New Blog

This blog’s on life support. I’m not homeless anymore. It makes no sense to keep posting here. So I started a new blog: Man of Many Words. It’s just stories and things. Real stuff. My life. Your life. This place. People, animals, weather. Books and cars, breathing and giving. Homeless in New Haven will eventually morph to become purely a reference and resource center for folks who need help in and around New Haven. Frankly, I would like to get this blog so refined in that sense that it should become a model for other cities as well. Homeless in New York, Homeless in Albuquerque, Homeless in Minneapolis, Homeless in every place you can be homeless. And that’s everywhere.

Now what about rural homelessness? That’s something I know nothing about. Why doesn’t somebody start a blog about living in the sticks homeless? I’d like to hear about that.

Meanwhile, I’ve got work to do. Check out the new page on this blog titled Resources. There are only three items there, without explanation, as of today. Look for a soup kitchen schedule, a list of shelters, a handy survival guide, places to get free clothing and bus passes, information about family services,free legal counsel, and so on and so forth. If you have any information in that regard, feel free to send it to me at qualitywritingprofessional@inbox.com.

As for my new blog, you will notice there is a donation button. “What a minute,” my regular readers will say. “Didn’t you say you were going to stop asking for donations out of respect for those who need it most?” Yes I did. The reason I am putting a donation button on the other blog is because it makes no claims that I am desperate. To put one on this blog, the homeless one, would be a mite disingenuous. Don’t get me wrong: I ain’t rich. I’m still pretty “poor”. I need money. I am a writer and I need money and I am grateful for whatever anybody can swing. But as always, I write primarily to give people a pleasurable reading experience, so if you don’t want to or simply cannot give me any money, please relax and just read. I hope you’ll enjoy the stories found there.

Happy reading.

Bellissa and Faith

I walked out of the shelter and hefted my suitcase into the back seat of Bellissa’s truck. Together we rode towards Rudy’s.

“I have to ask you this,” Bellissa was saying. “Are you on any drugs?”

“Nicotine,” I replied.

“OK. So, nothing? Because if you need any kind of counseling, any kind of treatment, I’ve got hookups in that department too. I just want to make sure you’re taken care of in that regard too, if that’s the case.”

“No drugs, no nothing. Just me and my karma.”

“OK.”

We ordered our burgers and fish sandwiches (me the former, vegetarian-esque she the latter) and one Schaffer beer each. Bellissa paid. I was grateful. The Wednesday night Rudy’s crowd was a decent size. We talked about moving me into her spare room for awhile, and about what I can do for her in exchange and for how long it should go on. I would move a gigantic pile of sticks and branches from one part of her backyard to another. I would crush and destroy the bamboo-like weeds that had taken over one corner of the yard. I would put together her new entertainment center, install “grippy tape” on the front steps to reduce the chance of someone slipping, and help to unpack a room full of boxes and distribute their contents around the house where they belong. The latter is the only one I never got around to, because it turned out I was out of there and into my own place in a week.

Meanwhile, Bellissa drove me around, bought me lunches and dinners, introduced me to her friends and brothers and her basement roommate, talked with and counseled me about my options for the immediate and near future, and took my thousand thanks gracefully, eventually asking me to stop thanking her. I couldn’t help it. Although I was helping her out around the house, I still felt that yanking me out of the shelter and putting me up for a week was a true gift. She was, and continues to be, a true friend. We laughed, we hung out, we even drank and made merry one night around a bonfire in her backyard. The fire burned an invisible igloo of warmth in the still, cool air of the opening days of April as we sipped on Bud and nipped at a small bottle of Southern Comfort. I felt completely at ease in her presence, yet also oddly responsible and productive.

I continued the blog from her place and considered my plans. Ultimately the blog drew forth a number of Good Samaritans (much like paramedics to a crash site) who offered all measure of things helpful: money, jobs, housing, food and coffee outings for discussing life and its vicissitudes, kind sentiments and powerful words of encouragement. The blog also drew forth a some chastisement from old friends who I had wronged at one point and with whom I had not yet made amends. Even that was OK, as it just felt good to be reaching out and talking to everybody.

Two people expressed doubt that I had ever been homeless. I felt immensely complimented and encouraged to hear that I was just “a professional writer riding a trend” of homelessness and poverty in the literary and pop culture arenas.

Perhaps I never made myself sound desperate enough. Maybe my positive attitude in the face of hardship wasn’t typical. Certainly I was not living in the shelter for very long, but now wait just one minute, fellas. I have known poverty all my life. I grew up on Section 8 housing and welfare checks and grossly early Social Security benefits. When I was little, my mother and I usually had enough money left over for a Friday night donut date at the kitchen table. Silently, gratefully, and full of mischievous giggling, we slurped our half a donut each by candlelight. Dunked into milk sopping wet dripping. This was our treat for the week. I’m grateful for the donut memories.

Welcome to the story of my life: not having much, being resourceful, trying not to think like a poor person, being a chronic spendthrift when you get a few extra bucks in your pocket, only to find yourself broke in a few days and having to pawn something or ration the milk. Fine. Not so bad. Have you ever heard me complain?

Bellissa related the story of how she once asked a poor old man, Rawls, a jazz saxophone player, why he would spend $200 out of his $300 monthly government cheese on a handheld DVD player.

“When you’ve been poor your entire life,” explained Rawls, “you really are not interested in counting your pennies. If you get a little extra cash, you want to get something nice for yourself. You just want to feel normal, like other people.” And then you’re broke for days or weeks and you have to beg people for food. That’s thinking like a poor person. Again: welcome to my world.

One of the Good Samaritans who responded to my blog, Faith is her name, offered to put me up in an efficiency apartment in her house in exchange for 20-30 hours a week of work around the house. I could choose the jobs as I find things that need doing – raking, picking up trash, doing dishes, general cleaning, painting the unfinished woodwork around the window sills – what-have-you. It would also include feeding the stray cat, Squeak is his name, “because I want you to learn how to take care of something other than yourself,” Faith intoned in all seriousness. That sounded great, so I took the efficiency.

And that’s where I am now. I have a cozy little room – not too little, but little – enough room for walking loose figure eights, a writerly pace of pondering – with my own bathroom and kitchen. This is more than I could have ever hoped for, especially on a work exchange basis. The house is situated right off the New Haven Harbor, which is an inlet off the Long Island Sound, which is an inlet off the Atlantic Ocean. I can open my side door and see saltwater. It comes in violently in big tumultuous waves when it rains all day, like it did three days ago, but when the weather is stiller sits patiently in the cold early April breeze, lapping the shore like a stray tabby cat to its stairway water dish.

Is this the place where I can write my Great American novel about how I am not Great at all, hardly even consider myself an American in the popular sense of the word? There is seclusion and solitude here; Faith, ever faithful, assures me the place is well protected by His divine love. I can write my life and my memories and my nows and forevers, and I can take a bus or walk an hour into town for a little social healing, a healing I need so badly.

But it’s the solitude I love. No sirens can be heard. No nighttime ambulances in a steady procession towards the Yale New Haven Medical Center, almost on top of which I lived when I was over at George and Howe, before I was evicted on sincere threat of violence.

No. This place is peace, here in my “kingdom by the sea”. So I’m grateful, I’m not homeless, and I’m ready to move forward in life. Tell me, please: Is that so boring?

Note: Some names were changed to avoid drama.

Every Day: Character Sketch: Joe

Character sketch: Joe. About 50. Pissed off and in pain all the time. Washes windows for ten, fifteen bucks per business (Au Bon Pain, Koffee Too, etc.), if he can get the manager to sympathize and pay out-of-pocket on a personal basis. Someone stole his tools a month back, he laments, pissed off. Sometimes sleeps in doorways. I saw him on Palm Sunday in the rain in the dark in the town, covered with a black trash bag with holes cut out for the arms and neck.

“Hey man,” I called after him. He turned around.

“Hey man, how you doin’?” He normally doesn’t ask. Curious. We walked together.

“Hanging in there, hanging in there. You?”

His first word in response to that question is always the same:

“Terrible. My whole body hurts. I am in such pain.” It was the rain, doing a number on his various injuries, magnifying them to a brittle, shill crescendo of seeming breaking and accursed, acute specificity. He demonstrated his bastardized bones, first by gripping his jaw in two hands and wrenching it to the side so that a cracking, crunching sound was made, like a sabotaged factory machine. Spectacular.

“Oh my God,” I grimaced. “What happened?”

“Fell off the Coliseum.”

(He was referring to the New Haven Coliseum, before it was demolished early this year. The Brutalist structure was a sports arena and concert venue for the more world-famous touring acts that came through New Haven. The thing was ugly as hell, but many memories were made there. People mourned its demise. When the engineers set charges to it and brought it to the ground in an instant, the crowds cheered from rooftops, parking lots, roadsides, apartment windows. Channel 8 televised the Coliseum’s last performance. The explosions clapped in succession – clap! clap! clap! clap! clap! clap! clap! followed by a couple of thunderous booms! as the load-bearing concrete and steel pounded to the ground. A dust cloud bloomed brown like a dirty cauliflower and evaporated toward the Harbor in moments. Cameras flashed like a parade of paparazzi. I was there for it, because building demolitions are a minor interest of mine, due to studying a certain political event that must remain nameless here for reasons of irrelevance.)

The Coliseum had demolished Joe. Here in the rain he showed me his missing ribs on his right side and the deformed ridge of a bone on the bridge of his nose, glaring fiercely at me for emphasis.

I commented on his trash bag, “I see you’ve gotten creative with keeping the rain off.”

“Gotta be smart out here to stay alive. Remember my old shoes? All full of holes. Feet got soaked. These ones,” he lifted a foot to show me, “cost two hundred dollars new. I got ‘em for free. I’m on my way to tell ‘em I stole ‘em.”

“What? Nah, man, don’t do that. Don’t do that. You need the shoes.”

“I gotta tell ‘em.”

“What. Why. You trying to get right with God?”

“I’m right with God, been right with him for years.”

“So, what. Stealing is wrong, so you’re gonna go shoot yourself in the foot by turning yourself in? Don’t you have enough problems as it is?”

“I gotta tell ‘em.” The combination of desperation and honesty and momentum are what keep this man down, it occurred to me then.

We walked on and paused under the light and shelter of the awning outside Gourmet Heaven, an overpriced health food store, as the nearby church bells clanged the commencement of the 10:00 p.m. Compline service at Christ Church. We discussed the evils of the Grand Avenue Hotel.

“Get out of there! That place is infested with over-the-counter illegal drugs. You better pray nobody ditches their stash in your suitcase when the cops finally come to bust that whole place and burn it to the ground.”

“I’ll get out ASAP,” I assured him. I didn’t mention I had already gotten out a couple of days earlier and was staying with my dear friend Patty in Milford for a week. Joe and I bid our fare-thee-wells. He headed off into the rain. I headed off to Compline, out of sheer curiosity and to meet Patty and a few others to sit together in silence. Not being a Christian, I took the experience in its raw form, devoid of context, for my virgin eyes and ears only, and that’s the best way to do things, in my big opinion.

In the church – the same one that has fed me a dozen times – it was cold and dark but lovingly candlelit. Incense permeated the air like campfire. I inhaled the dirty sweetness. All you could see were black silhouettes, mostly just shoulders and heads in the chairs. I sat in the darkness and clasped my hands together in thoughtless meditation as the choir, unseen, hidden in the rafters or the walls or, ostensibly, meant to be emanating directly from heaven, opened up their steady repertoire of liturgical Gregorian chant or whatever it is. I listened to each song and sat and silently thanked the architects of this large building with the vastly arched interior, and wondered at the guys in the black robes – priests? monks? students? What were they? I just sat and breathed and tried to listen for that perfect silence I did not know I had been craving up until that very moment, that moment preceded by the occasional, lonely, echoing cough or a leather jacket squeaking as its wearer shuffled into a slightly more comfortable position in the hard wooden chairs, and then I found it. That perfect silence, as the choir’s sung rendition of the Our Father drew to a close, and, yes, you could have heard a pin drop, or your own heartbeat, or John Cage’s 4’ 33’’ (in which the tuxedo-bedecked pianist lifts the cover of the keys, sets a timer on the lip of the piano to four minutes and thirty-three seconds, hits the start button, positions his hands over the keys, those keys so full of potential sound, not touching those keys, hovering inches above, oh-so-close, and just sits there perfectly still until the timer runs out, and then silences the alarm, closes the cover to the piano, gets up, and walks out of the concert hall to the rapt applause of the audience, some of whom may “get it”, others of whom may not or may just not give a damn), or, again, your own heartbeat, and you thank God for that heartbeat, that percussion in your chest that signals the continuity of life, the non-stop march of the inner human drumbeat, the one that Joe has, I have, you have, Patty has, our companions have – Peter has, Kevin has, Jason has, J has, Faux Paul has – and those not in attendance, our earthly devils and angels, like my ex-landlord Chad (that devil-angel he), everyone has, while we still walk the earth, and it signifies you are still alive, assures you this is not a dream, and fills you with life and blood coursing through your veins, oxygenating your lungs, the air.

Homeless people have it, beating, beating, breathing, breathing, as they settle down into their shantytown between I-91 and I-95 here in New Haven, where the cop brings blankets in the murderous January wind to save a few lives this winter, Winter, with a capital “W”, and you can’t ignore it when it’s windy and snowy and death surrounds you and you’ve got no place to go and your landlord is but a long lost memory of eviction and responsibility shirked and guilt and regret and the raucous battle to forget the memories, memories as deadly as the cold, and you can’t ignore the cold like you can when you live an Overground life with electricity and walls and emergency candles, candles: a quaint item in a drawer full of loose batteries and extra pens without the caps and you’ve got your hot water – hot water! Praise the Lord! – and the extra blankets for the guests who may never arrive but oh boy could somebody use them tonight, my friends, oh my good Lord could somebody use those blankets tonight, for their hearts beat too, my dear, their hearts beat too for yet precious moments, moments until the candle is extinguished and.

Note: Some names were changed in honor of our universal human right to privacy and sanctity of all things personal.

No Longer Homeless

Dear Readers, Friends, Family, Donors, Acquaintances,

I am no longer homeless. Due to the response I have gotten as a result of this blog, I now have the tools I need to get up and off my feet. I have a somewhat permanent place to live, job prospects, and even a little money with which to get me through to my first paycheck.

I have learned so much from the experience of homelessness. This blog will remain open, so that I can continue to catch you all up on what it’s like on the underground. I have many stories yet to recount. However, I will no longer be asking for donations. As I said in my last post, thank you again to everybody who reached out and helped me.

I also intend to continue to compile information and resources for homeless people who might happen upon this blog. One might ask how a homeless person could even read this blog. To that person I would say, “Welcome to the Age of Information.” You might have heard the jokes or seen a comedy sketch about the guy who lives in a cardboard box but owns a cell phone, PDA, laptop, and what-have-you. That would not be too far from the truth. There is also the fact of many Internet kiosks and terminals available at Universities, libraries, and other types of venues. And then there are the people who are doing just fine right now – with a job, a home, plenty of food, and so on – who might read this, fall on hard times sometime in the future, and then be able to refer back to what they read here, so that they might be able to survive and be as comfortable as possible.

I haven’t begun to scratch the surface with regard to posting information about soup kitchens, shelters, bus passes, free clothing, and so on. I am currently working on a new and improved version of the soup kitchen schedule I picked up one hungry day at Community Soup Kitchen at 84 Broadway in downtown New Haven. The changes I am making are designed to improve readability, as well as include updates as far as which soup kitchens are still open, and which are now closed. That will be posted soon. Stay tuned.

Again, this blog will remain open, but the purpose of it has changed. More stories to come.

Thank You

Just a quick thank you to everyone who has reached out and helped me these last few days. I can’t begin to explain what that means to me. I promise I will write back to you. God bless you.

Nights 1, 2, and 3, PART III: A Typical Day of Homelessness in New Haven (Prison Lite)

When I left New Haven, I didn’t think I would return. I figured I would meet up with my girlfriend in Hartford, spend a week there, make some money editing and writing documents for companies I found on Craig’s List, and then head off for a long pilgrimage to see my family and reclaim my identity. But it turned out I just didn’t have the time to work while I was “getting to know” the girl I had known via email for seven years. She and I had much to learn about each other, even though we had exchanged millions of words over the years. After an emotional roller coaster of a week, she made off for New Mexico to work in her museum, and I contemplated my next move.

After losing my wallet and finding it and realizing I had just hit rock bottom and that up was the only way I could go, I decided the best thing to do was go into downtown Hartford and walk around a bit first, before returning to New Haven with my tail between my legs. I had $26 and some change on me. One man I met on the street told me all about a homeless shelter in Manchester, accessible from Hartford by city bus. I asked him if he knew of any work I could score today and get paid at the end of the shift. All he could do was point me to the McDonald’s across the street. Believe it or not, I went in and applied. In the Address section I wrote my former New Haven address. I didn’t know what else to write. Ultimately I decided Hartford was fine and it could support me, but because I already knew the New Haven underground to an extent, I opted to drop twelve bucks on the Peter Pan bus ticket back to old New Haven.

I arrived back into town and headed for Cafe 9, my old poetry hangout. I used to go there every Monday and perform poetry and rap. Today was a Wednesday, and I planned to go there and use their wireless Internet connection to communicate with my girlfriend and whatnot. When I walked in, my computer fanatic friend and confidant Brian was there to greet me. He bought me a beer, I told him my story up to that point, and we just sat and shot the bull. At one point he offered me a job with his company, but it turned out that was just the beer talking, because he never returned any of my subsequent Skype calls. Maybe the calls didn’t go through; Skype can be dicey. I refrained from asking Brian or anyone else for sanctuary; pride dictated that I would only let strangers help me.

I made my way to Koffee Too, a collegey hangout on the Yale campus. Ran into a pissed off old homeless guy who washes windows and does odd jobs for the businesses in and around the Broadway shopping area. I asked him where the shelter is and how I can get in. The only advice he had for me was “Don’t go to the shelter. Don’t go to the shelter.” Apparently he had had some bad experiences there. I didn’t care. I needed a roof. It was cold outside and the time was approaching midnight.

I asked another beggar for confirmation information about shelter, and he suggested I stop a cop and tell them I need emergency shelter for the night. As if summoned, a squad car pulled around the corner. I flagged it down.

“Yes?” said the cop.

“I need emergency shelter for the night.”

“Okay, let me pull over and get out of traffic.”

“Okay.”

I stood and waited amongst the college crowd coming in and out of Toad’s Place, the big venue for touring acts that come through New Haven. The officer called over to Emmanuel Baptist, got me the go-ahead to arrive late (after the 11 p.m. curfew), and I made off for the place with everything I own on my back and towed behind me in my suitcase.

I walked in. All the lights were off except for those illuminating the front desk. Behind a Plexiglass panel sat a thuggish-looking African American gentleman. I said to him, “I need shelter.”

“What the hell are you doing coming in here this late? You’re supposed to be in by 11 p.m. You ever been here before?”

“No, this is my first time,” I replied. “I asked a cop for shelter and he called here to see if you had room.”

“You’ll have to take a cot.”

“That’s fine.”

“Okay, fill out this form.”

I sat down behind the desk and filled it out: Name, Social Security number, birth date, age. Reason for homelessness. Any drug problems, been homeless before? Where did you come from, what city? Emergency contact number.

I listed my dad for that last item.

“Do I have to fill out the last name and Social Security number sections?” I asked another black man named Jermaine. He explained in friendly tones that yes, I had to fill them out, since I’ll be asked that information each and every subsequent time I check in. That’s how they single out individuals who have broken the rules and were barred from entering the shelter. I introduced myself and he shook my extended hand.

“Mind if I grab some of that bread on the table?” I asked.

“Yeah, help yourself.”

The darkened room was full of men sleeping, or at least resting silently, on couches and cots. In the corner there was a door through which I could see a small portion of the main sleeping quarters, full of beds (about 75 of them). I was in the overflow room, the lobby that also served as mess hall and game room during the evenings before lights out. I slid my suitcase under the cot, all the way to the wall, and placed my backpack under where my head would be. I silently vowed to go for the jugular of anyone who happened to dare touch me or my belongings. I sat down in the dark and ate my bread. Jermaine came over and passed me some peanut butter crackers and a bologne sandwich with a slice of cheap “American” cheese. All this food was delicious to me. I polished off every last crumb and lay down.

It took me two hours to fall asleep. I was trying to keep one eye open for thieves. If someone moved, I moved. If someone got up to go to the bathroom, I opened both eyes, tracing the shuffling silhouette like a sniper. At one point, Jermaine walked over to the TV and turned it on, keeping the volume low but loud enough to keep a waking man awake. The Nature Channel. I don’t remember what animals they were, but I fell asleep to those sounds.

Two hours later it was 6 a.m. and the men were already starting to wake up. By 7 a.m. all the lights were on and I was packed up to go. I didn’t have to put my jacket and shoes and hat on; I had slept in them. I followed a trickle of outgoing traffic into the street from whence I’d come. There in the dawning Thursday I stood with men of all ages, sipping my coffee out of a little Styrofoam cup. Black men, white men, Hispanic men, all mingling without regard to color. One India Indian, who is a born-again Christian. Maybe a couple other major ethnicities, and certainly many subcategories of Human. None of the she-males were there, but I did see one a few nights later, sleeping on a bed. Amazing that they can feel safe here. Young men, old men, and every age in between. Demographics fall short of explaining tragedy. There is no pattern to where it might occur.

Off I went down the street, heading for the coffee shops and the WiFi signals they represent to me.

Thus began my stay at the Grand Avenue Hotel, the Reservation, the Den of Thieves, the Emmanuel Baptist Emergency Shelter Management Services main headquarters, the place where dozens upon dozens of men sleep every night of their lives, and where many more sleep only on occasion. The shelter is one of a handful in New Haven. The other popular one is Columbus House, but the residents of the Den of Thieves speak very lowly of it, comparing it to being in prison. They should know. Many of them have done hard time. The rules at Emmanuel Baptist are strict enough as it is.

You already know about curfew. You have to check in by 11 p.m., but they open their doors at 4 p.m., and it’s a very good idea to get there as early as 2 p.m. to wait in line and thus garner first dibs on the showers while they are still freshly cleaned. Otherwise you have to stand in the dirty water of dozens of hard street people. It’s nearly impossible to get perfectly clean, but you do your best. Shower room privacy is almost as scant as it is in the sleeping quarters. Privacy is in fact the one luxury I miss the most.

During the early evening, you get settled. Take your shower. It’s required upon entrance, and although the paid staff doesn’t keep strict tabs on that, most of the “clients” appreciate the opportunity to clean off the day’s filth. Homeless life is, in many ways, much more active than a life of working. Social services are strewn all throughout the city, so you end up walking a lot, and the meal times at the various soup kitchens occur like clockwork. A typical day might encompass walking to one side of the city for breakfast, making your way to the other side of the city for an appointment with a case worker so you can grab bus passes or drug counseling appointments are whatever you need, trekking back to the other side of the city but a different venue for lunch, over to Labor Ready or Temporary to follow up on your employment application for some day labor and same-day cash, and finally back to the shelter. Other stops might include hitting up your favorite local street grapevine to get the latest news on deaths in the underground family, checking out the weather forecasts for deciding whether your next day’s plans are a viable proposition, grabbing a nap on a park bench, bumming cigarettes and begging for change, stopping off at the free clothing drop-off, and so on. I myself have done much walking, although not necessarily for all of the above examples of activities. My calves are much larger than they were a week ago, and my pectoral muscles have begun taking on the definition they had when I was 20 years old. Homelessness involves real exercise and rigorous maintenance of your schedule. I like to quip, “With unemployment like this, who needs a job?” Showers are therefore a loving godsend.

Once inside and settled into your assigned bed, cot, or couch, and once showered, you might have some spare time to watch one of the three televisions or exchange the latest street news with your assigned neighbors before dinner is served at 6 p.m. Like well trained dogs, we line up, grab paper plates and forks (never any knives, not even plastic – too dangerous?), and accept the day’s slops. To be fair, the food is often quite decent for mass-prepared fare, and sometimes it’s even downright delicious. You might run into lasagna, cream of broccoli soup, Asian salad with peas in the pod, chicken wings, and so on and so forth. The menu is different every night. This level of quality – i.e., not too bad at all, in fact – applies generally to all soup kitchens in the city, whether they be run by the shelters or by the churches and city employees.

After the meal, you have nothing but time on your hands. Try not to disrespect anyone. Don’t start any fights. Don’t use the staff bathroom. Don’t even try to leave the shelter. These trespasses will get you barred from entrance for seven days to a year to life. Just chill. The TV in the front room usually has a basketball game or other sport, or perhaps the news or Law and Order. (Irony, anyone?) The two televisions in the main sleeping quarters, the back room, will both be turned on in a spirit of noisy cooperation, one set to Law and Order, the other set to a movie, perhaps Conan the Barbarian, as they did six nights in a row.

Many of the men opt not to watch TV, instead just falling asleep right after dinner, so they can wake up in time to get in line at the day labor agency at 4:30 in the morning. Other men meander about the sleeping quarters, talking to each other, laughing and cracking jokes. You might see two of the staff members playing round after round of speed chess, the timer set to five minutes; they will completely blow your mind with their brilliance at the game. The Hispanic guys (better known as Spanish, actually) prefer dominoes. Sometimes the staff will intermingle with the inmates-I-mean-clients.

There are “smoke breaks” every hour on the hour, in which the men are allowed outside to smoke for five minutes in the back parking lot. If you open the back door during any other time, you could be barred from entrance into the shelter for seven days. If you are barred entrance from all the shelters in town and you have burned down all the bridges you ever had in the city, you will have to find your way into a jail or a hospital emergency room and sleep sitting up, before someone kicks you out. Otherwise you sleep outside. If it’s winter, you freeze and you die, and the other homeless people will talk about you for the next few days, and that’s your funeral.

Being locked in is not such a bad feeling. Think about it. There are drug dealers in the shelters, and all kinds of drug fiends. If people could come and go as they please, chaos could ensue very quickly. It would become impossible to search everybody coming in, which they usually do at least on a spot-check basis (bags and a bodily pat-down), and more and more contraband would find its way in. I don’t know about you, but the fewer people coming and going from the shelter, the safer I feel in their midst. Not that these are bad people. They’re just street people. Akin to wild animals, they do what they have to do to survive. At the same time, they will readily help you out and get your back for you. If they already have some spare cash on them, they will let you know if your wallet falls out of your pocket while you sleep, rather than taking it. This happened to me one night, and I promised to buy the Good Samaritan a pack of Newports in a gesture of appreciation. He accepted this with a nod and a good-natured fist bump. He knew full well there was a great chance I couldn’t afford the smokes, but I still want to get him back for the good turn he paid me.

Lights are turned out at 10 p.m., and the TVs are generally shut off at 11 p.m. Everyone goes to sleep, if they’re not sleeping already. Things get all quiet and peaceful. You might hear some loud snoring. If it’s a Friday or Saturday night you might hear a couple of guys arguing with each other, one of them drunk, as I witnessed last weekend. Technically, drunkenness will get you barred from entrance into the shelter, but they’ll make exceptions depending on whether they like you.

At 6 a.m. your day starts all over again, and for many it’s like that movie Groundhog’s Day with Bill Murray. The same day, over and over again. But is daily repetition and redundancy so different from having a job and a house and a wife and kids and an Overground life? Many people live the same day over and over again, at all strata of the economically-based class system. Some problems are universal, don’t you think?

I urge you not to judge homeless people too harshly. Yes, of course it’s their own fault. Of course my situation is a bed of my own making. I’ll lie in it and take my punches like a man, because I earned this. But it’s very important that you realize how important these people are to society. Many of them have jobs, sometimes two or more. And yes, many of them are drug addicts. Others still are mentally ill and incapable of functioning in society. The other category – the one I’m in – is just guys who have made a few bad mistakes and are currently paying their debt to society. Call it Prison Lite.

Note: Some names have been changed or withheld to protect their identities.