Amy is an unhoused woman in her 50s who we met at Room at the Inn, the local overnight shelter in Columbia. When we spoke, she was sitting on her cot and using an available electrical outlet to use her CPAP, a device that helps with breathing.
Amy chooses to not use her CPAP at night because she doesn’t want to disturb the women sleeping around her. She spoke about some of the challenges of trying to take care of her health while living on the street with chronic illnesses.
For the month of June, we're focusing on the health of Columbia's unhoused community – specifically those who stay at the local overnight shelter, Room at the Inn
Amy: So, I try to be considerate of others, lend a helping hand when I can. If I've got something somebody needs, I'll give it to ‘em. It doesn't pay to be mean. It just, you know, doesn’t get you anywhere in this life.
I have a whole lot of health problems since I got out here. I have diabetes, which I have before I got out here, but now I have heart failure, COPD, asthma, chronic kidney disease – stage three.
I'm on 20 different meds a day, plus insulin. I have to check my blood sugar four times a day, and it's not easy out here to do all that.
I have to go get one of those four-day pill counters, seven days so I can stop carrying around – I mean, I don't know if you felt my backpack, but it's got meds in the bottom of it, close to 20 of them, and it's just, it's not easy out here. I wouldn't wish this on anybody.
There's a good – among the women, at least – there's a lot of us that are a good support system. The men? I don't know how they feel about each other, but, you know, us women, we try to help each other out.
It's not the best life, but anyway, yeah, I got my unemployment going, and I'm talking to a caseworker and trying to get a job. I have lawyers working on disability for me, because I'm clearly disabled.
They think that everybody's a drug addict. It's a lot of drug addiction, yes, and alcohol addiction, but there's also mental illness, and then there are just people like me who are just lost their place because of circumstances.
And they don't look at it that way. They look at us all the same way – that we're all bad, that we do nothing but cause problems, and that's not all of us.
And it's too bad that people can't take a look around and see that nobody wants this life, you know, it's great that we have here [Room at the Inn] and we've got Turning Point, then there's food, there's clothing drives, and there's boot drives, and there's – they try to help us as much as they can.
It’s – they think of us all the same and we're not all the same, and they don't like us because they think we're dirtying up their streets and dirtying up their town, and I'm telling you what, there's a lot more services here. Where I lived in Sedalia there were no services.
Come talk to us. Don't just assume because when you assume you make an ass out of you and me.
Don't just assume you know everybody that we're all the same. Just come talk to us, you know? Just understand a little bit better then maybe the hatred wouldn't be there.
