Putting a face on homelessness

Most of us will never know what it’s like to be homeless— to live on the streets, under bridges or overpasses or in cars, to experience the embarrassment of digging through trash cans for food, to live without bathing, wearing clean clothes, or eating a decent meal, to be shunned, ignored and forgotten because you look and smell disgusting, and to face even violence —all with seemingly no way out.

Wenatchee, WA, June 21, 2013

His name was Charles. His hair was short and dark, his eyes dark and penetrating. He sat on the sidewalk wearing an oversized, green quilted liner from a military jacket that hung down over an extra large pair of dark blue jeans. His clothes were too big and didn’t fit his slim frame. He looked out of place, dressed in winter gear on a June day. The oversized black glasses perched on his beakish nose overpowered his narrow face. His lower lip was swollen. He was missing a few teeth.

I met him in front of the Wenatchee post office when I went to check my mail on Friday.
It was around 6:30 p.m., past business hours. He sat alone. As I walked past I said, “Hello, how are you?” He responded, “God Bless You.” I noticed he didn’t make eye contact and that he rocked slightly back and forth as he spoke. I pondered him as I went inside to check my box and to drop an envelope through the slot for mailing.

When I came out of the post office I decided to stop to learn more about him. “How are you, what are you up tonight,” I asked. He looked up at me. He spoke in a soft voice. “I don’t have no where to go.”

I asked him what he meant by that. He told me that he didn’t have any place to go until Monday. I asked him what would happen on Monday. He told me that his case manager had found a group home for him to move into on Monday, but that he didn’t have anywhere to go until then.

As I talked to him, I found out that he had been born in Pittsburg, California, an industrial city in eastern Contra Costa County, that his mother lived in Klamath Falls, Oregon, that he had a few siblings, that he had lived at the Christopher House in Wenatchee until the drama there got to him. He told me he was 42 years old but he looked much younger. When I asked him his name, he leaned forward to shake hands and told me his name was Charles. He lived on a Social Security check.

I squatted down so that I could make eye contact with him and he relaxed. A man wearing business attire walked past and looked at us, then went inside the post office. Charles told me he had a radio so he could listen to the police. That way he could hear when they caught a man named Tyler who had beaten him badly enough that he’d had to go to the hospital. He showed me his swollen lip, the stitches on the inside of his mouth, the scars on his face. He’d been attacked in the park behind Travs off Wenatchee Avenue he said.

I asked him about the radio, and as he cheerfully pulled the radio with its long antenna from his pocket, I noticed his long narrow fingers and browned fingernails. He proudly pointed to the words on the radio that said “Radio Shack.” I asked him where he might go, told him that he needed to be careful, that he couldn’t sleep outside until Monday. I asked him if he knew of any of the shelters in town. He told me he had a friend in the area and I suggested that he find him, see if he might be able to stay there this weekend, until Monday. I offered to buy him some soup. He said he couldn’t eat anything because of the stitches, but he liked to go to a restaurant sometimes, if he had money, to get a bowl of soup. I gave him $10, thinking that maybe I might be supporting a drug or alcohol problem, but that it wasn’t really my place to judge. He thanked me and slowly stood, then walked down the sidewalk toward Orondo. His gait was graceful. His demeanor had put me at ease, and though I realized talking to a stranger could be dangerous, I doubted that he was a danger to anyone. He had mentioned having coffee and cookies at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, and I told him that I sometimes attended there. I hoped to see him again.

As I left the parking lot, I decided to call a friend who had been a cop in town to ask him if he’d heard of Mr. B, just to make sure that my instincts were on. Over the years, I’ve met several homeless people and befriended them, stopping to talk and to listen, to find out their stories. What I’ve found is that they are people like you and I who have experienced a deep wound, a trauma in life that they were unable to recover from. One man I met in Everett named Gordon had lost his mother. When he spoke about his loss, he talked about it like it was recent, but it had been many years ago. He was 65, but like Charles seemed younger. He was a nice person who was always kind and polite, someone who didn’t fit into the neat little lines and squares of society. Another man I befriended named Kevin was a talented artist and cook who often worked as a chef and photographer, until he could no longer hold a job because of his alcohol problem. Then, he lived in his van, selling off pieces of his art just to get by. Not too long after I moved to Wenatchee, I learned that he had been murdered. He had visited my house, cooked up a delicious dinner one night for my son and I. He had once worked with Graves, a famous Northwest artist and as a chef at a nice restaurant in LaConner.

Whenever I’m down I think about these people and how difficult life is sometimes, even when you are blessed with skills and abilities that enable you to cope. These people somehow don’t have those coping skills. They are often chemically dependent, suffering from a disease that afflicts so many. They are also often suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder and are unable to hold a job because they can’t stick to the regular schedule. Most of them want to be productive, to live in a decent home and to live a decent life. They are not the undesirables we often stereotype them as being.

Most of us will never know what it’s like to be homeless— to live on the streets, under bridges or overpasses or in cars, to experience the embarrassment of digging through trash cans for food, to live without bathing, wearing clean clothes, or eating a decent meal, to be shunned, ignored and forgotten because you look and smell disgusting, and to face even violence —all with seemingly no way out.

You may not know the numbers: that 3.5 million Americans are homeless each year, and on any given night 23% of them are children, contributing to the more than 770,000 homeless children in the public education system. We also know these numbers are lower than the actual numbers of homeless persons, making ending homelessness an urgent issue. State House Bill 2163 has asked local governments to reduce homelessness by a minimum of 50 percent, we also know the long term goal must be to end homeless entirely, despite the many challenges. We know that if we were homeless ourselves, we would want nothing less. Yet, despite the staggering statistics, it’s all too easy to become detached, until we come face to face with someone who is homeless like Charles, Gordon or Kevin, or about to become homeless, like David Shaul.

Based on statistics from the Ten-Year Plan to Reduce Homelessness in Chelan and Douglas Counties, Shaul nearly joined the 14% of veterans in our area who are homeless. He could have become one of the nearly 100,000 veterans in the VA network who are homeless on any given night. A recent article in the Wenatchee World (Nov. 29, 2011) told Shaul’s story, revealing how easy it can be to become homeless. You might recall the story: Shaul was living on his meager social security payments of $710 per month, unable to afford oil for his furnace, and facing foreclosure. A veteran and former musician, Shaul was a self-sufficient man who hadn’t wanted to ask for help. Thankfully neighbors stepped in to help him.

While Shaul’s story has a happy ending, despite the efforts of many agencies and people, hundreds of people in our own valley still find themselves homeless in any given year, including men, women and children, a number which may be higher due to the challenges of accurately reporting the nu
mbers. In our own area, of the 231 homeless persons counted in the 2005 ten-year plan, 130 were in families with children. Sadly, there may be as many as 430 homeless youths under the age of 18. And 19% of our homeless were victims of domestic violence, aissue, which too often affects women and children.

Many are not aware of these facts and many other stories that go along with them. As the wife of a combat veteran and as a mother, these issues touch my heart too. I know how difficult it is to raise a family these days even in a solid household. It breaks my heart to know there are children trying to live, to attend school, and to grow up to be adults, who must navigate these challenges without the comforts of a home. While life is not free of obstacles and Shaul’s story points to the recent foreclosure issue as a contributor to homelessness, being homeless should not be an obstacle anyone should have to face, especially a child or ill person.