(AURORA, COLORADO) On a recent early fall morning, hope was in short supply.
My first patient was a regular. Mr. D was a man in his 50s with diabetes. He had been living on Denver’s streets for most of the past five years, two of them with a walker in tow. Without stable housing and reliable access to insulin, he’d come to the hospital that morning with another limb-threatening infection.
I examined the telltale ulceration on the sole of his foot. It had progressed to the underlying bone and would require another amputation. This time he would be dependent on a wheelchair. I asked him about his prospects for housing. He shook his head and said, “Doc, I just keep falling through the cracks.”…