New to Homelessness??? (very long)…

As you leave your house for one last time in the morning, you know that at the end of the day, you won’t be back to this house to sleep.  What are you going to do?  Where you going to sleep?  Can you survive living on the streets, in a car, or on friend’s couches night to night?  Where am I going to eat?  How am I going to eat?  And the questions keep coming and coming.  Everything around you tends to go slow motion as you are only thinking about these questions as you are walking aimlessly around.  To an experience homeless person, they can spot you a mile away.  You have those “deer in headlights look” about yourself.  But you aren’t alone on the streets as the newest homeless person.  According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness:

• There are 671,859 people experiencing homelessness on any given night in the United States - roughly 22 of every 10,000 people are homeless.
• Of that number, 37 percent are people in families and 63 percent are individuals,
• 18 percent of the homeless population is considered "chronic," and
• 20 percent of the homeless population is made up of veterans.

Welcome to being part of the fast rising statistics in America called homelessness.  Even I, at one point, was part of this statistics.  From here on out, you need a whole new kind of thinking going on.  Remember, the longer you are homeless, the faster you will lose your moral and confident.  If you lose those two things, you will be homeless for the rest of your life.  So, what should you do?  This blog post will talk about things I did throughout my one and half years of homelessness that eventually lead me out of homelessness that I’m going to share with you.  Hopefully this will somewhat be a blueprint for you to start the process of digging out of homelessness.  Here we go.

VERY FIRST NIGHT:

This is a very important night.  You have to decide quickly as possible to find a place to sleep, have in mind a place you want to sleep out, or if you are going to sleep in your car.  I recommend calling a friend first to see if you can spend a night or two on their couch.  Be honest with them.  Let them know what’s going on.  You never know what they will offer.  I got lucky myself when I talked to my best friend.  They allowed me originally two weeks but at the end of the two weeks, I got a lucky surprise as they made a deal I couldn’t refuse basically and was able to stay with them for four months.

*** TIPS TO STAYING WITH FRIENDS ***

You might not have money to offer your friend for staying with them but you do have other stuff you can offer them.  This is where it’s important to do a self inventory of yourself.  Know what you have to offer and make it work for you.  Things to think about when asking a friend to stay with them:

• If you do have money, offer to pay them a small proportion
• If they have kids, babysit for them whenever they want to go out
• Be available to pick up the kids if need be (special arrangement though)
• Do housework
• Do dishes
• If you are an expert in a field and you know your friend wants to learn, be willing to tutor them
• Mow the grass if you have too
• Do errands for them
• Have food stamps?  Offer to buy food monthly or provide for your portion of the food

The whole idea is about making yourself worth more than money.  Doing little things around the friend’s house could be a huge weight of their shoulder.  But most important thing though is that you balance what you want to do to get out of homelessness with the services you provide to your friend.  Communication is very important with your friends especially if they are a family.  Always be mindful and respectful.

*** TIPS STAYING IN YOUR CAR ***

So, you struck out being able to stay with friends?  But you have your car.  You are going to have to sleep in your car.  Sleeping in your car isn’t as bad as sleeping on the streets itself.  It’s all about finding a safe, quiet, but yet somewhat public place to park the car so you can sleep at night.  I slept in my car for six months during the winter.  I was living out of my car from October to March.  Here is what I learned:

• Best parking lots to sleep in are the 24 hour parking lots like Wal-Mart, Kroger’s, & Meijer's
• Blend your car in with the employees cars that work the 3rd shift.  Not to close to them that it looks like you are stalking them but at the same time not to far away that you stick out like a sore thumb.
• Before you go to sleep, take a walk around in the store looking like you are shopping.
• Be friendly and say hi to the employees as you are walking through if you pass any
• Notice what the uniforms are or what the the smokers wear coat or sweater wise when they are smoking.  For example, Kroger’s hand out blue fleece or sweaters to employees.
• If you so happen to have a similar color sweater or jacket, put it on each night before you do your walk around.
• By doing the above, you are kind of setting a precedent.  These lots are monitored and patrolled by police.  But if police seeing you come out of the store with that jacket on, they will assume you work there and you are going to your car for a break.  I never got bothered by police or asked to move once.
• Eventually, one of the employees will start striking up conversation with you.  Be honest with them as well.  For example, where I stayed at night, I had a manager that was willing to back me up if a cop came to her asking about me.
• Eventually, I started “volunteering” in a way at Kroger’s by helping them stock or as we are talking to start helping them put stuff back on shelves.  But don’t do this right away.  The best time to start doing this is maybe after a few times that the person ask you to do them a favor.
• Park between two barriers if all possible.  This helps especially during the winter months to cut down the wind and chill factor.
• Have plenty of blankets, clothing, & warm stuff in the car
• Remember the 15 minutes rule:  Run your heat on full blast for 15 minutes, then turn it off and see how long you can keep warm until you can’t stand it any longer.  For me, basically it was every hour I had to do 15 minutes if I was awake.  When I went to sleep, it would be like 4 to 5 hours later that I would have to turn the hit on.
• Best night to sleep in your car is when it’s raining.  The rain hitting the roof makes this great soothing sound
• Move car often.  Makes you look like you are an employee.  If you sleep in the lot, then don’t go back to that lot until you are ready to go to sleep.
• Leave the car parked as much as possible.
• Plan your day to day.  Where do you have to go?  Better to stay in a certain area if you have to be back there the following day rather than going all the way back to where you sleep?

Living out of your car can be very simple and easy.  But don’t forget that a car takes gas.  It takes money to get gas.  If you don’t have a job, you have very little money.  So, you can’t waste gas.  One way I got money for gas was taking a person somewhere for reasonable gas money.  Pay very close attention how much gas you are using and how big your gas tank is.

*** TIPS FOR STAYING ON THE STREETS ***

You struck out staying with friends, and you don’t have a car.  The only other alternative is to stay on the streets.  This is the most dangerous of the situations maybe?  Your first night on the streets can be the scariest.   You have your safety to worry about, the weather, not to mention being waken up ever so often to be told to move.  You might not get any sleep at all.  I really don’t have much experience as I got very lucky during my one and half years of homelessness I didn’t have to sleep on the streets.  The closest I have came was actually three days.  So, these tips are what I have seen or heard from various people or might experience from the above two tips:

• Have very little with you (backpack, book bag size, & etc)
• Go to the library during the days
• 24/7 Laundry Mats that are open to take camp baths late at night
• Greyhound bus stations – they have lockers you can use to store stuff in.
• Search for place to stay where you think nobody knows about.  If you think you might have found a place, stake it out for a few days to see.
• Look into shelters (a whole different story apparently which I don’t have any experience on)

I really don’t know much about this but maybe somebody will write in the comment about their experience.  Bottom line is all about staying safe!

*** TIPS FOR GETTING FOOD ***

The most important thing about homelessness.  Where are you going to get your food daily?  Here are some tips:

• Agencies has food pantry which you possibly can get some food
• Various churches might offer free supper on different days.  In Covington alone, I was able to have dinner at five different churches every week.
• Never pass on a free meal.  If somebody offers to buy you a meal, you take it.
• Free sample trays:  on the weekends, all your major grocery stores have free sampling.  Go into each store and act like a grocery shopper and sample each free sample.  Look interested in them as well by asking questions about what you sampled.  Then most important, buy something very small priced.
• Go to soup kitchens
• Apply for food stamps.  Could be a great help in the long run.

As you can see, eating isn’t really a problem if you know where to go.

DAY TWO AND BEYOND:

To survive on the streets, you need to do your homework.  You need to stay ahead of the game.  You need to be aware what’s going on around you.  If you see something that isn’t right or something feels wrong, trust your instinct.  To read more about the things I’ll be mentioning below, please read my post on “Trying to understand homelessness”.

Set up safety measurements.  For example, you might not be able to stay with your friend but you can set up days when you two can talk so that somebody knows if you are ok or not.  That’s what I did with my best friend and my mom.  Each week, I placed a call to them.  It can be for a minute to stay you are alright or an e-mail to them.

Have plans. So, you found a perfect place to sleep or place to eat?  What happens if somebody else beats you to perfect place to sleep?  What now?  Do you have a backup plan?  Always have two or three or maybe four plans just in case something happens.  Have plans for everything.

Self Inventory. After find a reasonable place to stay and you are comfortable, start working on your self inventory.  Be honest with yourself.  What are your weakness and strengths?

Set Goals. How are you going to succeed in digging yourself out of homelessness?  Set goals and milestones.

In conclusion, things that is very important to remember is SAFETY!  You need to be safe!  Also remember that the longer you are homeless, the more you start losing your moral and confidence.  Another key thing is don’t be afraid to ask for help or accept help.  Follow some of these tips I have given you, and before you know it, you could be digging  yourself out of homelessness like I did.

TL