It just depends on the weather: Gene's Story

I stand to greet Gene. Immediately I knew he is different.

His crystal blue eyes cut me. Behind them is a story. Within them you can see every ounce of hope, fear, love and work ethic he encompasses. I brace myself. His reasons for being homeless I knew, were extraordinary.

Never before has Gene been homeless, jobless or without his family. But for the last two months he has resided in downtown Columbus, Ohio. His ex-wife, two daughters, brothers and parents are missing him in Florida. Gene needed to start bottom up after his divorce. Before he and his wife had good jobs but still lived paycheck-to-paycheck to make ends meet. He raised, bred and cared for horses and even had four of his own.

"Were still friends. We just couldn't live together anymore. After eight years people grow and sometimes they grow apart."

His friend told him that if he needed to start bottom-up Columbus is the place to go. Florida does not have the facilities that we do. Apparently they charge the homeless, those down on their luck without homes and jobs, to pay money each night if they stay in a shelter.

"How are you going to charge someone who has no place to sleep or job $8 a night for shelter?"

After all, shelter living is not like a hotel stay. There can be violence, no privacy and as Gene puts it, they are uncleanly, "Nasty places. There's so much bacteria and germs no one keeps them clean." This is partially due to a lack of funding and the lack of effort by some of the residents. Gene has even witnessed shelter victims being abused by staff.

That life often has an adverse reaction.

"I've seen decent citizens result to stealing and selling drugs. Now they're criminals. No, they're just trying to survive."

This raises a question: are people homeless because they are and commit taboos in society, or because society has led them in that direction?

Getting a job is even harder. Gene currently has found a temporary place at the YMCA. But The homeless in the downtown area do not have transportation and must find jobs in that vicinity.

"You have to put down a shelter address and a lot of the employers recognize it. They crumble it up [the application] and throw it away. They assume that just because you live in a shelter you are an alcoholic, a drug addict or just getting out of prison. You come across a lot of discrimination downtown. Then again, there are people out there that are decent. I guess it just depends on the weather."

Inevitably Gene says he is going to pull through this and become a stronger person. What bothers me the most is that he has to. The government wastes so much money, especially during recent events, and the working poor and homeless are the ones that suffer.

"They think that you're not trying hard enough and that you don't care. That is true in some cases, some people don't want to do anything. But then there are those of us who are trying. Trying hard."

Not always an outcast: RAYS STORY

I sink in the green-cushioned chair. I scan the room. Surrounding me along the walls are children's toys: dolls, toddler gadgets as well as a stuffed Tigger from Winnie the Pooh smiling back at me. Solomon screeches, "Ray!"I patiently wait for a few more moments. 

He enters with a smile. I stand to greet him, holding out my hand to shake his. ""Wow, you're hands are soft," he says. I'm flattered. He sits; he is relaxed but unaware of what to expect, his body language says it all. He places his hands on the table and they remain there.

"Tell me about your life," I say.

"It is rough being homeless. And you know, when you're homeless you can't get too much. You want things and you can't get them. It's hard to get a job because you can't get no help."

Ray wasn't always homeless. He wasn't even always jobless. He quit his 17-year career at KFC a couple of years ago, and that's where his troubles began."I got really stressed out. Started  doing bad drugs. Lost it and never went back."

Nonetheless, his family is not supportive of his drug habit nor his attempt to fight it. "They're funny acting people," he says. Ray has been clean for a month and has found shelter at a location for addicts who are trying to change their lives.

"There's help. But not enough help for me."

Ray spends his days alone: job searching, taking advice from various shelters and trying to maintain his composure. "I have two kids in college, I don't want them doing the same thing I'm doing. So I'm working hard. I have to do the work. There's no help. [I'm] not letting my "friends" influence me. I stay out of their way and keep to myself." His plight is proof that being homeless is one thing, but getting out of it is another.

People look inward: what's wrong with the person? In this situation, Ray is battling a drug addiction. But he wasn't always like that. What causes a family man, a hard worker to become homeless and turn to drugs. It's something. Because if it was just Ray, he would have never had a career, a family or the drive to fight his addiction and get his life back to good. "Everybody makes mistakes. Nobody is perfect. I'm not going to relapse, I'm going to do better for me."

His 40 year-old hands are rough in comparison to mine. And it's not because of age but because a lifetime of hard work followed by a couple of years on the streets; in the cold. Although I have worked hard throughout my life, my hands are smooth, my opportunity smoother. I do not know what it's like to be Ray but he knows what it is like to be me. He is an outcast to society and to his family but not to himself. Ray is the stereotype of a homeless individual but his identity is far from it. He is hard work, love, determination and hope.

"I believe in God. He's good to everyone if they give him a chance."

 

Night and Day

The wind cut through me fiercely as I stuffed the final dollar bill in the parking fee slot in downtown Columbus, Ohio. I felt as if I were being watched: like there were curious ghosts surrounding me. My anxiety wretched as I turned to walk and met the eyes of a woman wearing multiple coats and carrying an overflowing Kroger grocery bag. She threw her eyes to the ground. 

It was as if we were passing each other in slow motion; she kept attempting to raise her eyes at me for I could not stop looking at her. I wanted to flash a smile to warm her up but she continued walking. 

It happened again. This time it was a bearded man with long dreadlocked hair. Then again by the man in the navy blue sweatsuit. When I passed the business woman with the brief case I had no difficulty getting her attention. I didn't even have a problem with the busy man rambling on his cellphone. It was a pattern.

I climbed the steep staircase and arrived at my destination, The Open Shelter. The individuals here look like the others I encountered on the street but there was one difference: their smiles. Amiss the chaos was laughter and polite, "How are you sweeties?" The people inside were the same as those outside except for their spirits. This is proof that we as a society push these individuals to their faces on the pavement. They are outcasts. They disappear because this is society's means of solving the problem and they oblige.

Part of the mural painted by regulars at the Open Shelter

This is humanity

Solomon greeted me at the entrance and it was so loud I could hardly hear. But then again, the homeless are so accustomed to keeping quiet it must have felt good to mingle. I was officially in their element and it hurts to know they will never be welcomed into my world the way I was into theirs. 

As I sat down with the director, Kent, I let him do the talking as I tried to observe my surroundings. Tough guy Solomon really has a heart of gold. One minute he is domineering as he attempts to bring some order to the situation. Then he would get quiet for a minute and I would her him say "Do you need some food? Are you hungry? Are you cold?" And he would do so in the most nurturing and gentle voice I have ever heard.

The restroom is a popular spot. We take that for granted. "If you live in a bush," like Kent says, where do you think you can go to relieve yourself in the middle of the night? Downtown Columbus shuts down during the week once business office hours are over.

There is one room covered from floor to ceiling with piles of clothes, sleeping bags and tents. It astounds me. Instead of wanting to change a social problem that can inevitably not be fixed until the government intervenes, the good people here strive to make life as comfortable as possible for these individuals while they temporarily live on the streets. Media traditionally offers no help either; they either brush the surface, focus on the stereotypical notion that addicts and the mentally ill are the only types of people who are homeless, give it a cookie-cutter positive spin or don't cover it at all. The homeless are in desperate need of advocacy.

This is real. They are real.

Before I go...

Today it will all change. This is where my education and preparation leave and reality hits like a brick. In a few hours I will visit a homeless shelter in downtown Columbus, Ohio where I will meet the very people I have learned about. I don't have expectations so I did not prepare questions. I am relying on my gut. And right now my gut tells me that what I have learned thus far only brushes the surface.

I am here to give this problem a face. It's about time someone does. We are all in a bubble and the only thing that can pop it is a story: one that is true, gut-wrenching and unbelievable.

The Why

I was first introduced to the homeless my freshman year at Ohio University in Sociology and Anthropology 101 classes. We learned the basics here and even read a book. It more so fell in the lines of a case study, not a first hand account. I made sociology my specialization hoping to learn more. I didn't. 

It was the same facts and statistics in every class. During the winter months I thought I would at least see some kind of media coverage boasting advocacy for the homeless. Four years later, I haven't. The lack of coverage has led me to believe that our society is doing an incredible injustice to these men, women and children by doing nothing.

Under the guise of alcoholism, mental illness and drug addiction it has become easy for us to to look internally and blame the individual instead of outwardly at our stereotypes and institutions for blame. It is easier to turn a blind eye this way.

Although this project might not get anywhere it is my hope that it does. If not, it serves as a symbol for what needs to be done to reveal the truth. Most importantly, we all need to be advocates.

The National Coalition for the Homeless has a great article describing how difficult it is to develop black and white statistics. This piece is a little technical but just skim under each subheading and you can easily gather the most important points.