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People who have never
known homelessness cannot relate to the depressing living conditions,
the pains of sorrow, anger, confusion, doubt, and holistic insecurity
that it causes. By writing this exposition including the writer’s
personal story I hope to depict the experience for people who may
relate, as well as for those who do not, for the sake of awareness,
understanding and compassion. Housing is as fundamental to human
survival as breathing, thinking and eating, especially here in the
frigid climate of Minnesota.
On December 31, 2001, I walked to Rainbow Foods to purchase food. I was
renting an apartment with a few friends. Returning home I noticed a
local alternative newspaper with my mama’s picture on the cover beneath
the headline, “Homeless for the Holidays.” I was utterly devastated.
This discovery ruined my New Years Eve, making the last day of the year
one of my worst. I read the article about an African American woman
about my mama’s age, listing her exact height. The fact that an image of
my mama’s face was printed and mass distributed on the cover of a weekly
newspaper that I ended up seeing dozens of times within the next week
was extremely heart wrenching. Worse than the fear of my mama feeling
humiliated over having her image exploited for a newspaper article were
my pitiful feelings of helplessness at not being able to provide shelter
for her. I have been tormented by her struggle, in addition to my own.
I was 23 years old at the time of that terrible event. I was living in a
crowded apartment with some friends because I had no place of my own to
live in only a few months earlier. Prior to that, I stayed with my dad
for a couple of months. Prior to that, I lived with a close friend after
returning from an unsuccessful attempt to get a business established in
economically-challenged Louisiana. Prior to that, I was struggling back
here in Minnesota.
When I was 14, my dad kicked me out of the house for the first time,
initiating my debilitating cycle of unstable housing. From those
real-life nightmares as a teenager, I experienced moving around without
knowing where I was going to sleep. Not wanting to burden anyone outside
of my immediate family for long periods of time, I always ended up
returning home after periods of weeks or months because I didn‘t want to
sleep outdoors.
At 18, I moved to Louisiana to attend college, but poverty prevented me
from continuing my institutional education. A year later, I was back in
Minnesota living at home, although the inevitable conflict with my angry
pops was always imminent. Every time I had any amount of savings I was
evicted or chose to make an exodus, requiring the exhaustion of my petty
wages for survival until I was broke. Meanwhile, I lived with various
loved ones with whom I could not stay for too long. I paid rent at
several locations during those years but never lived anywhere for more
than three to six months, until August 2002.
This was the first apartment I was able to live in as a primary renter
and subsequently the first time in a decade that I was able to live in
one place for a year. Today I’m married, living in a different
apartment, and trying to work on my second consecutive year of somewhat
stable housing. Although, rent is still too high and significant
reductions in pay are causing me to drown financially.
My parents were legally married for over twenty years, but in the last
five or so, they were no longer married in spirit. Ultimately, my mama
made her exodus from the unhappy, dysfunctional relationship without
adequate finances for securing stable housing. After depending on my
pops financially for over two decades, balancing costly expenses and
debt, she initially resorted to homeless shelters. This damaged my
spirit, but my mom was so desperate and determined to escape the
miserable environment that was our home that she was willing to leave a
house for a shelter and I had to understand. I remember dropping my mama
off at the shelter with a crushed heart because I had no place for her
to live.
She lived with a couple of her friends during different times, but she
is stubborn about not wanting to overextend her welcome. Without the
foundation of stable housing, it is much more difficult to be peaceful
and focused.
My mama had leases at two different apartments but, tragically, chose
two consecutive slumlords who both evicted her in retaliation for trying
to get them to maintain the rental units in habitable condition. One of
the landlords locked my family out, keeping their personal property and
ultimately stealing most of their expensive valuables, not allowing us
access to what was left of his pillage until well over six months later.
For the past six months or so, she has been living with a relative in a
crowded and unhappy environment, where she limits her waking hours. At
my previous apartment, I had my mama and four younger brothers briefly
living with my wife and I, until we were threatened with eviction for
having them stay with us. With two Unlawful Detainers (the curse placed
on the credit records of people who have been evicted from rental
property) it is more than difficult for my mama to be approved by
another landlord to lease an apartment of her own. The greater challenge
is my mama’s intense desire to live in a house of her own.
My mama is a genuinely upright woman with tremendous wisdom, compassion,
creativity and endurance. Our experiences with homelessness are much
better off than that of many people, reflecting the varying levels of
severity of homeless conditions that millions of Americans live and die
in. Being the wealthiest and most technologically advanced society on
the planet leaves America with no excuse for not providing basic needs
to all people.
Most homeless people work jobs but don’t earn enough money to afford
rent or mortgage. Many other homeless people are mentally disabled, a
large proportion being veterans of war, a clear reflection of America’s
disregard for the well-being of soldiers once their duties are done.
People who have never known homelessness would be amazed to realize how
expensive it is.
Homelessness can cost people their family structure, sanity and their
lives. |
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