As COVID-19 strains Dallas medical care, this keeps the poorest among us out of ERs

Metro columnist Sharon Grigsby writes:

Every morning, men and women, their spirits broken and their bodies bone-tired of living the street life, line up at the door of an Oak Cliff nonprofit in hope of finding something different. They are looking for sobriety, for stability, for a path to become themselves again.

And because there’s a virus on the streets as dangerous as their own addiction, they are seeking safe haven from COVID-19.

For the last 35 years, Homeward Bound has provided addiction and psychiatric crisis treatment for the poorest and most desperate residents of Dallas County. In the midst of the coronavirus outbreak, these addicts will almost certainly die without the nonprofit’s help, Homeward Bound executive director Doug Denton told me this week.