The bus stopped at a building. The bus driver rattled off some names and the women got off the bus and we pulled off. At the next stop, the bus driver rattled off some more names, this time mine, and I went into the facility where again I went through a security checkpoint and my laptop was confiscated. I was then asked a bajillion questions, mind you it’s like 2am and I really wasn’t about being interrogated; I just wanted to sleep. He explained this was a shelter for women who had jobs but were homeless and that there were no mentally ill here but because many of the other shelters were at max capacity, they had to take in a couple of them. They explained to me that this was where I’d be actually living permanently until I found a place to live. I was then led into a gym where 80 lockers and 80 beds were filled with sleeping women, but the first thing I noticed was, the lights were on.
Everyone was asleep except for one woman who was folding her clothes and meticulously placing them in her locker. Although there was an empty bed beside that woman, the security guard whispered to me that she wasn’t going to put me beside her because the woman folding the clothes doesn’t sleep. It wasn’t until later I found out what that was about. But while putting my things in my locker, I heard slam, squeak! I glanced up and it was the sound of the lady folding the clothes slamming her locker shut and then the squeak from the hinges of her opening it again. Her back was to me so I just stared at her for a moment because something with her seemed off. She had taken all the clothes she just folded out, placed them on the bed and started folding them all over again. Every few minutes, all night long, all I heard was slam squeak, slam squeaaaaak! and I thought to myself, you gotta be fuckin kidding me. This must be one of the mentally ill intake warned me about and she had some killer form of OCD.
The next morning I woke up, I had to leave the building. See the homeless aren’t allowed to stay in the shelters between about 7am to 5pm unless you had a pass. The idea I guess is if they put you on the street all day, you’d be “motivated” to look for work. Plus this was a shelter for working women so we weren’t supposed to be there anyway. But I noticed not everyone worked. So I packed my stuff, grabbed my laptop from security and headed off to the nearest cafe to work which happened to be a Dunkin Donuts until it was time for the library to open and then I went there because it was more warm and cozy. That’s when I learned many of the homeless had the same idea as there were several men there who were obviously homeless and some even mentally ill.
After I was done working, I went back to the shelter and had a glimpse of my roomies for the first time and noticed all the 80 women here were Black and only about 3 were Latina. Unlike the previous shelter which was mostly filled with 20 and 30 year olds that always had a bone to pick with somebody, these women were older and conversational and more mature, so I actually got to get to know them and hear their stories of how they ended up homeless.
The Prostitute: Homeless By Domestic Violence
What you think of this? One of the Latinas showed me a photo of a near naked woman, bent over in black lingerie and heavy makeup, with some wording that I didn’t really read. I replied “Ugh, um no”. She replied Really? I was like Who is that? And she replied ME!? It’s my Craigslist ad for my escort service. She had no shame in telling everyone she was a prostitute and she wanted my opinion on her Craigslist ad. She was about in her 40s. She went on to tell me about her escort service because she didnt have a job and resorted to prostitution for money. She was getting food stamps and a cash payout from welfare but she was only getting $180 in SNAP benefits (food stamps) and $20 in cash payout per month.
She became homeless because she was living with her boyfriend but he would abuse her so one day she left. She had been in the shelter 4 months and claimed she couldn’t work because she had a bad back. But all this time I was thinking a bad back? But you’re a prostitute. Everything you do involves your back!
She said she was waiting to get a housing voucher.
My New Neighbor: Homeless By Price-Gouging Landlord
The bed beside me had been empty but soon a new woman “moved” in. My new bedmate was a Latina and we got to know each other fairly well.
She became homeless because she was paying $700 per month to rent a room and then suddenly the landlord raised the rent to $900 due on her next payment. She couldn’t afford the rent, so she became homeless.
Weeks later, she became pregnant by her boyfriend.
The Elderly Woman: Homeless By Unlivable Wages
The OCD: Homeless By Mental Illness
Homeless By
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