'You just show up': Case managers work to keep drug users healthier, safer and free
LOS ANGELES — It was a brisk and gray Friday when Jason Sodenkamp parked his weathered Nissan Altima under a freeway overpass in East Hollywood and headed to meet the man he called Lucifer.
Lucifer had been his client for a few years after police officers referred the blue-eyed man with the devilish nickname to a program meant to keep him from heading back to prison. Its name was the Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion program, but Sodenkamp puts it more plainly with new clients: He's going to help them get stuff done that they want to get done.
For Lucifer, that was getting an ID, something he hadn't had for nearly two decades. Next he hopes it might be housing. In the meantime, Sodenkamp brings Lucifer clean syringes and boxes of naloxone — medication to reverse an opioid overdose — and asks what else he needs.
"He's the only one that gets me positive input," said Lucifer, who gave only his nickname, holding court outside an encampment draped with tarps. "It's easy to give up out here. It's harder to stick it out."
Under the LEAD program, which
