“People are homeless by choice“ is the belief held by many people in government, especially the District government. They truly believe that any person who wants to stop being homeless can, at any given moment, just waltz into any apartment complex, rent an apartment, and move in.
Where they get such ideas is truly a mystery. Maybe it comes from watching too much of the Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, the Disney Channel, or the Sci-Fi Network, of too much time on their Play stations to realize that reality is not the same as virtual reality. However, we elected these people, unfortunately, and they often lead us down the wrong paths.
So, now it’s a new year. Maybe now is the time to make a change. What happens when a person wants to stop being homeless? Finding a job does help, maybe.
How does that work? Let’s start searching for a job. That means researching the openings in the newspapers, on the Internet, going through job banks at the Career Centers, and using any resource that could be available. Because we’re homeless, we aren’t exactly bursting at the seams with resources, and we have to hold the travel down to a minimum, so we do what we can with as little travel as possible. Because we don’t exactly have an elegant wardrobe, we keep the dressing up for the interview alone; we don’t try to knock on doors of potential employers, because that would soon prove to be a problem.
Oh, and there’s another problem. What about an address? We can’t give the address of a shelter, because no employer will hire someone living in a shelter. Same with phone numbers; best to give a cell phone number or the number of a friend who’ll help out – provided that we still have friends like that who are willing to claim us.
Didn’t work out so well, did it? We, that’s okay, because even if we had had a job, we’d still have faced problems when we applied for the apartment. Apartment applications require you to put down your former address, and landlords aren’t too happy to take in people who have lived in shelters. Even if you work, many still check your credit, and law credit scores mean that you don’t get an apartment.
So, is there a way out? Sure.
Go back to your core service agency and tell them about your problems. They’ll tell you there’s a way out. They won’t have one, but they’ll tell you that. You’ll fill out forms for housing – oh, and did you apply for Section 8 at the Housing Authority? If you didn’t do that already, why didn’t you? You’re supposed to know that they moment you end up on the street!
I could happen to you, too. Nobody’s promising you anything, you know, you could find yourself right back on the street; that’s why they call it chronic homelessness. That’s what the government claims it’s trying to eliminate. At least they’re claiming it; they could just deny it.
What’s that? You say I sound cynical? You’re still new to this, aren’t you? Once you’ve seen as much as I have, you’ll learn that cynicism is a self-preservation tactic. It’s what keeps you alive. You learn to expect nothing and to believe nobody, and that way, you never get disappointed when you get shafted over and over. If you started out believing in the good of humankind, you are in for a major culture shock in this world.
That’s why you need the core service agencies; they can get you the psychotropic medications that will cushion the blow once the depression and anxiety become daily fare. You’ll have no choice but to take your medications, because they will be the only comfort you have left; you won‘t get any help other than those pills. That’s just to be painfully honest with you; those pills won’t end your homelessness, but at least you might get a good night‘s sleep wherever you may rest your head.
It won’t get better. Don’t hope for such changes. The elections are over; reality will set in again. We’re in for a bad time, and it will probably get a lot worse. If you’re in a shelter now, you may hear it’s being closed tomorrow, so don’t get too comfortable. Nobody cares about you once you’re homeless; you don’t matter to anybody, and if you die, you’re just one less burden on the public as far as the government is concerned.
That may sound cruel, but it’s the truth. Sure, you may not like hearing me say it – nobody does – but you don’t like it because you know it’s true. If it weren’t true, you’d just ignore me. The problem is that you can’t. Nobody can. Even if I end up like Mitch Miller – and nobody believes the story that he killed himself – I will have spoken the truth during my lifetime, and for that I have no regrets.
