. We were asked to come do ID work by Urban Alchemy, a really fantastic Los Angeles organization that is staffing this particular tiny village. It's really exciting to see this kind of innovation in the city. And, of course, almost everyone in the village (and even some of the staff!) needed help.
After the tiny village, Sade came to the ReFresh Spot, and thank goodness. Word has gotten out that we are getting IDs in LA and the line of people was so long that even with the two of us working for three hours straight we didn't get close to seeing everyone. I wasn't surprised. My phone has been ringing off the hook all week with organizations all over town asking to partner. We now have two more tabling sites in addition to the tiny village and ReFresh where we will start tabling weekly over the next few weeks. We've also had case workers calling asking if I can come to motels where clients live and the centers and shelters where they meet to help with IDs.
It is very clear that we will be very busy and working very hard for many years to even make a dent in the ID need in LA. And not just here, this week saw us setting up new partnerships with big organizations in New York, Texas, and Louisiana and the year has barely started.
Thanks always for your support,
Kat
|