Friday, October 6, 2017

Rural street smart

When I first arrived in Flagstaff , the manager of one of the slum hotels that I was homeless in told me that people come to Flagstaff on vacation but they leave on probation! (That manager also was a criminal and a cruel human)

Other things that I've learned since I've been here are that o. G. Means Original Gangster

My neighbor at the Relax Inn her daughter is a coyote my neighbor told me that her daughter is a really mean person. One day she told me see that van out there there are 20 Mexicans in the back of that van. I asked her what a coyote is and she told me that it's a person who illegally transports aliens to America from places like Mexico

I learned that P. O.is a probation officer.

And Pedro described his "tats" telling me he belongs to the Mexican Mafia!

One of the first long-term homeless mentally ill people that I met here will call him Nick.

I told him the things I was willing to do to help him make his life better, break the cycle of homelessness and clean up from addiction.

I'll tell you that there are certain things that I offered to do but ONLY if the homeless people meet me halfway and agree to doing XY and Z on their own.

It was clear that Nick had no intention of doing his part therefore I refused to do anything else to try to help him..

He had a really sweet spirit with a bachelor's degree and even spent some time as a Mormon. I came to care about him. My heart was broken when I opened the newspaper shortly after the 2013 Prescott fire that killed about 30 fireman; I read that  Nick set seven fires around Flagstaff! I had no idea he was an arsonist!

In the six and a half years I've been here I can only think of one single man that I've met that didn't have a long criminal history!

The education I never asked for!

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