Making Do in the TL

Next week I get to join the "mom's breakfast" group that's part of BJM's outreach to immigrant families in the Tenderloin. Carolina, the leader, asked me to come and talk about self care to a group of women who have little left after they work, parent, manage a household, and try to make too little stretch to become "enough."  They are often isolated. Often speak little or marginal English.

Recent cuts to food stamp programs hit some of the Tenderloin families. Many of the families in the neighborhood are immigrants. Mom and dad both work. Dads work more than one job. They "make do."

Everybody in the TL seems to be "making do."  Making not enough stretch to the end of the month.
Of course, people all over the map are stretched thin.  And, in the Tenderloin, thin is even, well, thinner.

Thinking about talking to these moms on the subject of self care has me thinking about how people in poverty care for themselves - or not.  What makes the difference between someone making it and not? What keeps one person going back to AA meetings to stay sober and the next person returns to the streets to drink, use drugs, and disappear into numbness.

Today, one of YWAM's  staff members, A. met the BJM staff for lunch and "Street Drugs 101"   He taught us about street drugs and drug use in the Tenderloin.  We asked him to help us understand what we were seeing every day on the streets.  And, to help us know when and how to ask for help from EMS or police.

A told the story of his own decades of addiction and drug use right here on these streets.  He remembered early YWAM staffers - mostly young kids - coming into the streets on Friday nights with hot chocolate.  He spoke of huddling in alleys "looking for a vein" and "there came angels. I thought they were angels. I was saved by Jesus and those angels - and hot cocoa."

A said something that spoke to my question about what makes the difference between finding one's way to sobriety and life or continuing the downward spiral into addiction and hopelessness.
A said, "They loved me when I was tweaking. they loved me when I got out of rehab and went back to using. They loved me.  And that kind of love changed me. it made me want to be clean. Love made me hope there really was a God who loved me."