WELCOME TO HOMELESS NATION

Homeless Nation is not on any map, or in any travel guide or airline schedule. It has no desk at the State Department, nor a seat at the United Nations.

Homeless Nation has no flag, national anthem, flower, bird, national pastime, or official holidays.
The population of Homeless Nation is, well, depends on who is counting this week....but a ball park (we don't have those either, as we have no national pastime) figure would put it at about, oh, let's say, on any given night, a few hundred thousand, give or take a couple of park benches.

Park benches, are in fact where a lot of us Homeless Nation citizens sleep. Those and bridges - well, UNDER bridges, no self respecting Streetpuppy would sleep ON a bridge for heavens sake -and parks and in small tents, and in doorways and cars and on church steps and porches, in fact, maybe last night, one of us slept on your porch, and ya didn't even know it.

Some real high class Streetpuppies sleep under the porticos of big libraries, or the back stairways and lawns of performing arts centers, or in the high arched doorways of court houses.
You probably see us everywhere, and don't really notice us, unless we put on a shiny vest and sell newspapers or fly a sign asking for help, or you have to step around us on your way to catch a bus.

We spend a lot of time at bus stations. Bus stations are kind of the communications and transportation center cum dressing room cum grooming parlor for many Streetpuppies.
Some Streetpuppies sleep in shelters, we'll have more on those later. And sometimes, if yer caught sleeping in a private place, you'll spend the rest of the night as a guest of the local police department. More on that later, too.

We walk around a lot, and carry everything we own with us, so we don't own much. We dine a lot at 'feeds' which are prepared and served by wonderful people who know how to cook.
And we watch the rest of the world go by, with nowhere to go...and nothing to do when we get there.

Over the next few months, I'll take you through Homeless Nation. the places, the people, the sights, the sounds, the sadness, the frustrations, the dangers, and yes, the love and joy I have found in this place, this Homeless Nation.

So, c'mon along. It's going to be a great ride.