Gary Wolfe (inset) in a scene from the Chevrolet commerical.

Chevy has a recurring television advertisement that features folks who racked up a lot of mileage on their Chevy trucks. They include Gary Wolfe, who the commercial identified as a social worker who had more than 200,000 miles on his blue Chevy Silverado.

“On the days we help someone move from the (homeless) shelter to permanent housing, those are the best days,” Wolfe says in the TV spot, which has been running since 2008.

We asked SocialWorkersSpeak.org readers to see if they could find the guy in the commercial. As usual SocialWorkersSpeak.org fans delivered! “Shawna” sent us an email saying Wolfe worked for the Austin Resource Center for the Homeless (ARCH)  in Texas.

So we contacted the folks at the center and a few weeks later Wolfe called us back to tell us how he landed the commercial gig.

Wolfe also told us that although the Chevy commercial identifies him as a social worker he is a case manager at the center, which serves 500 to 700 homeless people a day. The center also employs social workers, according to National Association of Social Workers Texas Chapter Director Vicki Hansen, LMSW-AP, ACSW.

This is how Wolfe got involved with Chevy. His wife went on a trip to Atlanta to visit a friend. That friend introduced her to another friend in advertising, who “friended” Wolfe’s wife on Facebook.

Later on this new friend sent Wolfe’s wife a message saying the company was looking for people who drove a Silverado truck for a commercial. Wolfe’s old truck fit the bill and soon he found himself in a commercial.

“It was real unusual — it happened really fast,” he said. “They weren’t looking for a social worker but anyone with an old Chevy Silverado.”

Wolfe, who grew up in Cleveland and served in the Air Force, said he still drives the truck but doesn’t use it for work as often as he once did. “Mostly I use it for fun stuff. I like to put a kayak on it every now and then and go fishing and camping.”

Clients at the shelter gave Wolfe a standing ovation for appearing on the commercial. Folks still walk up to him sometimes and ask, “Don’t I know you from somewhere,” not realizing at first they saw him on a Chevy commercial. And acquaintances Wolfe hasn’t seen in years will tell him they saw him on television.

Wolfe says he works with “a real steady crew” at the center. Their mission is to find homeless people with psychiatric conditions and assist them with getting mental care, health care and employment. In these economic times Wolfe admits their job has gotten busier.

“Most people are just a paycheck away from being out on the street,” he said. “We are seeing a lot more mothers and children than we’ve ever seen before. I have to admit that is disturbing.”

To learn more about how social workers help the homeless check out the resources available at the National Association of Social Workers’ Homelessness Web page section by clicking here. NASW’s “Help Starts Here” also features the ”Family Safety Real Life Stories – From Homelessness to Independent Living.”  To read it click here.

Ronnie Walker. Photo courtesy of Huffington Post.

Thanks to Huffington Post for carrying this article on Ronnie Walker, a homeless 14-year-old girl in Illinois who needs a lung transplant. Hopefully running the story will get Ronnie the help she needs.

The article mentions the work of social worker Carolyn Taren, LCSW, to find a permanent home for Ronnie.  Ronnie will need a stable environment after surgery, said Taren, who works for Loyola University Health System and is a National Association of Social Workers member.

“What keeps people alive is how they take care of themselves afterward,” Taren said.

Artist Kevin Malcolm Jones. Photo by Jeff Hinckley of the Columbus Dispatch.

There are many stories that show the power of social work. They include this one in Ohio’s Columbus Dispatch newspaper about a social worker who helped a homeless man pursue a long deferred dream to become an artist.

Cameron Holm, a social worker at Southeast Inc., noticed Kevin Malcolm Jones was a good sketch artist. So he got him counseling and connected him to an art workshop and gallery.

Now Jones’ work is being displayed in local galleries and being nominated for and winning awards. “This is my livelihood,” said Jones, who now lives in a subsidized apartment.

Kristin Ferguson. Photo courtesy of USC School of Social Work.

It is crucial to determine whether homeless young adults have suffered from more than one type of abuse, according to a recent study published in the December issue of the National Association of Social Workers’ Social Work Research journal (Volume 33, No. 4).

A sampling of 28 homeless young adults aged 18 to 24 found a majority suffered from a high rate of direct abuse (verbal, emotional, physical, and sexual) and indirect abuse where they witnessed such actions happening to others.

Kristin Ferguson, PhD, MSW, an associate professor at the School of Social Work at the University of South California, said her research will benefit researchers and practioners.

Researchers should assess for multiple forms of abuse in addition to the common measures of physical and mental abuse, she wrote. And practioners should be on the alert because even indirect abuse can cause depression and other symptoms in clients, Ferguson says.

The National Association of Social Workers offers members an array of cutting-edge publications. To subscribe to Social Work Research or purchase other NASW books and journals visit the NASW Press Web page by clicking here.

The main reason is that many shelters want the homeless to take mandatory drug programs to get a bed, according to sociologists Jason Wasserman and Jeffrey Michael Clair.

Wasserman is assistant professor of sociology in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work at Texas Tech University and Clair is associate professor of sociology in the Department of Sociology and Social Work at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

They published their research findings in a book, “At Home on the Street: People, Poverty and a Hidden Culture of Homelessness.”

“ It seemed the shelters dealt with addiction and mental illness almost exclusively,” Wasserman said. “That’s great if that’s your problem, but alienating if it’s not. One thing nearly all homeless people do want is jobs.”

To read a Newswise article on the research click here.

Melvin Morris talks to Robert Lewis about services available to him. Photo courtesy of the San Francisco Chronicle.

The San Francisco Main Library used to have a problem with the homeless, according to this article in the San Francisco Chronicle.

They would curse patrons and sometimes hang out in the bathrooms, doing drugs, washing in the sinks and having sex.

Did the library ban them? Nope. They hired social worker Leah Esguerra to provide them with services and referee disputes between library workers, patrons, and the homeless. If things gets hairy Esguerra will call security.

She also trains “health and safety associates,” formerly homeless people who are hired to monitor the bathrooms.

“I come from the same place they come from,” said Melvin Morris, 50, the first health and safety associate the library hired. “When I talk to them, they can’t believe I was actually homeless. I tell them they could do it, too.”

Want to learn more about how social workers help the homeless? Click here to read “Family Safety Real Life Stories – From Homelessness to Independent Living” on the National Association of Social Workers’ “Help Starts Here” Web site.

Jimmy Wayne. Photo by Jeff Christiansen of Associated Press.

Hats off to the Arizona Republic for this article on country singer Jimmy Wayne, who is walking from Nashville to Phoenix to help raise awareness about homelessness.

Wayne was a homeless teen himself. One of the people who helped him survive that period and succeed was social worker Carla Foy in Gastonia, N.C.. Foy is a National Association of Social Workers member.

“He loves to sing, he loves to write music and he’s good at it and has an obvious passion for it,” Foy said. “But I think his bigger passion is for people who are hurting, for people who are homeless, for kids in a system that he knows is flawed and needs attention and needs work.”

Social workers often help people in crisis, including teenagers and the homeless. To learn more, visit the NASW’s “Help Starts Here” Web page by clicking here.

Nolan worked with teenage mothers, at-risks girls, and homeless women through Catholic Charities, according to press reports. She was pursuing a masters degree in social work at Portland State  University.

To read her obituary in the Seattle Times click here. KGW News Channel 8 in Portland also covered the memorial service. To watch, click here.

Joyce Grangent. Photo courtesy of the Courier Press.

We like  this Courier Press article on former homeless woman Joyce Grangent. Grangent told the Evansville, Ind., newspaper that social workers helped her find Destination: Home, a 10-year-old program to end homelessness in that region.

“I had never heard of supportive housing until the social worker told me about it,” Grangent said. “If you are not connected to some social service agency, generally people walk around without knowing there is help out there.”

One of them is social worker Gary Wolfe, who racked up 204,738 miles on his slightly battered blue Chevy pickup.

“On the days we help someone  move from the shelter to permanent housing, those are the best days,” Wolfe says.

Q: We couldn’t find Gary Wolfe in our records. Do you know if he is still a social worker and where he practices?

Photo courtesy of the Redwood Times.

Hats off to the Redwood Times for its profile of Melissa Reynolds, a social worker who serves homeless youth in southern Humboldt County, California.

Reynolds said these youth don’t fall under the traditional homeless definition. Many are “couch surfers” who drift from home to home, seeking food and shelter where they can find it. Most are children of economically challenged or drug addicted parents who cannot care for them, she said.

Q: Are you serving more teen clients who are “couch surfers.” Do you think more social work programs should be targeted at such youth, who are often difficult to identify and serve?

Lenoose Martial stands next to one of his photos. Photo courtesy of CBC News.

Cheers to the CBC News for its article on social work students who organized a photography project for the homeless in Edmonton, the capital of Canada’s Alberta province.

More than a dozen homeless and formerly homeless people were given cameras to document their lives.

“We were blown away,” said Erin Bryksa, one of the social work students who organized the project. “I don’t think we anticipated that the photos were going to turn out as well as they did.”

“Though he couldn’t speak specifically about the teen mother’s case due to federal privacy laws, (South Washington) medical center spokesman Ken Cole said that when a homeless woman gives birth at Southwest, she is immediately connected with a social worker. From there, they work with places like Share, or Vida’s Ark, a teen shelter. They also work to get a mother signed up for Medicaid. Finally, a social worker from Washington Department of Social & Health Services will help her qualify for food stamps and cash assistance, he said. ‘They would not leave the hospital without resources,’ Cole said.”

Suzanne Wenzel. Photo/Brian Goodman.

University of Southern California School of Social Work Professor Suzanne Wenzel received almost $2 million in federal stimulus funds to study risky sexual behavior among homeless men.

Homeless men are at a higher risk of getting and spreading sexually transmitted diseases. And 83 percent of women  with HIV/AIDS were infected by men.

“Our study will move the field forward by shedding light on heterosexual HIV risk factors in a population that is among the most vulnerable and stigmatized in the United States and that has suffered from a dearth of attention from the scientific community,” Wenzel said.

To read more about Wenzel’s upcoming study click here.  And to find out how social workers help those with HIV/AIDS visit the National Association of Social Workers’ HIV/AIDS Spectrum Project Web page and “Help Starts Here” HIV/AIDS Web Page.

Brad Whipple, courtesy of the Des Moines Register.

Thanks to the Des Moines Register for its wonderful profile of Brad Whipple, director of the Iowa Homeless Youth Centers.  Brad is also a National Association of Social Workers member.

The article not only talked about how the center helps homeless youth transition to adulthood, but also educated the public on the life-affirming work social workers do each day.

For more information on how social workers help young people visit the NASW’s Children and Families section and “Help Starts Here” section on Kids and Families.