What is it like to be homeless

Assuming you are not mentally Ill or a drug addict, what is homelessness like (ie, you are homeless due to a lack of money and not due to psychological problems)? Does anyone have personal experience?

It is the second worst thing I have lived through.

I am not mentally ill, and I’ve not been a drug addict. I was a performing musician, until my equipment was stolen. Then, because I had not held a 9-5 job much, I could not find a job in the real world to save my life, for months on end. When I did get one, it would be the same each time: in Canada, they let you work for 89 days, then fire you so they don’t have to pay your unemployment insurance premiums and other goodies. It’s happened to everyone I know. During this time of employment, I would get a room in a rooming house, which was all I could afford. The other people in the building would steal my food and possessions while I was out. Then the job goes away, I can’t pay the rent, I haven’t paid any UI premiums, and I can’t get welfare. There is nowhere to go but to a hostel. I’ve not lived on the street, but I did spend much of the time between 1976 and 1990 in hostels in Toronto.

Once you get caught up in that system, it is extremely difficult to break out of it. It is the last refuge of the destitute. It is scary. It is demoralizing. It can be dangerous. If some other poor person doesn’t steal what you have so he can have something, the so-called religious benefactors will steal it from you if you turn your back on your possessions, or leave them by your bed while you go to the bathroom. And you’ll never get them back. You sleep in a dormitory with other hardcore homeless people, who may be alcoholics or drug addicts or mentally ill. The smell of a hostel dorm would turn your stomach. Body odor, rancid socks, dirty clothes, the smell of the cheapest rolling tobacco and booze and vomit. And the snoring will drive you mad if you don’t wear earplugs. They wake you up at 5 AM and you must be out of the building at 6, even if it’s 30 below zero. You line up in the cold with your meal ticket to wait to be fed something that can only be called food in the sense that it isn’t dirt or cardboard boxes. Then you go over to the temp work agency and wait to see if you can get some work. No? You have all day in which to do nothing. But you must be back no later than 11 PM, or you are locked out, even if you have a bed reserved. I spent the coldest night of one of those years in a stairwell at the Eaton Center.

You have to find somewhere to go during the day. In a city, they have malls. Mall security will try to keep out the rather obvious “bums”, but if you look reasonably harmless, you can wander or sit for awhile, then you have to go somewhere else. I walked everywhere, for miles and miles every day. I was down to 125 pounds at one point, from all the walking, and malnutrition. It makes no sense for you to apply for jobs, because you have no permanent address and no way for them to contact you. There is no way to get welfare to use the money to get a room, because you must have an address where a caseworker can visit you to verify that you live somewhere, before you can apply for welfare. Essentially, you are stuck where you are.

In Toronto, there are three main hostels. You have to keep shuffling between them, because there is a limit to how long they will let you stay at each one. So you keep shuffling back and forth, learn where the soup kitchens are, where the church is that has a place you can go hang out, maybe fall asleep reading the paper for awhile, buy a cup of tea if you have a nickel. Try to get some temp work. I did hundreds of temp jobs. Come away with $30 at the end of the day. Buy some real food, or stuff that’s a luxury, like gum or a can of Coke. Next day, same thing, over and over and over. When it became noticeable to me that I was becoming “one of those people”, I had to foist myself upon my mother and stay with her until I recovered and could get welfare to get my own place so I could look for a job, or at least be on welfare until I could find work. And then, the whole goddamned scene would play itself over again. Jesus Christ, it sucked. You just can’t imagine. But it was not continuous for a decade and a half. I did get work and had stretches of relative normalcy, even mild prosperity, but it would all go to shit eventually, and I’d be back where I started. It changes your mindset about your fellow man, and not always for the better. Nowadays, I don’t worry about bothersome people, because I have been fucked around by experts.

I got out of the system in such a wonderful and unexpected way, that now I don’t take any unnecessary risks so that I can stay alive and unhurt to thoroughly enjoy what I have now, for another day. Because I’ve got the dream wife and the dream job, in paradise where it doesn’t snow, and I’ve got toys and computers and tools and friends and some measure of respect from those closest to me. It wasn’t always that way. There is nobody who appreciates what he has any more than I do, knowing what I used to have, and who I used to be. I got what I always wanted, but the dues I had to pay to get it were unbelievably harsh. It is these experiences that make me who I am. I met a well-known black blues performer once, while I was playing at a club. He heard me playing, and came over to say, partly in jest “White people aren’t supposed to be that sad.” I didn’t copy my blues licks from Eric Clapton, boy, they come from inside.

I have every reason to believe that if I was still in Canada, the same shit would still be happening to me. I love the United States of America, and what they let me become. So don’t feel bad for me, I’m OK now. Look at whom I count among my peers - you guys!

I promise to post something fresh, but in the mean time search for threads with “homeless” in the title; we’ve done this before.

Oh man, I was practically moved to tears reading your post fishbicycle, especially as a fellow musician. We see homeless people all the time, and sometimes we help them out, but we rarely hear about their trials and tribulations directly from them–we certainly don’t ask, and most people don’t want to know. We assume the worst, of course, but nothing can prepare us for the harsh truth. I am so glad you escaped that vicious cycle and are doing so well and are so happy today. Interestingly, I always assumed that the poor and homeless in Canada might have an “easier” time of it than in the U.S., due to the socialized welfare and health care systems we hear about all the time. I guess that is not the case.

Well, once upon a time there was a very nice thread in which people who had been homeless told their stories, but I can’t find it now.

I did find these posts/threads in the process of looking for it:

my own story, stuffy

I speak as an alumnus of the streets myself, AHunter3

from OpalCat

regarding shelters from AHunter

You wake up in a gutter with only the clothes on your back, how to rebuild your life?


Although it takes place during the 1920s, George Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London is pretty entertaining.

Thanks for the kind words, Lou. No tears, now. Yes, it was sad, and so was I, but I knew that there would be a way out of that mess, and when I found out what it was, I was going to latch onto it for all I was worth. And I did.

It wouldn’t be so bad if the system that is in place to help the homeless was not also geared to keep them that way. As I read in one of the posts Al linked to, it’s like industrialized warehousing of the homeless, and all the people who are in charge are entry-level social worker graudates who haven’t got any clue what it’s like on the other side of the bulletproof glass. They come to despise the very people they are supposed to be helping. They make up arbitrary rules that make little or no sense, and which serve only to confound and enrage the people who need the help the most.

It is the religious organizations I had to deal with that cemented my atheism. If these people were truly religious and had genuine love and concern for their fellow man at heart, they would not treat you like the scum of the earth, the bane of their existence, or what-have-you. They would not take away your only clothes and the picture of your mother when you’ve left the room for a minute. They become like inner-city policemen - hardened to what they see every day, with a total absence of compassion. They use religion as a front to get tax breaks and cash from politicians. But there is very little of that “do unto others” they’re supposed to espouse.

On the other hand, they have seen it all. They’ve had to put up with every bullshit story under the sun from people trying to con something from them. It becomes so that there are no individual cases that may merit different handling from any other. Everybody who comes to them is trash, and they are not afraid to let you know it. In my experience, they revel in it. I’ve seen the guys behind the glass bust out laughing when one of them has turned somebody away, and he leaves angry and crying to go out in the snow at 11:01 PM - he was a minute late. I’m getting mad thinking about it again, so I’m going to stop here.

Wow, fishbicycle, that’s brutal. I’m so glad you finally got everything you wanted (and rightly deserved, after all that!!). You said that was the second worst thing you’ve been through. I’m afraid to ask what the first was. :frowning:

Getting beaten up by my father for 13 of 15 years I had to spend with him. That’s how I ended up homeless in the first place. I had to escape.

Grand Central Winter, by Lee Stringer is an excellent book on the topic. It really gave me some insight and understanding regarding the situation.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0671036548/qid=1105389929/sr=2-2/ref=pd_ka_b_2_2/002-1235813-1611267

Another oneWho’s been homeless?

My post from that thread.

So, Wes, did you get any of your questions answered? The other people on the boards who have been homeless didn’t join the discussion, but their past threads were linked to. I was curious whether you had any comments or questions.

I did a lot of walking. Homeless for three months, I stayed in shape by walking…, all day long.

I did do a lot of dishes and other household chores that earned me a roof to sleep under, so I only spent about 6 or 7 nights on the street. Bitchin’ summer.

You need to be a sociable chap.