"The blanket was filthy, and it was writhing-as if the person beneath it was trying to escape, or tear it apart. As I watched from a van just up the road, at the intersection of 17th and Vermont, in San Francisco, Sister Salvina, wearing the blue-and-white sari of Mother Teresa's order, explained how best to approach the person under the blanket."
"The woman under the blanket was named Ashley. At the sound of Salvina's voice, she pulled the blanket back so that it revealed her face but remained draped over her head like a hood. Her face was puffy and red, her eyes swollen into narrow slits-the aftermath of a pepper-spray attack, she said. (A number of homeless people have been assaulted with pepper spray in recent years.)"
"No is Ashley's mantra. When doctors ask to examine her, the answer is No. When paramedics offer treatment, the answer is No. When they try to hold her against her will, she runs. In the seven years Salvina has known her, Ashley has never willingly accepted psychiatric treatment. She has endured injuries and infections that have left her unable to stand-all under her blanket."
A woman named Ashley lives beneath a filthy blanket and repeatedly refuses police, medical, and psychiatric assistance despite visible injuries and a pepper-spray assault. Sister Salvina and outreach volunteers bring food and attempt gentle engagement but cannot compel treatment. Ashley's refusals have produced injuries and infections that have left her unable to stand and at risk of death. Other San Francisco residents experiencing homelessness shelter in tarps, abandoned apartments with weapons and rotting food, or inside holes cut beneath freeways. Outreach workers confront assault, severe illness, dangerous living conditions, and legal and ethical limits when individuals decline help.
Read at The Atlantic
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]