On a Friday morning like any other, Brian Brewer got the news he had been waiting more than 12 years for: He was finally getting housing.
Over the past seven years, the U.S. Marine Corps veteran could usually be found in front of the CVS drugstore in San Luis Obispo, California, on the corner of Marsh and Broad streets, perched on his milk crate with his faithful black Labrador mix, Admiral, nearby.
That Friday morning, however, Brewer left his stomping ground behind for the last time, trading in his milk crate for his new home in Broad Street Place, a newly opened People's Self-Help Housing affordable apartment complex.
“When we were getting ready to leave CVS with all the junk you haul around and the broken carts, I told my daughter, ‘Go take it to a dumpster,'” Brewer told The Tribune. “It was just like a godsend — we couldn't wait.”
Brewer said he found his new home over the course of around two years of working with — and slowly learning to trust — Nathan Rubinoff, a Community Action Partnership of San Luis Obispo case manager who noticed Brewer at CVS.
Rubinoff said his two years of work with Brewer have shown him how important it is to understand the unique needs of clients who are historically resistant to accepting services.
Brewer “maybe was a little adamant that he didn't want services when we first met,” Rubinoff said.
“I just knew that was how he was that day,” he said, “and I was just coming back each day and giving…
