Yes, IVC contributes to our Bainbridge Is WA community beyond description. Still, with sincere respect, it also has a limitation yet to admit and correct.
Consider, if you would, a 76-year male ex-Marine, former teacher, counselor, and community advocate who upon receiving IVC service … actually cried for the first time in 64 years when needing assistance so readily and graciously provided by his IVC volunteer … yet alas, only then to be precluded from further IVC help.
Yes, a senior who worked with/for youth in various capacities since 14 gaining a master’s in school counseling plus two years training in marriage/family counseling amidst years of his own inner work. Too, with childhood and military trauma fostering un-employability in 1982 (diagnosed by a VA hospital in 92), therein subsisting on social security, 10% VA disability & HUD since 93 only to become homeless for the first time this past December 2017 continuing to August 5th this year.
So alas, this past July upon meeting w/local housing officials to procure lodging, he was presented w/a 25+ pg 2-sided application to complete. Finding it difficult to read a single page these days, his IVC volunteer thankfully came to his aid. And yes … the tears came then for the first time in all those years.
Thank God, his IVC volunteer was there and readily stepped up to read and fill in the blanks for him to initialize. And indeed, thank God, he was there owing to IVC to drive him from BI to Bremerton, since he not only lacks a car, but also unlikely unable to drive that far even if he had one.
Yet alas, it seems owing this incident and a previous call from Maui a month earlier when seeking to return to BI - IVC elected to discontinue service to this former BI resident from 2002-12.
Something seems wrong here. Yes, he “cried”. And thank God he did since it’s been so long. Alas, he now wonders if most men wish down deep we could more readily. And yes, understandably amidst eight months of lacking a home – he deeply feared winding up on the street.
What seems even more sad now is that he was judged and “disposed” of by IVC owing to the challenge faced that resulted in a measure of anxiety and feeling of helplessness for a time … from which the tears and reaching for help gratefully resulted.
This is a good man who’s contributed a lot in his life. He did not become violent, nor injure anyone or any thing, including himself. Nor has he ever (with the sole exception of once a breaking plastic lawn chair and punching his cellphone a couple times)!
In sum, since 1998 when he first began to explore the underlying characteristics of campus unrest, he has contributed his life to the wellbeing of children and community. His advocacy has addressed school, local and global violence along with the underlying context of today’s local government which – via the collaboration of spec-marketed tourism, upscale spec-marketed construction and spec-marketed realty have led to the erosion (read “devolve-ment) of the once very balance, integrity and “heartfulness” characteristic of the term of “community” here on BI.
Alas, he does not deserve to be rendered “disposable by IVC” – especially at this point in his life.
Island Volunteer Caregivers Reviews
IVC truly great, yet falls short here!
Yes, IVC contributes to our Bainbridge Is WA community beyond description. Still, with sincere respect, it also has a limitation yet to admit and correct.
Consider, if you would, a 76-year male ex-Marine, former teacher, counselor, and community advocate who upon receiving IVC service … actually cried for the first time in 64 years when needing assistance so readily and graciously provided by his IVC volunteer … yet alas, only then to be precluded from further IVC help.
Yes, a senior who worked with/for youth in various capacities since 14 gaining a master’s in school counseling plus two years training in marriage/family counseling amidst years of his own inner work. Too, with childhood and military trauma fostering un-employability in 1982 (diagnosed by a VA hospital in 92), therein subsisting on social security, 10% VA disability & HUD since 93 only to become homeless for the first time this past December 2017 continuing to August 5th this year.
So alas, this past July upon meeting w/local housing officials to procure lodging, he was presented w/a 25+ pg 2-sided application to complete. Finding it difficult to read a single page these days, his IVC volunteer thankfully came to his aid. And yes … the tears came then for the first time in all those years.
Thank God, his IVC volunteer was there and readily stepped up to read and fill in the blanks for him to initialize. And indeed, thank God, he was there owing to IVC to drive him from BI to Bremerton, since he not only lacks a car, but also unlikely unable to drive that far even if he had one.
Yet alas, it seems owing this incident and a previous call from Maui a month earlier when seeking to return to BI - IVC elected to discontinue service to this former BI resident from 2002-12.
Something seems wrong here. Yes, he “cried”. And thank God he did since it’s been so long. Alas, he now wonders if most men wish down deep we could more readily. And yes, understandably amidst eight months of lacking a home – he deeply feared winding up on the street.
What seems even more sad now is that he was judged and “disposed” of by IVC owing to the challenge faced that resulted in a measure of anxiety and feeling of helplessness for a time … from which the tears and reaching for help gratefully resulted.
This is a good man who’s contributed a lot in his life. He did not become violent, nor injure anyone or any thing, including himself. Nor has he ever (with the sole exception of once a breaking plastic lawn chair and punching his cellphone a couple times)!
In sum, since 1998 when he first began to explore the underlying characteristics of campus unrest, he has contributed his life to the wellbeing of children and community. His advocacy has addressed school, local and global violence along with the underlying context of today’s local government which – via the collaboration of spec-marketed tourism, upscale spec-marketed construction and spec-marketed realty have led to the erosion (read “devolve-ment) of the once very balance, integrity and “heartfulness” characteristic of the term of “community” here on BI.
Alas, he does not deserve to be rendered “disposable by IVC” – especially at this point in his life.