Protecting Vulnerable Texans from Self - Neglect

[Orchestral music] Jeff Brewster: When I was younger in my late 18 or 19. I drank, messed around with marijuana, stuff like that. Well I got introduced to methamphetamines. And when I started doing that it got a pretty strong hold. I snorted it for a long time and then got to the point where I started IV injecting it. I've been about this size since 10th grade. And I got down to 135lbs. I mean my eyes were solid yellow I had jaundice so bad. The doctor told me that if it wasn't for the amount of beer that you drank you would probably be dead. Because I only eat like once a week. And I went through a treatment place called Brazos Psychiatric and stayed there 43 days. Went through Freeman House which is a halfway house. Went through what's called a three quarter house, it's like a boarding house. And stayed sober for a long time, and then back and forth back and forth. Stayed sober awhile, go back out awhile, stay sober go back out. The bad thing is that it progressively gets worse. Every time you stop for awhile and go back it's like you start off where you would have been if you had kept doing it. Lost my apartment, lost my job, lost everything and I really had no where to go. I ended up in a place called My Brothers Keeper which is a homeless shelter. You could still go out and drink there, I panhandled money. I stayed for a couple of months and I just couldn't physically. I've got arthritis real bad in my legs. I've got gout. I've got horrible high blood pressure. Lots of heart problems. I went out for a week on a drinking binge and the lady who was a nurse happened to drive by and I was sitting at the bus stop. And she saw me and she pulled up and said, "Do you have any idea how many people are looking for you?" And I was like, "No I didn't". Evidently, an old friend of mine had come looking for me. She had put a flyer up with my picture on it because she was afraid I was dead. Arnold Hider: He was homeless and one of the things he needed was placements. Once we got their report. What we do. We collaborate with different community agencies. We try to see what we can do. One of the people I contacted in this case was Meyer Center. They helped me. We work with the Meyer Center because they work with a lot of homeless people trying to get them into placements. So I contacted them and then after that I contacted different nursing homes. Jeff Brewster: I really didn't know where I was going to go. Because I was out of money, I was about to be out of alcohol. I had a bus pass. It had gotten to the point where suicide had actually had become an option. I was thinking about that too because I really had no where to go and no one to turn to. All of my friends were like, "Can't help you. You're too bad off, we've tried. If I give you money you're just going to buy *** with it". And y'all stepped in. Kez Wold: Typically, people think of APS as dealing with older adults. But we also do deal with people who have disabilities. And amongst the population that we serve we do have individuals who are homeless. For APS homelessness can be self-neglect. In other words, the person is unable to provide for themselves the goods or services. In this case that's a house or shelter that are necessary to prevent harm. So we do end up in situations where we're working with homeless clients trying to resolve the neglect and in that case it means trying to help them find shelter. Arnold Hider: At the time Mr. Brewster did not have any kind of income. He didn't have SSI, Medicaid, or Medicare. And so that's one of the struggles we have, if you don't have an income we can't get you into a nursing home or anything. He has a drug history too, so a lot of times you have people in a nursing home that does not want to take him. So we have to work around that too. And so we contacted different nursing homes, I actually contact Valley Mills and Jonathan Moore is the person I worked with on this case. And he helped me get him into the nursing home. Kez Wold: Homelessness is a unique challenge. Many clients who have disabilities do not wish to cooperate or participate in our services. And even if they do it's very difficult to find any type of long term solution. Sometimes our clients, the services we provide is to help them arrange to go to the local homeless shelter. That is a good step but it may or may not get to the root or to the bottom of their issue. And then there are people who choose not to receive our services, not to accept those services and may choose to remain homeless. And we have to recognize and honor their abilities to make decisions for themselves. Jeff Brewster: Praise God for your guys because I swear if it weren't for you I can say with all honesty in my heart, I really don't know if I would be sitting here today. I really don't know if I would or not. Because I'm sitting there on a bus stop with part of a bottle thinking well, what are you going to do next? Because I didn't have any money, and I could go back to My Brother's Keeper and that thought didn't excite me at all. I mean I knew I had a place to go but I didn't want to go there. No friends, no nothing and out of nowhere this woman pulls up. And like I said four days later I was here. Now if that's not a blessing I don't know what is and so I really, really appreciate everything you're doing for me. [Guitar music]