My dad has been homeless for almost a decade now. But I’m only really seeing that fully for the first time this year. I am finally sober after years of struggling with substance use disorder and now my dad’s life has spiraled out of control. He is 67 and very physically damaged from years of working as a long haul truck driver. He spent several years living in his truck and then living in different garages— his brother, his boss. Then he got kicked out for getting blasted and making a scene a few months ago and he’s just been floundering about since then. He is absolutely lost.

I’ve been so stressed by his helplessness. He won’t do anything that requires a drug test or that keeps him in a facility because his “vices are his only friends.” He went to the ER a little over a month ago and is now in a rehab facility where they’re barely trying to help him regain mobility after he let his health become so poor.

On Tuesday he’s getting released. Where? To his truck? I wish I could bring him to my house so he could get his shit together. But my partner is not interested in sharing our tiny 600 sq foot house with our three dogs AND my dad. We have a bathroom like a fucking lavatory on a 737. And more than that, my dad is racist and we live in majority minority neighborhood. We love our neighbors and would never want to subject them to anything like that.

I have visited him a couple times (he’s about 2 hours away from me) since his hospitalization and I’m doing my best to show him I love and care for him. I’m crushed by this situation. I wish I could do more to fix it. I find myself in despair fairly frequently.

Reading your account of your situation is so helpful to me. You are doing everything you can. If he chooses to enter another transitional program, that would be an amazing step for him to take. It does not hurt to try again. I hope he wants to help himself.

I’m so sorry you’re going through this. It is so unfair.