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Well it was another intense week here at headquarters slash the desk in my room. My new portable printer arrived and I already don't know how I lived without it. This adorable little piece of machinery has already changed my life.
But before my new friend arrived, I made a visit to the wonderful Los Angeles LGBT Center in West Hollywood. The Center is an incredible resource for LA's LGBT community and a case manager from the senior center asked me to come in and help a client get an ID. When I met Diana she was wearing a fun hat and an apron, which it turns out is because she is in the LGBT Center's multi-month culinary program. The incredible thing about this program is that they pay the students! So, Diana needs to replace her stolen ID so she can get paid. She was moving into a new shelter the next day and was feeling really positive about her life. We were able to pretty quickly order her $48.45 Louisiana birth certificate (she's from New Orleans so I'm sure her food is incredible) and we'll be taking her to get her ID soon! Diana was so excited, she exclaimed "I'll be legit soon"!
I think I've gotten about 45 (not an exaggeration) calls from organizations wanting to partner or needing help with clients in the last few weeks, including three big organizations in town from which I have gotten calls from so many of their staff that I am determined to get them all to streamline. The need is severe, so I am thrilled that we hired two full time field staffers this week and soon we'll have a team of 2.5 plus me to serve the LA community!
There is so much need, in fact, that when Sade and I went to the Tiny Villages this week we had several staff members lining up to see us along with the residents! And this is where my printer made its big debut. I plugged it in, connected it to the Tiny Village wifi, and like a miracle from the future the little robot printed out notary forms for birth certificates so we were able to pile clients in the car and take them straight to the notary. This cut down the wait time significantly. Once we're all notaries ourselves we'll be an unstoppable machine.
At the ReFresh Spot, I found out why my phone has been ringing off the hook. It turns out that several of the Skid Row organizations made copies of our fliers and are handing them out everywhere. We had a huge crowd waiting for us when we arrived and had to quickly develop a new system to organize everyone. It will be amazing when we have more staff down there, Sade and I saw about 16 people in 3 hours! We were able to make some good progress with new clients, follow up with a couple of old ones, make some DMV appointments, and I got two cases so complicated that I am already excited for the story about how we made it happen.
The week is not over! I'll be heading to tent cities in two different neighborhoods this week- with my little printer of course, I've had the good fortune to interview some great candidates for field staff positions in some of our other states, and of course the STV staff has been doing incredible work. The first month of 2022 has been an adventure, I can't wait to see what happens next!
Kat
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