And I'm still a bit homeless today!

Being A Bit Homeless Today

      I live on the Social Security check sent to me each month; and that's all I have.  I've been on welfare (another Memoir item) but with the social security stipend I try to make ends meet.  But of course the checks don't. Rent takes up my major monthly expense. 

     I supplement the food I get from the Salvation Army Family Center by means of a free dinner with the lunch I take twice a week at a Senior Center in El Paso, for which I make a donation, and the food I buy and keep in my room.  Then there's need for clothing, physical maintenance incidentals and the like I pay for as needed.  So much for this month's social security stipend.

     I have Medicare (thank God for it!) that I have used from time to time.  But when there's a real medical problem requiring the care from physician and hospital, I have practically nothing!  I'm put in the category of the homeless and indigent.  Oh yes, hospitals want money to pay for my expenses and I do what I can, but by and large, I must rely on the goodwill of health resources that are available to me, part of the class of the indigent.  LA was the most understanding of people like me, who can't afford to pay steep medical care costs and live from day-to-day.  Yet as I say, their medical care has gone "down-hill" in my opinion.

     Nevertheless, being next to homeless isn't all that bad.  There's free entertainment, the free public library, the UTEP library, and occasional outings. 

     Still, at the core of the issue is I'm next to homeless.  I must always be prepared for actually becoming homeless.  I know what homeless shelters in the area I can go to, etc.  You know the motto, "Always be prepared!"

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Living Homeless  

    1. I think the best homeless shelter I've lived in was the Mission Rock Shelter in San Francisco run by the city under Mayor Willie Brown.  I stayed there in the Senior Quarters twice or more times in the early 2000s for an accumulated tenure of one and a half years.  A great shelter, despite the fact that the police would come by nearly every night looking for offenders.  It housed over 700 people per night, and I think it was well run.  They closed the shelter to construct the parking lot for the SF Giants Baseball team.

     What a convenience that shelter was, though actually in an inlet bay.  You could walk from downtown easily or at the end of my time there, I could take the subway.  They fed us dinner, and we could watch TV in English or Spanish.  In the morning, I would go to Grace Cathedral (where I became a member despite being homeless) for Eucharist and stop by for a Danish and coffee at a local market.  Gee, those were memorable days.  Then I'd go over to the downtown Public Library and do something or other--read a book, I think they allowed me to get on to Internet.  By special permission from the Shelter, I was able to attend events, e.g., a class at Grace Cathedral.  I think we had to be in by 6 P.M. as I remember. 

     Some homeless got into the Episcopal Sanctuary.  You had to enter a lottery pool and see if your number had come up.  Too an unsettling experience for me.

   2. In Santa Barbara, I needed to stay at a shelter on and off the times I spent there.   I liked the one near the beach the best, but it was hard to get into and I don't think they wanted an old person like me.  Usually, they wanted the people who stayed there to work at some chore around the place.  When I stayed at this particular shelter, they had some really comfortable oversized leather chairs that were just a delight to be in and watch the people come and go.  The beds were comfortable too.

     While in Santa Barbara, I had a pleasant routine.  I'd go for breakfast, then visit my locker in a storage facility, go around town via bus, maybe go out to a neighboring town, use the library (of course), and in the afternoons before going back to the shelter, go for coffee downtown, enjoying State Street scenery.  I tell you it was a delight, living in a shelter.  I finished reading many a book during my stays in SB.  The reason I kept going back is that I had first lived on welfare in Santa Barbara and stayed at a delightful facility for the poor. (But I left to go down to LA for a first time and lost my room.  It was no big deal because the guy I shared a room with snored something awful.)   Oh, at lunch, I would go back to the shelter for a most delicious experience! Gee, they served great lunches there; and it attracted the homeless far and wide.

     When I could no longer get into the shelter near the Beach, I went to the Rescue Mission shelter.  I attended the church service required of each person who stayed at this shelter.  They featured bunk double beds and the dorm was really drafty, but okay.  Food was not a memorable as the shelter nearest the beach, but I spent some pleasant times there.  The daytime routine was the same regarded where I stayed at night.

     Living in a shelter, you can't bring much luggage.  In Santa Barbara, everybody who could used a storage facility locker to keep what you didn't want to carry.  Indeed, as a general rule, living a shelter means you've become immobilized to anything other than enjoying the out-of-doors and reading.  While many shelters offer computers for use, the public libraries generally do not and you may be kept off internet.  It's just a time to relax and hope something will come up that puts you back into the social scheme of things.  In Omaha, Nebraska, I noted the libraries permitted the homeless to use their computers on a daily sign-in basis.

     3.  In Washington, DC, I stayed at several shelters.  The best was Franklin School near 14th and K--would you believe such a nice neighbor.  They permitted the homeless to stay out, once they registered, until 10 P.M.; the beds were nice and the people who worked there understanding and friendly.  We watched TV, too.  It closed--for one reason, they had a problem of bed bugs, though I was never bothered by them.

    Another good shelter was CCNV--hard to get in, though.  It is on 2nd Street and E, I believe.  Church groups would come by and hand out food and goodies some nights a week.  The problem there was they had bunk beds and crowded conditions--so if someone around you was really sick, germs could migrate over to other beds.

    I understood there were some good shelters in Virginia, if you knew where to go. 

   But the other shelters--like on 14th Street, run by church funded organizations--were terrible.  I just watched TV and slept at those places.  Horrible and condescending to the poor, in my opinion.

    In DC I enjoyed National Cathedral and other churches, such as St. Stephen's.  It was fun to visit the park on 7th Street, the Zoo, and on and on.  Don't forget the Kennedy Center that has nightly free entertainment.  What a city; such a delight.  It's a shame that if you're homeless, you must pass by the splendors of that city.  And the city has become really expensive to rent a place, so the poor too are being driven out.

     But the homeless shelter that literally drove me out of DC the last time was the New York Avenue Shelter, run by the Catholics.  It's the one place where I found the inmates controlled the "asylum!"  I hadn't known that the bed assigned to me by the staff was a favorite of one of the homeless.  He claimed that I was sleeping in his bed all night long; the guards apparently were oblivious to the strife going on there; and ultimately, blamed me for something or other.  The food was ok; it must be because the same homeless people claim their squatter's rights to their beds months upon months upon months, I learned finally.  That one gruesome night was enough for me.  It's the shelter, too, that caters to the many homeless, so it's busy.

    4.  In Honolulu, Hawaii there's the great homeless shelter HMS downtown by the K-Mart.  Though guests must sleep on mats on the floor, the place is terrific.  You meet people from all over the world, e.g., Australia, New Zealand.  The food is very good, supplemented by the leftovers of the nearby restaurants.  They try to help people get into the mainstream of the Island as much as possible.  The libraries are pleasant places to read and converse.  The scenery is fantastic, especially the ocean sights.  However, the dwellers there don't like the homeless.

     St. Andrew's Episcopal Church features a service for the poor and a delightful dinner on Sunday afternoon.  There's plenty of places to rest on the beach or nearby the beach.

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Being a bit homeless has the advantage of eating at dinnertime with families and seeing the antics of the kids awhile nearly every day, a premium pleasure!