While I was waiting on the bus over, I ran into one of the guys from the shelter. Eric taught me how to do dishes and he's done a few other mentoring things. As we waited and tried to ignore the kids that were waiting for a school bus at the same stop (that's a apparently a thing that happens in some places), we got to know each other a bit better.
He used to do construction in Las Vegas. Ran a crew of over a hundred guys. He planned whole subdivisions, but when the market fell through he got laid off. Since then, he's been trying to find good jobs, but he's over fifty so it's pretty rough. A pretty good number of the guys at the shelter are older.
Here in a bit, he's going to see a doctor to get an update on some medical care he needs. About a year ago that day, he'd been beaten within an inch of his life. He had to have surgeries to make it through. I wouldn't have known it without looking at him. He said he's been here twice before, which means that with a 90-day stay and a 1-year exclusion, around these parts at least two and a half years.
This guy got beaten to hell, but now he gets around pretty fine. I don't know if it happened at the hands of locals or our fellow homeless guys, but it's a pretty good reason for even guys as broke as us to have healthcare.
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