Snippets from Warmline Calls

CallerA is new to St. Louis and lives in transitional housing. He was feeling sad working 60 hours a week making little money between two jobs. Heneeds much more to live comfortably, and was stressedabouthisfuture. A talked about how frustrating it is to live in a world where unhoused people can freeze to death when we have empty buildings, and his experience as a poor gay man. He talked about how frustratingitistoknowhewouldlikeitalltobeoverandhislifeispointlessbut he does not plan on killing himself or "ending it," as he said, but just finds his existence as pointless, that he's "an extra in the background" and is just coping with that.

CallerB is losing weight from the stress of being unhoused and from having the downtowntent cityraidedbycops. They need support not only with housing, but with healthcare and transportation.

CallerC is making plans to relocate from St. Louis in order to leaveMissouriinlightofthe AttorneyGeneral’sruling and to leave a toxic living situation with their family. But they don’t have enough credit to sign a lease on their own, and they don’t qualify for emergency shelter because they have "too many funds."

CallerD is unhoused,scared,andunsureofwhatthefuturelookslike. They said they got themselves into a hole and weren't sure at this point what they could do. Everylittlethingisstressfulandtheyareverytired.

CallerE had already checked almost every resource we have in the SQSHBook. Everywherewasprettymuchfullandtheywereonalotofwaitlists, and the only places they hadn't tried were too far for them because they didn't have reliable transportation. I was also pretty upset when E and I realized how they couldn’t even renew their driver’s license when they got a job because they didn’t have a permanent address, so it was like thesystemmadeitreallyhardforthemtoeventrytofinda wayoutofthesituation.

Shelter staff told CallerF that iftheycan'tcallhimbyhisdeadnametheywould havetolethimgo, according to his psychiatrist. F was very confused about why a psychiatrist could have power over his shelter’s director, and whyanyonewould thinktheyhavethepowertodecidewhatnameheshouldbecalled. F has dissociative personality disorder, and the shelter told him that he told the shelter to call him by his dead name in one of his episodes. If they listened to him that time during the episode, why couldn't they listen to him now when he corrected his pronouns and name? F felt betrayed and frustrated. Thebackdoorofthisshelterhas atransflag,buttheyarenotrealallies.