In my first post I talked about how well connected the organizations are here in Biloxi and the surrounding areas and now I can see why. They truly need each other to give assistance to this community because they are stronger together than without each other. I bring this up because on Tuesday while I was helping Jill at the front desk, a lady and her 12-year-old daughter came in. She tells me her situation of being homeless and that she has been living in her car this past week. They were both red in the face and sweating profusely and I knew there wasn’t much we could do for her because the Gulf Coast doesn’t have any homeless shelters. When I told her this she shed a few tears as a handed her the resource list. In that moment I felt so little, especially when she quietly whispered to herself, “what are we going to do now?”
Of course I told her what we offered at Back Bay Mission and places she could try, but she needed a place to lay her head down until she figured out her next steps. There were places where she could eat, get showers, get food and assistance in other areas but a homeless shelter is really what she needed. For all the people working in this area like Jill who have to tell those in need like this woman and her daughter that there isn’t a resource to assist in that area must be hard to do all the time. A homeless shelter is well needed for this community and I hope one day I will get the news that a homeless shelter has been implemented here on the coast. Until then I know the resources that are here will continue to connect with each other to assist those in needs.
Another thing that happened this week is on Monday I went with the volunteer group to help clean out this hoarding home. This house was filled to the top inside with pizza boxes, Coca-Cola cans, water bottles and boxes with unopened items everywhere. This was a mother and daughter who haven’t left the house in six months, but have been in the hospital the past two weeks. The only way you could guess that this was the situation for this mother and daughter was because of the over grown grass in the front and back yard. That’s the thing; we never know what our neighbors are going through. Even the person who lived next to these women didn’t know that this was going on. Made me realize that we truly need to take care or just check up on our neighbors, every so often because all of us need support in life and it makes for a better world when we can help each other.
