Catholic Charities helps Sonoma County homeless get back on their feet

Steve Flores is recovering. Indoors. He has a comfortable bed with a soft blanket, in a long room with a healthy amount of natural light, with medical care in the building.

Two weeks ago, he was discharged from Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital with a major knee injury he suffered while homeless. The circumstances of the incident are unclear to him; he believes he was hit by a car, and that he had probably been “partying.”

He could have been discharged to the streets. Or he might have remained in an expensive hospital bed.

Instead, Flores, 38, was enrolled in a program that is part of an ongoing - and intensifying - countywide effort to end homelessness by intervening earlier and more effectively in the lives of homeless people.

Flores was sent to a bed at Catholic Charities’ Nightingale Project facility on Sonoma Avenue. There, for less expense, he has a place to heal and find his feet - hopefully, so that he will not return to homelessness.

“Knowing that I actually have a stable place to go helps tremendously. I’m able to be confident on a daily basis that I have a bed that I can come to relax and rest my leg while I’m out there doing things I need to get done,” he said.

“They have hot meals for me; they help me out sticking to a regimen, a plan for your life to be successful. I can’t say enough about the place,” said Flores, who has wrestled with homelessness for years.

His story illustrates the unlucky disruptions in life, and the human failings, that can trigger and perpetuate homelessness, as well as the perils and strains of living on the street.

Flores was raised in Santa Rosa. His life has been marked by drug and alcohol use that began around the time his brother, Vincent Flores, 25, was shot dead in Stockton in 1995. His mother fell ill with chronic heart disease five years ago; a beloved uncle has Alzheimer’s disease.

Two years ago, he left Memorial Hospital on another occasion, against medical advice, after being treated in the aftermath of a severe car accident that left him with a long horizontal scar on his left cheek. He went straight back to the streets.

He left the hospital against doctor’s advice “just from being stubborn and wanting to leave,” he said.

What happened then, he said, was that: “I had a lot of trouble. I didn’t have a solid spot to go. I wasn’t doing very well at all after that. I didn’t get the proper rest and things that I needed.”

Flores remained homeless for a time. A friend’s father lent him a trailer. “That didn’t last long; I was restless.”

Then he got an apartment with a friend in Forestville. Then they lost it. That was something of a pattern, he said.

“Honestly, it happens because a lot of the times, you’re just not taking care of business, which means you’re not going to work, you’re not coming up with the rent money, you’re not being responsible,” Flores said.

Now he is just where county and social service officials and workers want him: in a facility with constantly available medical care, with a case manager to help him put together a plan to move forward with, and, eventually, access to funds to subsidize housing.

In that, he is an example of the new housing-first plan to address homelessness - pushed by the county supervisors with strong support from Santa Rosa officials - to take the most at-risk people off the streets and get them housed, saving money and reducing the population of about 2,000 people who sleep outside or in cars.

“If we can get these people a bed and a place to be safe, we end up saving our community a lot of money and we also help them reach self-sufficiency a lot more quickly,” said Jennielynn Holmes, director of shelter and housing for Catholic Charities.

A three-year test to determine the number of days a patient discharged to Nightingale would otherwise have spent in hospitals found that the project saved $10 million in medical costs, Holmes said. During the period of study, a bed at Nightingale cost about $88 a night, while beds at hospitals can cost upward of $2,000 a night, Holmes said.

“So we’re doing the morally right thing in taking care of the most vulnerable, and we’re also doing the financially right thing because that money can be reinvested in the community,” she said.

Flores has an easygoing way about him and a gentle smile. He said at the moment he’s not interested in using drugs or drinking again.

“It’s definitely not something I want to do right now. If it was, I wouldn’t be sitting here. I would have been gone, even with the leg,” Flores said. “I’d have hit the streets again and would have had to deal with my injuries the best I know how. And that’s by hitting the streets and probably partying again.”

Now, with a network of support, he is more confident that he will stay the right course.

“You don’t have to be on the street,” he said.

“There’s always help out there; the question is do you want the help? Do you want to be sober?”