I blog that one of my friends found - interesting reading.

http://stephanieericssonconfessions.blogspot.com/


Just a snippet:

"Tuesday, July 28, 2009
It’s Time You Knew

Lost My Voice

Now I understand why we don't hear too much from the homeless, themselves.

I can't find my voice. I don't want to talk to anyone. I don't want to write. I can't find my voice. Every time I start, I choke up.

I never realized how much energy it takes to have no ground. No corner where you belong. It absorbs all my energy. There is no place where I can just BE. Nowhere where I'm not imposing on someone, or doing something illegal. I'm not sure, but I think that sleeping in your car is illegal. I'm terrified that if I sleep in my car, in the middle of the night I'll get a flashlight in my face and a cop who's got nothing else to do that night but harass me. Be arrested for public loitering. I'm scared all the time that I'm infringing on someone's space, or that someone is going to hurt me. If I sleep in my car, will some thugs looking for cheap entertainment find me? I don't sleep well at all because I have no bed. Right now, I'm staying at my daughter's on her couch and it's awful. I wake up with my chronic pain throbbing in all the old familiar places."

my Dad refused to stay in the shelter in Petaluma, California with us. He would drive off onto some dirt road and sleep in the van and then come pick us up in the morning for school/work. My Dad is very loyal in his way, but in the end will always be about himself. It is what it is, and people come to terms with something earth shattering like being homeless in different ways.

To me it was not so humiliating as profoundly hostile..every place is somewhere that you are impinging on the good graces of someone else just to be allowed to "be" there. You are a welcome guest..but like with any host you are advised not to wear out your welcome. And that is actually a pretty easy thing to do.

It forces you to adopt a wary posture that is quite distinct and at odds with the breezy manner most people make their way through their day-to-day existence. Its eye-opening and then some.

It becomes impossible not to attribute a certain crassness to the everyday world..but, ironically, a crassness that you are also completely enveloped in yourself (hard not to sneer or recoil from hobos and whinos and the obviously mentally ill people on the streets)

It is also very debilitating socially in ways that are obvious and also ways that are almost impossible to articulate. I know this is a little indiscreet, but imagine being a teenage boy with no stable home for months at a time..teenage boys have certain *ahem* urges..it is really uncomfortable doing *that* in a public restroom..

I get where she's coming from anyway. My Dad used to lay a $5 bill on the dash of the van every morning and that was what we were going to live off that day. I don't think he included gasoline and a few other things..mainly that was food and drink money and stuff like that. We used to get Get-Em-N-Go burgers (get em n shit em) for 39c and 3 liters of RC Cola for 99c that we drank out of 64oz plastic cups (big gulps). You had to go to certain stores to get the long straws for those..sometimes we forcibly pieced together two regular straws.

There is a strange freedom to that lifestyle, and I can even see the romanticism for single dudes of a certain age..but it is no kinda life for families.

Shit sucks

he was abusive. It happens at all income levels. I left in the middle of the night barely clothed. I had my own car, job, and of all places went to stay with his parents. I guess I felt safe there because I knew they wouldn't be tricked into letting him in. It taught me about material possessions for sure, I didn't care what was left behind.

It sorted out pretty quickly within a few weeks. I got a lawyer, got out of the lease, and moved in with friends. I was able to leave the friends eventually & into a nice, secure building. But I also had a very good job with a base over $50K and nearly unlimited overtime. Also quite a lot of travel. I was divorced before I knew it and on with my life (thankfully no kids at that time - I was young).

But I remember some of those feelings of imposing on others, not having anything of my own, having to rebuild.

Very reluctant to talk about it. Also tired of being told that one shouldn't be reluctant to talk about it. You are certain to be lectured, thought less of, given all sorts of useless "advice," pitied and patronized - for starters.

I relate to everything that the blogger and the Kid said.

Now do me a favor and please forget that I said I had recently been homeless. Bet you can't.

parked in my Aunts yard for 3 or 4 weeks..they didn't actually invite us in or anything. I think they considered it similar to another relative who came down in his Winnebago and lived in that, using them mainly to plug in and get water I guess

There are alot of difficulties -- getting dressed in the McDs bathroom for instance. Gotta get up early before all of the bathroom traffic. Studying in the morning before school at the IHOP, that is really lame. Dennys too, because Dennys at that time had the 1.99 Are You Outta Your Mind? deal going.

Hard to make friends that way too. One time I called this girl who wrote me a love note from the payphone at the public library. I didn't have much change and my frickin time ran out!! before her Mom would even put her on the phone. Needless to say, lame.

We used to sit in the parking lot at Meijers in Grand Rapids waiting for my Mom to get off from the night shift. We'd watch some tiny little TV plugged into the cigarette lighter. You'd be surprised how hot it gets in Michigan -- there is about three weeks or so of really bad humidity each year and that is killer let me tell you.

We made money finding crushed coke cans, uncrushing them a little and running them through the recycling machines for 10c each. One time I got into a shoving match with one of the stock boys about this. The Geek we called him, and believe me he was the epitome of geekdom. We'd also run around after school collecting cans before the janitor made his rounds. I think we once found a $30 ticket that someone forgot to pull from the recycling machine, which was like some kind of miracle from heaven.

Actually the day I took my ACT exams my brother went around the school building can hunting.

You live for the small things in times like that. We were especially into Spartan basketball..that year Mateen Cleaves had really come into his own as the team leader and he would go on to become an MSU legend. Nick Saban was giving then an identity in football, leading to one of the biggest thrills for us the next year when they beat #1 Ohio State with an incredible second half on defense. Quoth John "Coop" Cooper: they were a good team the day we played 'em

I don't think I ever realized how vulnerable we were: if the van broke down we were F-U-C-K-E-D. I know we had a close call with the water pump one time. And, man, we went through some real fucking blizzards in Colorado Springs. No van=no heat. We had a dog and a cat in tow as well. We lost one cat on the road leaving Florida, but the other made the entire year and a half trip and made it back safe and sound. The van was his home all that time, and when he took a shit in his box we all knew about it. The dog Missy had diabetes and had to get insulin shots, and it also affected her self control..she barked constantly and was always spazzing out. She eventually sprinted out of the van onto the road and got hit by an oncoming car. One of the saddest things in my life.

So many little details that stay vivid in your mind

There is a difference between sympathy and solidarity. In my work we think that people's stories are important. The face of our organization needs to be the low wage and immigrant workers whose lives are the most obviously effected by "So many little details that stay vivid in your mind".

Many of the campaigns that are sympathetic toward these kinds of stories result in trying to provide shelter for those without. The campaigns that focus on solidarity, try to make the stories the rationale for why the shelters shouldn't exists.

Edit to add : Of course, we would and have argued that we need more shelters, but they wouldn't be necessary if..

those should NOT exist period. The bottom line is that families are going to avoid them like the plague if they are going to insist on breaking the family up before they "help"

Solidarity not sympathy, great line. How can we fix this problem the bleeding hearts lament? You can't. Thats the fucking point. No amount of sympathy in the world is going to "fix" this shit. Gotta stand together, first, last, and always.

that's why I was willing to talk a little about that earlier marriage. It is similar - when you say that you've been in an abusive relationship it's weird how people react. I don't know if they don't know what to say, they pity you, or think less of you. I usually don't talk about it, even though it's been many years now and seems like a lifetime ago. Same thing, those who read it and know me will not forget they read it.

they separate children from their parents? How does that work? Who looks after them? That is insane.

Do you think that people should just be able to have a family for free? Is that the utopia you are advocating? People have never had families for free. That is human nature, the way it has always been. People who can't afford families shouldn't have them. Those who insist on having families when they can't afford them are just asking for trouble. So we give them trouble. Because they asked for it. For their own good. Just what is your alternative system? What are your concrete and practical plans to change this? I think people each need to work hard on themselves to become better people. They need to improve themselves, so they make more money and become winners and successful - through free enterprise. Then people will be able to afford families. Call me a free enterprise family values kinda guy. But you probably are disloyal to our cause and disagree with that, even though you cannot offer us any realistic alternative and just copy and paste Marx.

and I'm banning them myself, admin or not. ;)

I can see the similarity.

Not going to have people doing this shit on a thread about homeless people. Not going to happen.

I wasn't serious. Get off this thread.

Take it somewhere else.

regarding your views on the Third Reich

concerning the willfully obtuse? This shit is looking like an Abbot & Costello bit to me, but less funny.

Maybe you will learn something. Although I won't hold my breath waiting for that to happen.

And it ain't nothin' but luck, lucky to have a parent alive when I hit the skids, lucky to have a friend who took me in when I hit utter rock bottom and needed to flee my hometown.

I have found myself in the position of host. On a couple occasions we have taken in my sweetie's brother for months at a time. All of the above said about such situations is true, to say that it can be awkward is a vast understatement. Even with the best intentions in the world the person(s) staying with you is a guest and they know it, acutely. So they tend to tip toe around you and you can't help but notice that. I'll do it again in a heartbeat, the host's pathetic discomfort is nothing to the demeaning situation of the guest. Nobody should have to go through that.

don't apply this standard to me. I am a total mooch and may never leave :D

I invited my brother to stay after he lost his mortgage banker job. It was the best - he wasn't a banker anymore & my kids would get to know their uncle (who had been living way out in CA). I was so excited! Unfortunately he left within 2 months. I don't think he liked them jumping on him in the morning to wake him up!

ETA - Should add that I'm mostly joking for those of you who don't know me. He only had the kids jumping on him one morning, then we turned the den into a guest room for him. It has a computer/printer so I think it helped a lot in terms of printing resumes, etc... I don't know how all that gets done in a shelter. I imagine he felt weird being in a family environment since he's single, but at least it saved him a couple month's worth of rent & assorted expenses. He stayed until he found a job he was happy with. I really was thrilled to have him here. That was a few years ago so jobs were a little more plentiful.

Take a good stab at it so we can have a better version when we move over to the new software.

and I'm sure for you these are just a few points. You could probably write pages. What really amazes me is that the aunt didn't invite you in. It always amazes me when family members turn on their own. I'm sure I have some who would do the same.

my dad is a huge fucking jerk towards his family, its a miracle they let us even park in their driveway. My Dad is still stewing because my Aunt got the car when their Dad (my grandfather) passed away. The car was worth like $1000 max.