I am sitting here at work listening to a client screaming profanity of the most creative kind at the staff. She is upset, very upset and frustrated at not hearing from the housing agency on whether she was awarded a place to live.

I do not know if the hope for a better tomorrow pulsates in the heart of this client or if the hope is snuffed out with just another day of scamming, lying, cheating, drinking, smoking and scrapping.

I am sitting here at work listening to a client crying hysterically because she left her cell phone charging in the cafeteria to go to the bathroom and upon her return the phone was gone. Her anger and rage were not directed towards the loss of the phone but rather what the phone contained-the pictures of her son and lawyer contact.

I do not know if tomorrow will solve the location of her phone or if the loss of the pictures is the final push into severe depression and chemical abuse.

I am sitting here at work listening to a client singing a Whitney Houston song. She sings loudly off key and I secretly wish for earplugs to muffle the sound. But, I have no earplugs and the singing, (or more like a banshee in heat wailing) continues.

I do not know if tomorrow will bring the same happiness this client felt while singing or if the singing is replaced by extreme depressive outbursts once the drugs run out and wear off.

I am sitting here at work listening to the outside sounds of the neighbourhood I work in. It is a mixture of police and fire truck sirens, car horns blaring, garbage trucks rolling and loading, yelling and screaming with an occasional laugh thrown in.

I do know tomorrow will bring the same sounds, the same sensory abuse of the nerves and whether I am sitting at this desk or in another country, the same sounds will continue to repeat.

So goes another Monday morning of normal activity at the shelter. Rainy weather tends to brings out extreme emotional reactions as the clients are cooped up inside a cement block building with little activities to keep them occupied or distracted. The same holds for some of the staff who work in this same environment-forty hour a week.