Homelessness

[Eolas Pellor]

I am reposting this from another thread, since a couple of people seemed to think it was a good idea.

... when I was working at a school that served a fair population of "street kids", someone asked me about Thanksgiving, and this is what I told them:

A recipe for Thanksgiving.

1) Sleep all night in your clothes, in a room with 50 or 60 strangers, many with psychiatric problems, many with substance abuse problems, and many with violent urges.

2) Wake at 6:00 a.m. and immediately go out to the street.

3) Head down to the business district, hoping to panhandle enough to get a breakfast sandwich. When you get there, discover it is a public holiday, and that you will have to skip breakfast that day

4) Head over to a Church, and when the congregation leaves, around 11:00, see if you can persuade any of them to give you a few coins.

5) Get a $500 citation from the police for "persistent and aggressive panhandling." Realize that you are going to have to skip lunch today.

6) See if you can find any of your friends, the ones who haven't been arrested, forced to move on, intimidated by criminals or dead from overdoses. If you can, see if you can pool whatever money you have managed to beg or find and buy something to take the gnawing pain of hunger away. If you don't have enough to eat, see if you have enough to buy some pot, so that you can at least lift your mood.

7) Line up outside whatever church or mission is serving Thanksgiving Dinner. Give up your space at least once to a mother with a small child, a WWII vet who really should be in a retirment home but who hasn't got enough money to pay for it, a guy who lost his legs or someone with cancer. After a 3 hour wait, get to the door as they run out of food.

8) Since it is now too late to get a shelter bed for the night, look round for a good doorway or alcove where you can sleep for the night. Hope that it is dry, and that you can find some cardboard.

9) As you begin to drift off to sleep, remember to give thanks.

I miss quoted myself on the last bit, when I checked. I should have written:

9) As you begin to drift off to sleep, hungry and cold remember to give thanks... things could be worse.

"Be seeing you..."

[Eolas Pellor]

Originally Posted by Rev. Kelly
How awful. I can't imagine an adult having to tolerate that much less a child. Is there something that we can do to help out??

Be aware that this is really happening, in every major city. I know lots of people don't like to give money directly to pan-handlers, particularly street-youth (I understand the fear that they will use the money to buy drugs/alcohol, and thus that you will be aiding them to hurt themselves... but addictions don't go away because you didn't give someone a quarter, after all!) If you want to help indirectly, then give a donation to agencies that provide health assistance to the homeless (they frequently die of very preventable causes for lack of money to obtain common medications, and lack of diagnosis), or to a group that provide coats/sleeping bags and raingear to the homeless.

Don't allow yourself to be swayed by news media that frequently demonize the homeless in general, street-youth and panhandlers in particualr. Realize that no one in their right mind prefers the street to having a place of their own; and no young person is on the street simply because they won't accept their parents' "rules" -- the level of abuse, neglect and indifference that these kids endure before they choose the street is truly infernal. (I have spent many a sleepless night trying to deal with some of the things they have told me.)

"Be seeing you..."
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this is also taken from the original thread.

[metis]

Nice post, EP.

Shalom,
Vern

[modus_tollens]

Originally Posted by Eolas Pellor

Be aware that this is really happening, in every major city.

indeed it is really happening... I used to be homeless myself.

[Eolas Pellor]

Originally Posted by modus_tollens

indeed it is really happening... I used to be homeless myself.

...that you and EH got through it. It bothers me, though, how many people don't want to face it, don't want to think about it. Here in Ontario, at a time when homelessness has rarely been worse, it managed to drop off the radar entirely in the recent election.

And, of course, nearly everyone in North America is about 2 months away from being homeless, even though most do not know it.


"Be seeing you..."

[norwood1026]

I too was once homeless I spent a total of six months living on the street. Some people don’t panhandle they go to labor halls hoping to find some work for that day. The shelters I stayed in kick you out at 4 Am & expect you to find a job. The labor halls pay you about $30.00 a day maybe more once you got enough to get a motel that you can pay weekly in you make just enough to buy food & just enough to pay rent.
Its easy to get caught up living like that & a lot of them stay there. No major bills just making enough to pay rent & have a roof over your head. There is no easy answer to the homeless problem unless you’ve been down that road your guessing at best.

[ShyLady]

Originally Posted by norwood1026

I too was once homeless I spent a total of six months living on the street. Some people don’t panhandle they go to labor halls hoping to find some work for that day. The shelters I stayed in kick you out at 4 Am & expect you to find a job. The labor halls pay you about $30.00 a day maybe more once you got enough to get a motel that you can pay weekly in you make just enough to buy food & just enough to pay rent.
Its easy to get caught up living like that & a lot of them stay there. No major bills just making enough to pay rent & have a roof over your head. There is no easy answer to the homeless problem unless you’ve been down that road your guessing at best.

My dad used to be an alcoholic, my whole childhood, which is what started the liver cancer breading inside of him. He waited in line for jobs. Always slept in a mission. He was used to doing these things because he had been orphaned when he was 6 years old and running away from foster homes and family members of his parents all of his young life. He was mostly used to riding on rail road cars to get out of any given town he grew tired of.

When he got married to my mom he would always get a permanant job and keep a place to live for us all. When they divorced I wouldn't see him for a long time and then he would come in and out of our lives with jobs trying to keep a place for us to be able to come stay with him on the weekends. It was hard for him, but as a child I never knew that.

When I grew up and have my own life and my own children my dad had stopped drinking and for the last 20 years lived a sober life. He went to dalton Georgia to the work lines, day labor. He lived in a mission sometimes, but mainly kept a place to live for himself and my youngest sister who was considered his baby even on up into her adult life. When he died at the age of 72 years old he had no home (which he had always struggled to have) and he had no car--which he had always had and never did with out all of his grown life--and he was stuck. He hated to come and live with me, because he said I lived in the middle of nowhere, in the country and not the city. He died in a nursing home in the city which is where he wanted to be, because the children he wanted to be with were homeless themselves.......