the day before New Year's in NYC, I volunteered at this place that helps LGBT homeless youth where Jenna works part-time...first we watched them vamp and play Starcraft while we made PBJ sandwich lunches to hand out later, then we went out in the van (7pm-1am) to drive around NYC and find kids hanging out on corners and give them condoms (a packet including 2 flavored condoms, a latex glove, a dental dam, and 2 finger condoms) and talk about housing opportunities and such.
while we were out, we stopped the van at the director's house so Jenna and I could run in and feed her cats (she's away on vacation). I was fucking HORRIFIED when we opened the door.
she lives in a 10 foot by 12 foot studio and has FOUR CATS, including one which is FATTER THAN ARROW. the whole apartment smells terrible. and the grossest thing is is that the place looks like something from Se7en because of the amount of junk piled everywhere, and the filth coating everything in the kitchen/bathroom. I can't explain how insanely packed full/filthy this apartment was. if any of you have ever decluttered for old homebound hoarding people (or AIDS patients) you might have an idea what this place was like. like, there was nowhere to walk except a single narrow path to the bed through 5 foot tall walls of junk, and the kitchen was impassable.
it's funny how the HIV+ homeless youth we were servicing were more stable than the director of the fucking agency.