Hello Everybody! I hope everyone is hanging on, surviving and finding ways to appreciate life despite the hardships we are all facing. I haven´t been on here enough the past month. I don´t need to paint the whole picture, we are all living it. My career in social work gets me 24.50/hr. I´m sure a lot of you are similar to myself. When you´re doing this kind of work, it is difficult to know how and when to ¨put it down¨. There is a lot of emotion involved in the day to day work, then you think about it when you get home; what you could´ve, should´ve done. I also have a second job so I have very little time for anything. When I moved out here a few months back, things were different.
It is such a harsh realization. When I got here, I was already feeling like I was living in the slow apocalypse of humanity. Obviously, things have just gotten much worse economically, politically and of course, socially. People show their true colors when they are made to suffer. It´s easy to care about others when you have everything in your life straight; money, health, relationships. For instance, Bluelight and all of you guys are of the most important, proudest parts of my life. Still, despite the importance of the work, I can´t make it on here to do the work, as I am being pushed. More importantly, I´m seeing the complete and total segregation of the ¨haves¨ and the ¨have-nots¨. The ¨haves¨ means a job, stable living situation and at least one but possibly two cars for a family unit. If you don´t have a car, don´t have a stable place and can´t partake in the consumer culture, you are actively being excluded by the rest of society.
We get to these places as a society because people decided loving one another, connecting, caring and sacrificing were no longer mandatory principles for living. Vegas is a tourist town that caters to this consumer culture, This makes those that can´t spend antithetical to the system. For instance, I work right near the strip. While the strip is ¨outside¨ technically, you will notice that there are clear choke-points for entering and exiting the area which are staffed with beaucoup cops. Let´s just say, the Meth guy with his shopping cart full of garbage is not going to be on the strip for long if he gets there at all. Mass Surveillance is crazy. My understanding is that the strip, including the area were I work is completely and totally surveilled with everything from license plate readers, facial recognition and so on.
Some pretty terrible developments at the shelter.... try to follow me here.
The other night, we had an overdose in one of the stalls of the male bathroom. This is not extremely out of the ordinary for us. We gave him 3 narcans and called EMS. They often are unable to come or show up way too late to be effective. They are overstretched. Well, this time, the cops show up. Now, we have an insane time getting the heat to show up for anything, yet here they are. Two units and at least for uniforms. Even seeing the cops roll up... I didn´t know what was going down but I already had a bad feeling in my stomach.
We have overdoses regularly and nobody ever gives a shit. Well, tonight the cops are insanely concerned about the possibility of loose Opioids/Fentanyl being present in the facility. They were concerned that another resident might accidentally ingest some and overdose. This lead to the entire shelter being cleared out in the middle of the night. Dozens and dozens of people. It is ~2:00am at this point. Turn the lights on, wake everyone up, tell them they have to go outside. Naturally, some of the guys give the cops attitude. The looks on the faces of the cops when they got attitude was frightening. They were not pissed. They were not annoyed. They were not angry. They looked at them all almost with a knowing, almost amused expression as they watched everyone go outside.
While people are shuffling out, a lot of the ladies are actively saying ¨shut the fuck up!¨ to their men. The ladies are visibly afraid of the police. They are not afraid of getting arrested. They have the most primal fear of all in them; the fear of the unknown. Homeless people disappear here everyday. Jails, hospitals, morgues... a lot of them are just gone. Sure, some of them overdose and die in anonymity, but not all of them. My clients know something is wrong, but nobody knows the true extent of whatever is actually happening. If you ask me straight up, I´m just gonna say right now that I believe the homeless are actively being targeted and removed and I feel law enforcement is directly involved. I don´t care who I piss off by saying that. I have just seen too much weird shit to believe everything is normal.
We end up standing outside for over 2 hours. In this time, many of my clients choose to leave instead of standing outside on the pavement. By the time we are let back in, half of the clients have disappeared into the night. What´s worse, policy would prevent us from taking them back in even if they returned. The following night, we had lost ~15% of our regulars who have yet to return. For those who cannot read between the lines, I am implying that the cops are involved with deliberately making the shelter unlivable for clients. It is not legal to sleep on the street in Clark County. You can technically be arrested, especially if you have a tent. So, the cops have now separated these vulnerable people from the relative safety of our shelter and us people who care about them. Now hey are out there in the night and fuck knows what will happen to them.
My laptop broke down for the final time and I have not been able to replace it yet. I only have steady access to a computer when I am at work, so I´m going to do my best to get some BL in in my down time. It is really tough out there. I know a lot of you, like me, are making decisions like ¨should I buy food or medicine¨. The cost of living here has gone up to the point where, by working two jobs, like 55 hours weeks at least, I´m still essentially going broke. I am sad to say at this point that the amount of money I make is really not sustainable for many of the things I have become used to. Frankly, I worry every day now that our time is limited with my non-profit. There is little to no sympathy here for these people and the scarcity of money just makes it worse.
I am struggling right now trying to figure out how or what my life is going to become. On the current trajectory, I am just moving slowly toward oblivion like most of us are. Still, I try every day to find some joy in life, the people I work for and from my friends and family. Forgetting love and compassion is what has made us so terribly ill as a society. We can´t control the world, but we can control how we treat others. I have spent my life as a selfish asshole. I only hope that by the end, I will break even.
I will see you all on the forums. Sorry for the absence!
It is such a harsh realization. When I got here, I was already feeling like I was living in the slow apocalypse of humanity. Obviously, things have just gotten much worse economically, politically and of course, socially. People show their true colors when they are made to suffer. It´s easy to care about others when you have everything in your life straight; money, health, relationships. For instance, Bluelight and all of you guys are of the most important, proudest parts of my life. Still, despite the importance of the work, I can´t make it on here to do the work, as I am being pushed. More importantly, I´m seeing the complete and total segregation of the ¨haves¨ and the ¨have-nots¨. The ¨haves¨ means a job, stable living situation and at least one but possibly two cars for a family unit. If you don´t have a car, don´t have a stable place and can´t partake in the consumer culture, you are actively being excluded by the rest of society.
We get to these places as a society because people decided loving one another, connecting, caring and sacrificing were no longer mandatory principles for living. Vegas is a tourist town that caters to this consumer culture, This makes those that can´t spend antithetical to the system. For instance, I work right near the strip. While the strip is ¨outside¨ technically, you will notice that there are clear choke-points for entering and exiting the area which are staffed with beaucoup cops. Let´s just say, the Meth guy with his shopping cart full of garbage is not going to be on the strip for long if he gets there at all. Mass Surveillance is crazy. My understanding is that the strip, including the area were I work is completely and totally surveilled with everything from license plate readers, facial recognition and so on.
Some pretty terrible developments at the shelter.... try to follow me here.
The other night, we had an overdose in one of the stalls of the male bathroom. This is not extremely out of the ordinary for us. We gave him 3 narcans and called EMS. They often are unable to come or show up way too late to be effective. They are overstretched. Well, this time, the cops show up. Now, we have an insane time getting the heat to show up for anything, yet here they are. Two units and at least for uniforms. Even seeing the cops roll up... I didn´t know what was going down but I already had a bad feeling in my stomach.
We have overdoses regularly and nobody ever gives a shit. Well, tonight the cops are insanely concerned about the possibility of loose Opioids/Fentanyl being present in the facility. They were concerned that another resident might accidentally ingest some and overdose. This lead to the entire shelter being cleared out in the middle of the night. Dozens and dozens of people. It is ~2:00am at this point. Turn the lights on, wake everyone up, tell them they have to go outside. Naturally, some of the guys give the cops attitude. The looks on the faces of the cops when they got attitude was frightening. They were not pissed. They were not annoyed. They were not angry. They looked at them all almost with a knowing, almost amused expression as they watched everyone go outside.
While people are shuffling out, a lot of the ladies are actively saying ¨shut the fuck up!¨ to their men. The ladies are visibly afraid of the police. They are not afraid of getting arrested. They have the most primal fear of all in them; the fear of the unknown. Homeless people disappear here everyday. Jails, hospitals, morgues... a lot of them are just gone. Sure, some of them overdose and die in anonymity, but not all of them. My clients know something is wrong, but nobody knows the true extent of whatever is actually happening. If you ask me straight up, I´m just gonna say right now that I believe the homeless are actively being targeted and removed and I feel law enforcement is directly involved. I don´t care who I piss off by saying that. I have just seen too much weird shit to believe everything is normal.
We end up standing outside for over 2 hours. In this time, many of my clients choose to leave instead of standing outside on the pavement. By the time we are let back in, half of the clients have disappeared into the night. What´s worse, policy would prevent us from taking them back in even if they returned. The following night, we had lost ~15% of our regulars who have yet to return. For those who cannot read between the lines, I am implying that the cops are involved with deliberately making the shelter unlivable for clients. It is not legal to sleep on the street in Clark County. You can technically be arrested, especially if you have a tent. So, the cops have now separated these vulnerable people from the relative safety of our shelter and us people who care about them. Now hey are out there in the night and fuck knows what will happen to them.
My laptop broke down for the final time and I have not been able to replace it yet. I only have steady access to a computer when I am at work, so I´m going to do my best to get some BL in in my down time. It is really tough out there. I know a lot of you, like me, are making decisions like ¨should I buy food or medicine¨. The cost of living here has gone up to the point where, by working two jobs, like 55 hours weeks at least, I´m still essentially going broke. I am sad to say at this point that the amount of money I make is really not sustainable for many of the things I have become used to. Frankly, I worry every day now that our time is limited with my non-profit. There is little to no sympathy here for these people and the scarcity of money just makes it worse.
I am struggling right now trying to figure out how or what my life is going to become. On the current trajectory, I am just moving slowly toward oblivion like most of us are. Still, I try every day to find some joy in life, the people I work for and from my friends and family. Forgetting love and compassion is what has made us so terribly ill as a society. We can´t control the world, but we can control how we treat others. I have spent my life as a selfish asshole. I only hope that by the end, I will break even.
I will see you all on the forums. Sorry for the absence!
