Many of us are not truly homeless, in the sense that we have a place we go to do the things one does in a “home.” So what we feel are the same things everyone feels. We feel sad, happy, overwhelmed, empowered, feeble, frustrated, relaxed…etc.
We're just people whom, for whatever reasons dont live in a traditional house, condo, apartment…whatever.
We face some of the same struggles that everyone else does and some different ones.
Not all of us are drug addicts, thieves, prostitutes, child molesters, scizophrenic, or any of the other derogatory labels put on lazy folk who just dont want to work, or any of the other derogatory labels put on us by society. Some homeless folk are homeless by choice, some not so much.
So to ask how it feels to be homeless is extremely vague. We're just folk with the same kind of feelings all folk have.
The first night is terrifying. The thought of sleeping out on the streets isn't the same as going camping. It's not mainly a concern about weather, but far more about being vulnerable.
After a few days you get less afraid, and you have picked out of few "hidden spots" to bed down in. Then it's mostly about being able to get to the charities offering food and staying safe during the day.
Most cities have some homeless shelters, but I mostly avoided those. Being in the southwest USA the weather at night wasn't terrible. Shelters are dangerous places, and they offer little to no security, nor can you expect police protection. To me they were a last resort. I preferred trusting to my own abilities than to the good intentions of charities, and the desperate intentions of the other homeless men.
The hardest thing was to stay clean and do my laundry so that I could look for work. Many homeless had given up looking, so I was unusual in doing that. Getting a phone number and address to use for job applications is another big issue. Few decent jobs will take you seriously if you are using a charity as your contact info. I was VERY lucky in having someone willing to take messages for me without revealing the truth of my circumstances. Few homeless people have even that little support from others.
Having found a job after a month it seemed twice as hard to be on the street and prepare myself for work every morning. The two weeks between being hired and my first paycheck were a real balancing act. Being young and well spoken I could sneek into different places at the university to get cleaned up and kill a few hours indoors in the evening, but I'm sure security is much tighter these days.
The mentally ill who manage to avoid getting arrested (or who are between jail sentences) are largely left to their own devices. And since severe mental illness (especially when you have a criminal record) makes maintaining a job and a home very difficult, many such ill people end up on the streets.
In short, severe mental illness makes avoiding homelessness much more difficult. Unless a society puts a lot of effort and money into avoiding that problem, it’s not going to get any better. And America just doesn’t do that much about the problem.
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