Or Musings of a Tired Mind...
You may be wondering why I created this blog? Call it therapy, call it rantings of a tired mind, call it whatever you like...
As you may have guessed this won't be your usual blog. It will be short-term (a few weeks) without any fancy links in and out to increase my popularity. It will run for a few weeks or until... When the blog stops, you'll know I either found a place, or couldn't bum internet access anymore.
I recently became homeless in New York City and before you ask no it wasn't drugs or alcohol, it was family and finances. Yes, there are sane people who find ourselves in insane situations. The first thing you notice, is even on the streets, is there is a class system in America. There are what I call the professional homeless, those people (men and especially women) who wouldn't get a job or make a better life for themselves, even if you paid them. Probably many of them former welfare recipents who wouldn't get a job when they changed over from "welfare to work". Euphorism for "we can legally fuck you and you better like it." Then there's the working poor. Recently while sitting on a bench in the park, I watched a "welfare to work" mother pushing a baby stroller, while cleaning up a park. They are legally paying her about $.70 per hour, while the minimum wage in this country is $5.15 an hour. It was 6:30 in the morning, the temperature was nippy and here is this woman with her small child out there. It made my wonder for whose benefit was this? Surely not the child's. The woman doesn't earn enough to afford a baby sister, how are you are to end the cycle of poverty? The welfare to work rules were signed by former President Clinton to try to end the cycle of poverty. Newsflash people, it isn't working. Now you are condemning thousands of people, particularly children to new hardships. It remains me of the saying while the rest of the world gets rich, the poor get poorer. No where than in New York City is that more true. NYC condemns sweatshops, yet pays these people, mostly women, $.70 a hour. My fellow fashionably homeless girlfriend condemned this woman, but I saw a woman faced with an ultimatimum, work or lose your benefits altogether, so here she is pushing a broom with one hand and a baby stroller with the other.
Back to the classes, there's the above 50 group, too young for social security, too old for society to give a shit. They're the ones digging through garbage cans for leftovers, because they don't know where their next meal will come. Bag women talking to themselves. Probably somebody's mother in a goneby era, forgotten now, just as we forget last weeks' favorite boy band. The men of this group are easily recognizable for their silver-haired and backpacks. Many are on bicycles with sleeping bags tied to their backs. Then there's the odder group of men with baby carriages. Yes, baby carriages. I know what you are thinking you're girlfriend can't even get your to push your kid around in a baby carriage. But here they are big, grown men, pushing all their belongings around in previously discarded baby carriages. (More about them later.)
Of course, there's the mentally ill, drug addicts, prostitutes and crack addicts. And then there's us - the roast chicken eating, cell phone carrying fashionably homeless - as a woman I met at the shelter coined us. Newbies, we are the upwardly mobile, that's if our lives weren't currently going downhill, folks formerly employed or veterans, who may have lost our jobs or homes for various reasons and now find ourselves among the throngs of the walking invisible. You see, when you're homeless, you're only visible if you are begging for money, smell bad or are making noise on the streets (talking to yourself). Other than that, everyone looks at you with pity or disdain, if they see you at all. I say at all, because I woman recently told me she didn't realize there were any homeless in her neighborhood while I saw the same faces everyday - the frail old woman digging through garbage cans, the 3 homeless dudes on bikes, and the man with willowly thin hair, who even if he was a client, Rogaine couldn't save.
When you're homeless, you become as strategic as any military commander. The most important thing in the field is bathrooms, especially if you are a woman. My friend, bolder than me, took to shitting in public parks. Not one of her proudest moments. She called me too much of a lady, I used gas stations. The second thing you should know, mother nature is not your friend. New York City shelters pride themselves in being humanitarian. News fucking flash, there is nothing humane about having to leave an indoor dwelling at 6:30 in the morning in whatever weather Mother Nature throws at you. It could be raining, snow, extremely hot or cold, but you are forced to leave and fend for yourself no matter what the weather conditions. I stayed at a place called Sisters of Mercy, where during a recent hurricane, downgraded to tropical storm, I failed to see the mercy as my cup of hot coffee quickly turned to ice and my clothes, laden with water, became like anchors around my waist and it wasn't even 7:00 o'clock in the morning yet.
When you are homelessness, people you've known for years, who you know can help you and they know they can help you, suddenly turn a deaf ear. I had a friend, with a three bedroom apartment - a rarity in New York City. He's not married, doesn't have kids and isn't gay, although he's been living with the same guy for 17 years. These two guys have a spare bedroom, loaded with junk, including an old bed, they don't use. You think I could get a place to stay even for a few days, while I made other arrangements, think again. And with the exception of the Catholic Church, community churches won't help you either, unless you are a member. I went to one church recently in Harlem to ask for help, and you would have thought I was a leper with sores or scabs. The Catholic Church, regardless of sex scandals, is the only place to get help. So I urge anyone out there, despite what you think of them, despite the sex scandals, give to the Catholic Church, because they make it count with soup kitchens, food pantries and shelters. All my life I was raised Baptist so of course I went to them first. What a joke. I didn't get any more than contempt and a lecture. Not useful when you're hungry, tired and homeless. Forget passion of the christ, Compassion doesn't exist in the church, it exist in the hearts and minds of good people out there - individuals with a conscious. The church, regardless of domination, is an business, an institution out to make money. And they do that by converting you to their way of thinking. No better than a beggar on the streets, they hold out their hand or a collection plate every sunday, but ask them for a hand and see what you get.
I'm tired now, but I haven't even begun to stratch the surface of my adventures. Future blogs will include topics on "It's 10 o'clock, Do you Know Where Your Kids Are, or Girlfriend What the Fuck is On Your Mind", "NYC Shelters, It's Safer to Sleep in the Streets" and "Men with Baby Carriages" (I can't get enough of that topic.) Hope you find this blog educational and entertaining. And I hope you check back next week.
Peace be with you and wish me luck!!
The Fashionably Homeless