The Horror of TRM - Jacksonville Florida
- Thomas Markdown
- Nov 9, 2020
- 3 min read
Updated: Nov 29, 2020
Trinity Rescue Mission's Residential Toilet for Non-Programmers
Here is Trinity "Rescue" Mission of Jacksonville Florida, a dark place where I stayed for a couple of weeks, years ago. I was trying to get into their program because I was at a hard place in my life.
The mission was a nightmare. Between foul sanitary conditions, the ratty interior of the parasite infested building with its bed bug riddled bedding, many of us on the floor with nothing more than unwashed jailhouse style blankets (body hair everywhere and smelling like a pig's genitals), as well as: the way staff treated people, the dangerous downtown area where it is situated (people assaulted, mugged, or worse at night), and the violent mindset of many of the unfortunates who frequent TRM, it quickly became the definition of the old saying: falling out of the frying pan, and into the fire.
On their website, it seems like all is on the up-and-up, however, that is not an accurate representation of how things are there. When I was there, they had the very same feel-good website up, but the place was populated with staff who were on drugs and people dying from heroin-related drug overdoses; this included the most trusted residents there, whom they used as a free source of labor. I saw drug deals going down, and a young man in his early twenties wheeled out in a fentanyl-induced coma, as far as I know, never to return or recover. I later learned that this was not the only such incident at TRM, but that this was merely the latest; as it has been reported by the local media in Jacksonville: several men had died at the shelter prior to my arrival, also from fentanyl/heroin overdosing.
After lounging around for ten days, being forced to sit in a room on filthy feces-stained pews, waiting patiently for the staff to decide to let me into their "program", I was assaulted in the shower area by a violent man while I was trying to shave. When I reported the offense to staff, they did not take it seriously, in fact, they found it funny; this included the "Pastor's Son" Mike Messer, another strange story altogether, who smiled and chuckled about it. I insisted that Messer's underlings (exploited program residents) call the police, which they reluctantly did, so I could report the man who choked me while shouting profanity-laced death threats in my face. The man had given the staff of TRM considerable trouble in the past, because he wasn't allowed to stay overnight, only to bathe and leave.
Following these events, after making a police report, the "staff" that sounds so loving and caring about the city's down-and-out on their website, called me into a room where a staffer who was once a client there (a well-known ex-crack addict in that area), gave me a good yelling at, basically for getting the police involved and recording the incident on my phone. He then told me that I would not be allowed entry into their homeless "program." I suppose that the only real good that came out of the whole ordeal was that I got the heck out of town as a result of: The Horror of TRM, Jacksonville Florida.
Mike Messer, the privileged "Pastor's Son", keeping it in the 'business'
THE HORROR OF TRM - JACKSONVILLE FLORIDA
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