As a street-level organization, Street Roots engages directly with people experiencing homelessness, and sadly, that often means encountering the crossroads of mental health problems and substance disorders. It is a significant part of our world, these days, whether you are housed or not.
Over the course of 20 years – like so many other grassroots organizations – we have come to know the complexity of these issues quite personally. They impact our community directly and indirectly, and in both predictable and unexpected ways.
Our office sets a priority on being a safe place for all who enter, an environment that is monitored minute by minute by front-line staff and the vendors themselves. Over the years, however, it seems the prevalence of mental health and substance disorders on our streets has increased as the larger issues of poverty, homelessness and desperation grow more pervasive.
How people process the trauma deriving from addiction and mental health struggles that are on display daily in the Street Roots office can be different for everyone, said Vendor Program Manager DeVon Pouncey. Although most situations are case-by-case, there is a root to many mental health and substance use disorders.
“Although the diagnosis may not be the same for each individual, a constant for many of them during their younger years is that they’re prescribed drugs to suppress their mental health struggles, which can ultimately lead to dependency for drug use holistically,” said Pouncey, who worked in direct support with youths for four years before joining Street Roots.
Currently Street Roots has about 170 active vendors, all unique individuals living through some of the most challenging days of their lives. With that number of vendors being active at one time, it can be difficult to pinpoint when a mental health crisis is going to occur. This can lead to staff, volunteers and vendors being hyper-aware at all times when in or near the office, Pouncey said.
“When a mental health issue or an addiction are compounded by homelessness, they are exacerbated. The effects are also more noticeable to the general public because they’re happening in public,” said Cole Merkel, Street Roots’ former vendor program director.
Merkel worked with the Street Roots vendor program for eight years, until March of this year. During that time, the organization grew rapidly, the newspaper went weekly, and our vendor program doubled in numbers. We now had twice as many people in the same sized office, which means a careful balance of space and management when a crisis arises.
“I always tried to apply a philosophy of harm reduction when working with someone in severe crisis,” Merkel said. “But I always tried to use the understanding that reducing harm didn’t stop at the person who is experiencing crisis; it also meant doing everything in my power to keep myself, the entire staff and everyone else in the office out of harm’s way. Over the years, we had to develop emergency, mental health, suicide intervention, and de-escalation protocols to standardize how we responded in crisis. But no matter how much we prepared, there was never a one-size-fits-all approach that worked in every situation.”
Just as with sales, Street Roots has clear parameters on what is and isn’t allowed in the office, including strict rules around verbal violence and hate speech.
There were a number of people in Old Town with a known history of violence whose mental illnesses and substance abuse were so severe that Street Roots couldn’t help them, Merkel said. But Street Roots’ reputation as a safe space, with coffee, makes us a refuge from the streets.
In challenging situations, police are always a last resort, and one seldom used.
“I never thought that bringing in the criminal justice system was an appropriate response to someone who was just having a bad day,” Merkel said.
Trust and empathy are always key. “When it came to someone experiencing a severe mental health crisis or suicidal ideation, my response relied on trust that I’d built with the person,” Merkel said. “People in crisis would either come to me to tell me they were having a bad day, or I would notice they were acting differently and ask if they were OK.”
Sometimes, just asking if someone is OK is the most important first step to making it so.