Tuesday, October 22, 2024

You just can’t help some people

Monday, October 14, 2024

A while back we had an old 81 year old man move into the ward. He didn’t show up at church so we started tracking him down. It took a while to get the whole picture but we eventually learned that George had moved from Utah and moved in with his daughter who was having serous health issues. The problem is that his daughter, Allison, was renting a room in a house where all the rooms were being rented out so she had a ton of roommates.

Over the next several weeks George showed up at church from time to time but Allison was very sick and in and out of the hospital. She is not active in the church.

A couple of weeks ago Allison got evicted and since then the ward has been working closely with George to try and find housing for them. They didn’t want to go into a homeless shelter because Allisons immune system is compromised, George is a veteran but San Diego has a lot of vets so the waiting list is long. We suggested that they move to where the waiting list is shorter but Allison has children in the area living with their father and she won’t leave, and George won’t leave because he’s worried about his daughter. Finally some government agency found housing for them but it isn’t available until Oct 22. Meanwhile this Father and daughter are parked up on Hill Top park living out of their car. She is constantly in and out of the hospital and the home nursing people actually go to their car to run tests, give her IV’s and other medication. It is bizarre.

They are reluctant to accept any kind of help but have agreed to some food and the bishop talked them into accepting a week in a motel. The bishop put out the word asking for help. I never offered to take them before because we only have the bunkroom and we need that for when kids come to visit, but with an Oct 22 end date I figured we could help. I talked to Lisa and she hesitantly agreed that we could take them for a couple of weeks. This was last Thursday.

The bishop and I both called them last Thursday and they never answered or returned calls.

I finally got in touch with them Friday and they politely refused help saying they didn’t want to impose on us. I finally talked them into coming for brunch on Saturday morning.

Allison went into the hosptial Friday night and according to George she refused to stay in over night but according to Allison, George was abusive and wouldn’t let her stay over night. She checked out at 2:00am.

Saturday morning she was sleeping and George didn’t want to wake her up. I told him to call me as soon as she was awake and I would feed them and set them up in the bunk room. They never called. I finally got a hold of Allison (they share a phone so you never know who will answer) and she thanked me again but politely refused any help. She then proceeded to totally bad mouth her dad saying some pretty mean things about him. I finally got her to agree to dinner on Sunday.

Sunday, I called and texted several times during the day with no word from anyone.

Monday (today) we are flying out of town tomorrow so we have no plans to contact George or Allison.

My conclusions: George is a frustrated, loving father who is trying his best to help out his stubborn and self destructive daughter.

Allison is crazy. She calls her dad abusive but would rather live in his car using his phone than stay in a comfortable warm bed and eat a hot meal.

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111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321
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