By Bill Cobun, Outreach Specialist, Capital Crossroads and Discovery SIDs
We were notified about an individual sleeping at the bus stop at 3rd and Broad that needed help. Jeffrey was someone we had seen around but never wanted anything. But when I looked in the homeless information system, I found that he had come from Mansfield and stayed in shelter for two nights. There was also a note from the Sheriff's office saying Jeffrey was a missing person.
When I went back to talk with Jeffrey where had been sleeping, he disappeared. Ryan and I looked for him for months, but never saw him. Then this past June, we received a call from Mansfield Parole asking if we could transport Jeffrey by Greyhound. He had been hospitalized for his schizophrenia at OhioHealth Riverside Methodist Hospital was being released on July 6. So we coordinated with Riverside on his release to safely get him downtown and back to Mansfield.
It all went like clockwork. Riverside cabbed him to the Greyhound station and we got him a ticket to Mansfield. We called his PO in Mansfield to let him know to pick him up at the bus station. The PO then took Jeffrey to see his grandmother who is undergoing chemotherapy, and afterwards to a halfway house to complete his transition from the Parole authority control.
His mother from California called to thank us. Jeffrey is stable and housed thanks in great part to our ambassador teams that are always our eyes on the street.