38. Tent Becomes a Home
Home healthcare worker. Met with a patient who refused to let me enter his house. Our first visits were conducted on the street, between his car and mine. As he grew to trust me, we graduated to sitting on his front porch. The outside of his house had seen better days and could use some fixing up, but it really wasn’t all that bad. It was inside. At some point, the roof had progressed from “needs work” to “caved in” and he essentially had no roof, as it was all hanging down in his living room. He didn’t have the money to fix it or a good tarp. But he did have the money for a tent. And so he lived in a tent inside his house. He still had electricity and a partial roof over the kitchen.