April 6, 2018 at 1:53 p.m.
DAY IN THE LIFE
Catholic Charities caseworkers serve struggling population
A native of Kenya, he and his wife immigrated to the U.S. and, after five years of tedious post-graduate study in linguistics, he finally completed his dissertation on Kenyan languages.
But he had bills to pay, so he took a job at St. Charles Lwanga Center in Albany, a Catholic Charities center offering emergency services for men.
At first, Mr. Bosire did his best to stay detached from the work; he had other career plans. But one day, a surly boy who had been visiting the center and had yet to speak to anyone finally opened up to Mr. Bosire: The boy was in pain from medical needs that had been ignored. He didn't have the money to fill his prescriptions.
In the 10 years since he was able to help that boy, Mr. Bosire has worked to help as many other clients as he can to find the same relief. He is now a director of the emergency services for the Catholic Charities Housing Office in Albany.
He now oversees operations for St. Charles Lwanga Center and for Mercy House, which provides similar services for women, as well as working with Catholic Charities' refugee and human trafficking victims' programs.
"I went from wanting to help the world to wanting to help the world on a budget," he joked.
For Mr. Bosire, the day usually begins and ends with paperwork, but what he does in between makes his job worthwhile.
The everyday operations at Mercy House and St. Charles Lwanga include getting the clients up early, fed and out for the day, looking for employment and housing. Since the facilities are strictly for emergency housing needs, clients can only stay in the center for 30 days.
Each house has 19 beds. Mercy House also offers two transitional living apartments for certain clients who may need an extended stay to learn to live on their own.
"We treat everyone with compassion, but in a very strict way," explained Mr. Bosire. "It motivates them to get out and make progress - plus, they want to be able to get out on their own. No one really wants to stay a shelter with all these rules."
Mr. Bosire said more than 65 percent of his clients suffer from mental illness. Some are battling substance abuse; some have lost a job and need time to get another; some have just been released from prison; and some are simply the working poor, employed but not earning enough to make ends meet.
Omima Mohamed, the case manager at Mercy House, explained that she loves her job because she feels as if she can make a difference in clients' lives.
"It's only hard because you get to know them and you hope they'll be okay when they leave, but you know they're not ready," she said. "But you just have to do the best you can."
The case manager of each house meets with each client weekly and sets goals, from a certain number of job applications submitted to finding an apartment. Each house also has a senior resident advisor and a first-line staff, who works one-on-one with the clients.
Everyone works to help these men and women to get back out into the world.
"At the men's center, we sometimes have a faster turnaround rate and not as many guys are staying the full 30 days, but that's alright," said Cameron Johnson, senior resident advisor at the St. Charles Lwanga Center. "A lot of people see them as numbers, but we know them as people. If we help only a few - if we help only one - that's enough."
Mr. Bosire oversees all of this. On Wednesdays, he makes rounds to each house and makes sure everything is running smoothly. When The Evangelist visited, the staff of the men's center had gathered at the end of the day for their weekly meeting.
After discussing proper paperwork procedures, their need for soap and other minor issues, Mr. Johnson mentioned that a former client - a very difficult one - had visited the center the day before.
"He looked great. He was cleaned up and had quit whatever it was he was using. He looked real good," said Mr. Johnson.
He turned to Chris, a first-line staffer: "He said he just came back to say thank you to Chris. He wanted to make sure you knew that."
Chris' face broke into a wide grin.[[In-content Ad]]
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