The Best Places To Be Homeless

There is no “good” place to be homeless. But, if you are to be homeless there are some things you should consider when deciding where you will be homeless. Also know that for the most part, as a homeless person, you will have very little choice on where your homeless experience will take place.

It really should be a natural inclination to look for a place where you feel most comfortable and safe. And that could mean different things for different people. If you grew up around churchy folks, especially of the fundamentalist variety, you will feel most at home at rescue missions or the salvation army. If you hold your independence and right to think for yourself at a premium, then you probably won’t be so happy at these faith-based organizations. And that’s not so much because of the religion they preach but because they focus so much on conformity. To them perfection in conformity is perfection of faith, and perfect faith fixes everything. For you, camping out in a wooded area would probably be best.

If you have certain possessions that are near and dear to you, and you don’t want to let them go, then living in a car, or better yet, a van, would be best for you, as you can keep your things with you. Having a place to store things is a very valuable asset to have on the streets. You can often find a place to rent a locker, but those are usually to small to be useful for long-term storage. Also keep in mind that storing things in a car can be troublesome. When your car is full of household items people will assume you to be homeless, especially cops. And for this they might target your car for towing. Most homeless people cannot afford to pay a ticket and impound fees. So if your car gets towed, more than likely you will lose the car and everything in it. Also, if your trip into homelessness becomes an extended stay, the weather will have a negative impact on your personal items. Things like photos will become damp with condensation, and will eventually stick together, and might start growing mold, effectively ruining those keepsakes. The same can happen to books and important papers, and even clothing.

Also consider your size in deciding to live homeless in your car. If you are a medium to large size person, sleeping in a car can be difficult is not dangerous. Sleeping night after night in a very cramped and confined space can have a negative effect on your health. Also, finding a place to park at night is not always easy, as cops will often harass you if they find you, even if sleeping in your car is not illegal in your area. And that’s another thing. More and more municipalities are making it illegal to sleep in a car. The threat of being arrested or receiving a ticket can lessen the appeal of auto-living.

If you still have some kind of support system, if your family and friends have not completely disowned you for being homeless, I imagine moving in with someone you know, who is willing to put you up for a while, is the best place to be homeless. Just know that generally people have little tolerance for squatters, even if they are family. If you are able to, it is best to get back into an employment situation as soon as possible, so to help contribute to the costs of having you in their house – help pay rent and the grocery bill. And for you people considering allowing a friend of family member move in with you because they have become homeless, you should be aware of a couple things. First, understand that it will take longer than you imagine for your relative or friend to make enough money to successfully move back out of your place. And second, if your squatter hasn’t found work after an acceptable period of time, be aware that they may very well be dealing with problems more serious than just financial. They may be experiencing depression, anxiety, and other issues that they will need to address before becoming independent again.

Places where people live homeless is an odd thing to define. Mostly, people ask about places where homeless people sleep. But where a person sleeps really isn’t always where a person lives. Homes are more than bedrooms. And as a homeless person, regardless of where you go, you will not have a living room, kitchen, bathroom, or den. So, whatever place you attempt to designate for yourself will primarily a place to sleep, a bedroom of sorts. The rest of your existence will happen on the streets, or in whatever public place will tolerate you enough to spend some time in, such as cafes, restaurants, hotel lobbies, libraries, hospital waiting rooms, etc. Where you go then, depends on your interests.

Ending Homelessness in Nashville

Nashville’s Metro Homelessness Commission created The Key Alliance which is working to create a “Housing First” model for chronically homeless people. It is the best answer yet devised for ending homelessness. Please support these efforts.

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Record homeless rate in NYC as Bloomberg seeks another term

He’s spending a fortune to stay in office, while one and a half million people have left his city for good. And in his 8 years as mayor, some believe, Michael Bloomberg has turned New York into his…

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The Contributor

The Contributor is Nashville homeless/street newspaper. It has the duel purpose of apprising its readers about homelessness, and it provides self improvement opportunities, financially and otherwise, for the homeless. Homeless and formerly homeless people work as vendors making 75 cents per copy they sell. Not only do homeless people sell the paper, they also help to write the paper. you can purchase a yearly subscription for $25, on their website. If you do, please tell them that I recommended you, so that I get credit and compensation for it. Thanks.

Homeless Shelter Workers: Administration

Administrators of homeless shelters are a breed apart, and they’d like to keep it that way.  As much as possible they distance themselves from the actual work of the shelter, the face to face interactions with the homeless.  Instead, these people oversee the activities of the other shelter workers, and with the overwhelming task of keeping the shelter funded.  Funding requires them to constantly beg from every money source possible,  wealthy philanthropists, government officials, and the mostly fickle general public.  As a homeless person you will rarely see, let alone encounter a shelter administrator.  That is, unless the shelter is so small that the person doing the administration has to fill in other positions as well.  But, these days, there are very few small shelters.  The demand for shelters is just too great.

Administrators have enormous power and political pull, and they can make incredible things happen, for the right people, if they are moved enough to do so.  They are, of course, doing a job few others would even consider.  And, the pillars of the community are usually so greatful that someone other than themselves is having to deal with the homeless of their city, that they will do most anything to appease the shelter administrator.  Shelters have the effect of corralling the homeless and keeping them away from much of the city’s normal goings on.  I have heard about more than on occasion where some group of concerned citizens, usually property developers, tried to pressure a shelter into moving farther away from a downtown area, only to have the shelter administrator turn the tables by threatening the close down the shelter permanently.  That move usually ends all conversation.  The Nashville Rescue Mission can house up to 500 men, women, and children.  Just imagine 500 more homeless people living on the streets of Nashville with absolutely no where else to go.  I sure the downtown business owners just shudder at the thought of it.  And so, perhaps grudgingly, the powers that be acquiesce, and support the shelter, keeping it funded, perhaps not entirely, but enough to keep it from closing.

If as a homeless person, you have some special need that no one else in the chain of command at the shelter seems able to help you with, then you can try to appeal to one of administrators.   Still, getting an audience with a shelter administrator can often seem as difficult as getting to see the Pope.  And getting them to do someone on your behalf may be even more difficult.   But sometimes they do.  And results are often life changing.   I’ve seen where a shelter administrator arranged to have a homeless family moved into a house in a nice neighborhood, or gave someone a car.  Back in 1985, while still living at the Anchor Home of the Nashville Rescue Mission, I attended Belmont College.  Before the semester started, someone stole the three hundred dollars of grant money I had received to pay for books and school supplies.  In just a couple days time, an administrator arranged for a nearby church to replace that money, and I was able to get my books before classes started.

I would advise any homeless person to be careful about how they approach shelter administrators.  Don’t to anything to piss them off.  They also have the power to have you permanently banned from the shelter.  And they don’t hesitate to exercise that right, whenever they see fit.

But, shelter administrators are greatly concerned about their own reputations, and so they are going to be very careful about who and how they help.  If they get an inkling that you might waste the goodness they could bestow upon you, they will decline your request for assistance.

Homeless Shelter Workers: The Employee

At homeless shelters there are two basic types of employee.  There is the person who has been around the shelter for so long that he/she has worked up the ladder, starting as a homeless person, to the point where the shelter has decided to hire this person as  a regular employee.  That is usually a very long and arduous journey.  This person will have to prove beyond a shadow of doubt that they have overcome whatever addictions are mental illnesses that began their homeless experience.  This usually takes years.  And this person is usually someone who, before being homeless, was highly functioning, perhaps had a college degree, or achieved some relatively high level of responsibility, like a corporate management position.

The other type of homeless shelter employee is a regular citizen, never been homeless, but in need of a job, and considers work at a shelter as no different than a job anywhere else.  These are usually administrative support people, secretaries, accountants, cooks, program organizers, social workers, etc.   These people are generally not “do gooders” trying to save the world.  They are just working for a living, to pay their bills.  Although, they do take pride in the fact that they have helped to make life better for those less fortunate.

Homeless shelter employees are the people you will tend to get the most, and the best, help from.   You would do well to get to know as many of these people as you can.   Some can still be trouble, so be careful.  But, for the most part, these people are usually willing, and have the ability to get things done, as far as assisting you with your needs.

Still, you usually have to negotiate your way past the door keepers to get access to the employees.

Homeless Shelter Workers: The Guy At The Front Door

To survive homelessness, you’ll have to learn how to negotiate your way around homeless shelters. And to do that you need to have an understanding about the people you encounter who work for the shelters. Although every person is different, there are a few types of homeless shelter worker that most fit into.

The first worker you are likely to meet at a shelter, or other homeless service provider, is himself/herself a homeless person. But this person is different  in that they have been around the shelter long enough that they have become known to the staff and administration of the shelter – enough that they can be trusted with adequately performing menial tasks, like watching the entrance to the shelter and making sure only those allowed actually get inside. At rescue missions these people are more formally known as “program people,” because they are in the missions rehabilitation program. But in other shelters, day shelters/soup kitchens without rehab programs, this person is more of a pet project, and favored by the staff of the organization. Be very careful about what you do and say to, and around, these people. They usually have be granted enough authority to have you banned from the premises. Or, shelter staff will generally take their word over yours regarding any confrontation. Being that these people are more than likely chronically homeless, they more than likely will lack the interpersonal skills to actually perform their assignment proficiently, because of mental illness or a life time of drug abuse. Oft times these program people are not used to having such responsibility and authority, so what little power they are granted goes right to their heads. They are bossy and tyrannical and will not hesitate to lie if it means getting their way.  Besides all this, the people are having to deal with there own difficult personal issues, battling their own addictions, trying to re-establish their relationships with estranged family members etc.  They are under enough  stress of their own, trying to fix their own lifes that it seems silly to put these people in direct contact, and thus possible conflict, with other homeless people.

Although they are often assigned the task of answering whatever questions you have about the shelter, sometimes they’ll purposely give you wrong or misleading information.  And since these people are performing such menial tasks,  staff of the shelter will often not properly supervise them. These homeless people know this, and will take advantage of it when they can. Of course not all “program men” are this way. You have to take a little time observing them, perhaps venturing to talk to them, enough to determine how trust worthy they really are. Always check with more than one person about a given subject so to determine if you’re being told the truth. And that goes with anyone you encounter around a shelter, whether it’s staff, program guys, or other homeless people.

How Homeless People Get The Goodies

If you want to get the best that homeless service providers offer, you have to plant yourself right on their front door step.  And btw, I guess I should define “homeless service providers” for you.    Any person or organization that helps or provides something to homeless people could be a homeless service provider.  It could be the guy picking up day old bread of the local Kroger grocery store and passing the loaves out to homeless people in the park.  It could be the Salvation Army shelter.  It could be the human services department of your city government.  Mainly, though, when I speak of homeless service providers, I’m talking about rescue missions and day shelters, the major players in the homelessness industry.

When I volunteered to wash dishes at a local soup kitchen, I was allowed to eat my fill, not just eat what was dished out to me, and I had access to food that wasn’t being served to the masses.   Helping out at the soup kitchen allowed me to eat better and healthier on those days.  But that’s more about me receiving some small compensation for my labor.  I recommend helping out wherever you can, not just for the material benefits, but  the work, staying busy, keeps your mind and spirit from getting mushy and warped.  On the streets it’s possible to succumb to the ugliness around you.

Homeless service providers are mostly 9 to 5, Monday through Friday, operations.  Some shelters have extended hours, but even so, all the good stuff happens during regular business hours.  That’s when the best of what HSP’s  (Homeless Service Providers) have is given to the homeless.  Additionally, the very best of what is handed out comes without warning, perhaps because there’s usually a limited supply.  If you see several homeless people gathering quickly, don’t stop to ask what they’re doing.  It’s a hand out of something decent, so get yourself in there amongst them quickly.  Wedge your way past other slower moving people if you have to.  Just make sure you get whatever it is before it’s all gone.  Or, just learn to do without.

Ok, I’m not really trying to encourage bad behavior.  Sometimes, though, that’s just the way it goes.   Depending on how organized the HSP is, and how motivated the HSP worker is to keep things organized, you have to determine just what you can get away with.  The more organized the HSP is the less hassle, and trouble there is, but it’s true that there is a significant number of homeless people constantly working against any attempt by the HSP to keep things under control.  Some homeless people thrive on an insane level of chaos.

The standard give outs, of meals, clothing, and beds for the night, are usually well organized and happen at the same time each day.  But even these things are limited and are provided on a first come first served basis.  So, it’s best to know exactly when people start lining up  to receive.  At a shelter in Las Vegas people started lining up for beds at noon, even though they didn’t start letting people in until that evening.  The clothing room at a rescue mission, where you might only receive one item per day, might open at 3pm, but people will start lining up for it right after lunch.

As someone recently reminded me, on occasion a shoe manufacturing company may donate some decent shoes to the homeless, especially work boots and other items that are required for employment.  But that company will want to conduct the give away during the middle of the day, when all the homeless with the ability to work are at work.  So, most of the good quality items are given out to crack heads and alcoholics would will turn around and sell these nice things for money to get a fix.  Now, they do usually sell these things to the people who could actually use them.  So homeless construction workers can still get really cheap work boots, but they are having to buy them from the crack heads, and so are not benefiting as much from the intended charity.

Now, some HSPs, if they know what’s going on, they make some allowances for the people with real and more pressing needs, setting aside the quality stuff for those who can most benefit from them.   But, often that is not the case.   Some HSPs just aren’t willing to put that much effort into their work.   So, for the many homeless people who are actually trying to improve themselves, staying busy and being productive, there are only the left overs – the things that a couple hundred other homeless people passed over and deemed undesirable.  To me, this way of allocating goods seems to only encourage homeless people to hover around shelters, and missions, etc, instead of getting out of the homeless environment and doing something productive with themselves.

Ok, I’m going to end this right now, so to get it on the blog…consider it an uncompleted post.  I’ll try to complete my thoughts on this subject another time.

Homeless People Have To Lie To Survive

Might as well get this particular ugly truth out of the way right at the beginning.   There are some homeless people, a very few homeless people, who have never needed help from a homeless service provider.  They lived in their car for a couple weeks, hung out with friends who gave them food, money, a job connection, etc, and they were back off the streets in short order.  With such people I question whether their stint as a homeless person was even necessary.  I’m not even sure they qualify for the moniker “homeless.”  But, I’m not talking about them.  I’m talking about truly homeless, homeless people.   Hanging out with homeless people does not make you homeless.

Eventually, all homeless people will need help from homeless service providers.  And all service providers insist on qualifying a person before giving him/her any services.  And that’s the rub.   You can’t just walk up to the front desk at a shelter, tell them what you need, and expect them to just hand it over.   That’s not how they operate.

When you approach a service provider for help for the first time, and often every time, you will be grilled on a set of questions supposedly designed to determine your actual need.  At some places, they can talk to you right away, but often you will have to set an appointment with an assessment team member.  That means you’ll have to wait anywhere from a half a day, to a couple days for a meeting.

Now, about those qualifications.   Organizations, especially those receiving government funding, are under a lot of pressure to be good stewards of the resources they have.   So, they have many committee and board meetings to decide how they will decide what kind of help they will give to the homeless, and just who will get that help.  Sadly, these meetings usually focus more on what the people in these organizations want to give the homeless, and what they think the homeless deserve, and less on what the homeless actually need to survive, and escape, homelessness.   Added to this problem is the fact that there is no comprehensive service available.   Homeless people have to go to one place for one service, to another place for something else.   And, this forces homeless people to play one organization against another.

What the many different organizations come up with as qualifications for services do not jive with the qualifications set by other organizations.  And no attempt is made to synchronize them.  What may qualify a person for services at one organization may disqualify him/her at another.

So, it happens, that to get all the services a person needs to survive homelessness, a person must first determine what all the different qualifications for services are at the different homeless service providers, and provide the expected answers, and not necessarily the truth.  And that goes for everything, shelter, food, clothing, medical care, job training,  job referal, etc.

Finding out all this information about each service provider takes time and effort,  and the ability to tell a lie.  So, please, for those of you who offer advice to homeless people about where to get help, (cause you don’t want to give to their panhandling request)  please know that there is more to receiving help than just asking for it.

Homeless Service Providers

Since I just advised you to check around at different homeless service providers, to find out what is offered in your area, I feel I must give you a bit of warning. Just like any other advertisement for a product, the truth is often stretched. When researching homeless service providers, especially by way of their websites, understand that they are attempting to put the very best face they can on their product. And in doing that, they often exaggerate, and sometimes mislead. The main audience for websites about homeless service providers are people looking to donate money or volunteer their time. And with so much work to be done, and so little people to help, there is a competition between homeless service providers for money and volunteers. In most cases, volunteers=donations.

A day shelter may say that they offer free hair cuts to the homeless, but they’ll leave out the details that hair cuts are only available 1 day a month, and only 20 people will be allowed to sign up for the haircuts on a first come first serve basis – and that the shelter will have certain pet projects who will be put on the list ahead of anyone else. At the Nashville Rescue Mission, a sign still hangs in the front reception area that says “Haircuts” and below it an arrow pointing to the right. But in the 9 some years the mission has been open, I don’t believe anyone has ever received a hair cut there. Since other things are also mentioned on that sign, duct tape has only recently been placed over the word “haircuts.” Still, if there are any barbers in the Nashville area, who would be willing to cut homeless people’s hair for free, please contact the mission. I’m sure they would be glad to have you set up shop there.

Do not limit your search of homeless service providers to website searches. Find out where they are located and go visit them in person. And if you are willing, mix in with the rest of the homeless population to get a real feel for the place. If you ask for an official tour of a shelter, then you are going to get the official shpeel, or spin. But you won’t get the full story of what happens there. Instead, talk to the people who reside there, and to the volunteers and workers who have daily contact with the homeless, and are the one’s who actually provide the services. At the Nashville Rescue Mission, they operate with an “up stairs, down stairs” philosophy. The administrators work upstairs and are segregated from the actual work of the mission. They rarely if ever have direct contact with the homeless, and downstairs is where all the actual services for the homeless are provided. The homeless must stay downstairs, and only the employees and “program men” of the mission are allowed to travel between the floors. (Program men are homeless people who have agreed to work for the mission in exchange for better lodgings and a promise of rehabilitation. I’ll discuss rescue mission rehabilitation programs in another post.)

Don’t Panic!

They are the most important two words of advice ever spoke, especially spoken to anyone on a journey. And homelessness is a journey, even if your locale never changes. Most homeless people never travel far from what was once their home, but still, they end up going places they never thought they would have. The worst thing you can do as a homeless person is panic. So, please, don’t panic! Becoming homeless is not the end of the world. It certainly is not the end your life.

Although some four to five million people experience homelessness within a given year, there are less than a million people homeless in America at any one time. That’s because the vast majority of people’s homeless experiences last only three to four months. They experience homelessness only once, and never again.

Please understand that by the time a person admits to themselves that they “might” become homeless, usually by that time it’s too late to stop it from happening. Although you should be aware of any opportunity to prevent homelessness from happening, once you think that you’ll become homeless, you should be considering your living arrangements once you become homeless. The point of having a fire drill is to teach your self what to do when their actually is a fire. It’s not a bad idea for anyone to take the time to consider what they would do if they became homeless. Talk to people you know and trust before hand. If you have family and/or friends who are willing to talk about it, make plans with them. A lot of people have ended up on the streets only because they were too ashamed to talk to family. And once family learned of their homelessness, their family took them in, and off the streets. If feelings of guilt are a problem, if you talk to them now, before you are homeless, you’ll feel less guilty about it then the actual event occurs. Also, check around to find all the different homeless service providers in your area, and if you can’t find any near by, don’t be afraid to expand your search beyond. Know that all the service providers offer, and what their requirements are for receiving services from them. Every service provider/shelter is different, sometimes offering vastly different services with vastly different requirements to receive them. Most rescue missions don’t charge any money for a night’s stay, but they will require you to bow to their god. Most Salvation Army shelters don’t demand you practice their religion, but they will charge you money, usually anywhere from 5 to 15 dollars a night. Some shelters only help women, some only help families, some only help addicts, some only help mentally ill. And there is one one place in Nashville that only helps people who are duel diagnosed, that is, they have addictions and mental illnesses. If you only have one of those issues, they won’t help you. It’s much better to know exactly where to go before you become homeless, then trying to figure it out while on the streets and you have little resources.

Being prepared goes a long way towards avoiding the panic of becoming homeless.

Know that if you don’t have a pre-existing condition of mental illness or addiction, that your homeless experience will be short lived. You will recover from it, and perhaps you’ll even gain a new and broader appreciation of life for the experience.

Daughter opens arms to her lost, homeless mom | Freep.com | Detroit Free Press

Daughter opens arms to her lost, homeless mom | Freep.com | Detroit Free Press.

Teen charged with fatal homeless stabbing – Florida AP – MiamiHerald.com

Teen charged with fatal homeless stabbing – Florida AP – MiamiHerald.com.

Local News | Judge won't bar eviction of Seattle homeless camp | Seattle Times Newspaper

Local News | Judge won’t bar eviction of Seattle homeless camp | Seattle Times Newspaper.

Homeless homicide investigated in downtown Reno – San Jose Mercury News

Homeless homicide investigated in downtown Reno – San Jose Mercury News.