Deaths underscore health challenges for the unhoused in Columbia | Local

“We know that loss is a part of everyone’s life but the folks we serve often feel unseen and overlooked,” the group wrote on Facebook and Instagram.

John Trapp, co-founder of outreach group 4-A-Change, has counted nine people experiencing homelessness in Boone County who have died in 2022. Trapp said he’s kept track of local homeless deaths for about three years — counting about 10 deaths each year . He said that number accounts for roughly 4% of Boone County’s unhoused population.

“If any other population was dying at this rate, it would be a public health crisis. We’d be mobilizing to put a stop to it,” Trapp said. “But with this population, it goes largely unnotified.”

Each year, Trapp knows some of the personally deceased and hears of others through the grapevine. He said the most common causes of death probably are cars hitting homeless pedestrians, overdoses and complications from unchecked health issues such as high blood pressure and diabetes.

“I’m trying to (get) the most vulnerable off the street,” Trapp said. He imagines the solution would be a multifaceted approach with housing and intensive case management.

To get decent health care to those experiencing homelessness, “we need to meet the folks where they’re at,” he said.

Since last winter, the CoMo Mobile Aid Collective — formerly known as the JB Mobile Soup Kitchen — has been working to do that.

The group’s nursing team began offering first aid assistance to those sleeping at the Wabash Bus Station on cold nights and began clinics out of Wilkes Boulevard United Methodist Church in March. Their services have expanded from a first-aid backpack at Wabash to twice-weekly clinics staffed by volunteer medical professionals and medical students.

Sunday evening, Gayle Link and Brittney Eaton worked out of a small space in the church while the Loaves and Fishes soup kitchen served dinner. The medical team can clean and dress wounds, take blood pressure readings and make doctor’s appointments for their unhoused neighbors.

Guests can collect supplies such as shampoo and conditioner, septic wipes or over-the-counter pain medication portioned into one day’s dosage. One guest noted that she’s been able to collect enough toothbrushes and toothpaste from the clinic to distribute some to others who need them.

CoMo Mobile member Cat Armbrust said that having ibuprofen or Band-Aids around the house is easy for the average person to take for granted, but many of those on the streets don’t even have those remedies.

“Something so simple and small becomes a huge deal,” she said.

Link said the clinic offers the kind of care a mother would give her child. The nursing team helps connect people to health care resources for concerns outside their scope of care. Link said she makes some kind of appointment for a guest nearly every time she works the clinic.

During Sunday’s clinic, Marlene Stone Godwin came in to ask for calamine lotion and decided to take a blood pressure test. By the end of her visit, Godwin had spoken to Link about her chronic pain and Link agreed to help set up an appointment with a nurse practitioner.

Godwin has dealt with chronic pain for at least 10 years and has struggled to be believed by medical professionals. She said she’s been accused of drug-seeking or exaggerating.

“Hopefully all my bad luck stuff is about done ’cause I’m about ready to get some good,” Godwin said. “I’m done. I’m tired — really tired.”

Douglas, a man who gave the Missourian his first name, went to Wilkes on Sunday for dinner at Loaves and Fishes and stopped by the clinic. He told Link he had been having chest pains, and she drove him to the emergency room that night. The next day, Link said that the hospital staff found and treated the source of his pain.

Link, a registered nurse at the Red Cross who volunteers her time as an individual, began giving out first aid with the group at Wabash last winter. Link arrived to drop off donations and found herself helping with burns and spider bites.

“I realized that there was an unmet need, and that’s when I’m like, ‘I can’t turn my back on this. I need to keep showing up and keep doing this, and I don’t know how it’s gonna work, but it needs to,’” Link said.

The nursing team said it’s taken time to build trust with the unhoused people they serve. Some would rather accept antibiotic lotion and medical wrap to dress their wounds themselves, but Link and Eaton feel honored by how the community has opened up to them.

Since she began offering care, Link has worked with a man with severe frostbitten fingers. He didn’t feel comfortable having her care for his hands at first and would take her instructions to do it himself. Over time, he began accepting more of Link’s help. Earlier this month, the man allowed Link to wash his feet and give him new shoes at a foot clinic hosted by Calvary Episcopal Church.

“It’s been like nine months since I first met him that he really surrendered himself in that way and let me take care of him,” Link said. “It was just a wonderful, emotional moment. He smiled and was proudly wearing the shoes.”

Link tears up describing the relationship. She said Sunday that his frostbite is healing.

The nursing team understands why people experiencing homelessness would be wary of medical professionals. Many have faced discrimination in medical settings, and those dealing with mental health issues fear they may be institutionalized.

In addition to making appointments for people they serve, CoMo Mobile volunteers drive patients to appointments and sometimes serve as advocates in medical settings. The group connects people to free or low-cost care from providers like MedZou Community Health Clinic and Compass Health Network and sponsors co-pays from donations.

Through acting as an advocate in doctor’s offices, hospitals and clinics, Link has seen the good and the bad of how medical professionals treat unhoused patients. While accompanying a woman with severe mental health issues in a doctor’s office, Link said she watched the patient shut down as a nurse turned her back and rolled her eyes. Link could see the patient “going into a bad space.”

“When she went into a bad space, the more she’s answering these questions inappropriately, you know, because she’s not in reality anymore,” Link said.

When a different provider arrived and treated the woman with more patience, the visit took a turn for the better. Link said the patient felt more at ease and was able to get the prescriptions she needed.

“She talked very gently,” Link said. “She let (the patient) say the things that came out of her mouth without making her feel stupid.”

Still, Link knows there’s only so much they can do to manage people’s long-term health as long as they experience homelessness. She can get people to appointments, but they may not be able to take daily medication for years. She can dress a person’s frostbite but knows they’re going back into the cold.

Armbrust hopes that the nursing team can help people catch medical concerns when they don’t have many opportunities to seek health care.

“When we are working with a population where everything requires you to jump through a hoop, our group — CoMo Mobile Aid Collective — is looking for any way that we can just soften and bring a little bit of respite and assistance and visibility to folks who need stuff,” Armbrust said.