David Martin is a good example of this differential treatment. David was living downstairs at the Sally and that means he only had a single roommate, not 35 dormmates. He was also less restricted than most of the other clients, who had to be out of the building at 7:30 AM, rain or shine, and could return no earlier than 3 PM and no later than 5 PM. David could stay in until he decided to leave and his curfew was 10 PM during the week and 11 PM on weekends.
David was enrolled in the RAPP/Project Connect program, part of La Frontera:
Services include outreach, psychiatric evaluation and medication, medication monitoring, case management, individual and group counseling, and alternative holistic groups for homeless adults with a serious mental illness (SMI).
David told me that he had spent 5 years in prison and was currently on parole. He also mentioned that he had been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic and had a prescription for Thorazine. I don't know what he was sentenced for but I do know he is still a drug addict. David had little jobs working for a moving company and a rental car company that paid him in cash and he also sold blood plasma but he was always short of cigarettes and cigarette money. It took me a while to catch on that he was using his income for drugs.
What stands out for me was the discovery that a female client of the Sally had gotten a restraining order on David. She subsequently left the shelter but David was permitted to stay. To put this in context, I was once yelled at by a staff member for merely walking out of the dining room with a cup of coffee.
Recently I learned that David had left the Sally and the RAPP program. I heard that he had ripped off several people at the Sally and that Tommy Hopkins, who seemed to be David's good friend, was afraid of him. Leaving the Sally and RAPP are parole violations but apparently no one called David's PO. I met David by the plasma center and I suspect he was going to mug me after I finished selling my plasma.
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