Elanor Needs Your Help

Video Credit: Journey Light Creative

Elanor Needs Your Help by December 31!

It wasn’t Elanor’s lined face or the small tent she sat in that first caught my eye.

It was the meticulous attention she paid to folding and stacking her clothing in the tent.

The chaos of homelessness reigned all around her in Salinas’ Chinatown. Yelling, swearing, and fighting. Cars stopped 15 feet away, exchanging drugs for money. Yet Elanor was in her own small world, folding laundry.

 

Obviously exhausted, Elanor slowly told me she had met her partner Ed more than 40 years ago in Chinatown. They had both been using heroin since they were 13. She suffered a traumatic brain injury when she was a child that affected her memory and ability to work and to earn.

 

Elanor did sex work and sold drugs. It was all she knew to do. Ed made money doing odd jobs and selling drugs.

 

And then, with tears streaming down her face, she told me, “Now Ed needs a doctor, and I’m too old to do this anymore. I just don’t know what to do.”

 

Elanor would be lost without Ed. She’s also scared, so scared, and feeling alone.

 

Tent living makes Elanor and women like her terribly vulnerable to rape and other physical and mental assaults. She will also lose her valuables – money, ID cards, prescription medications, disability documents, photos of loved ones, even her tent – if she leaves it for any length of time.

 

Her transformation includes a social worker and housing specialist trained in gentle care that will build a trusting relationship without traumatizing her again. This support can extend for as long as she needs it, even after she is in her permanent home.

Can you help today?

She really needs someone like you to give her that last chance she needs.

Sincerely,

 

Jill Allen

Executive Director

 

If you send your gift through Monterey County Gives! it helps even more Elanors,

since all donations are made larger with matching funds. Your gift is needed by year-end, which is also the last day of the Monterey County Gives Campaign!

Special thanks to,

Elanor Needs Your Help by December 31!

It wasn’t Elanor’s lined face or the small tent she sat in that first caught my eye.

It was the meticulous attention she paid to folding and stacking her clothing in the tent.