Monday, December 19, 2011

HELTER SHELTER PART TWO

Let's say you have been invited to stay in one of the aforementioned shelters, havens, harbours or ministries.

You have either submitted to a battery of tests asking, among other things if you have ever had homicidal tendencies; been taken there by the policeman who found you slumped over a red ant hill by the bus stop you slipped off because you were drunk or high enough to care less about being bitten alive by critters; you were caught sleeping outside under somebody's porch, and the policeman gave you the alternative of jail or the nice shelter down the road....or you just wandered into an office one day which was staffed by scrubby clean True Believers in matching t-shirts emblazoned with a rings of fire motif, and they talked you into joining their new spiritual awakening movement after you surrendered  power of attorney, and all of your dough including the loose change.

You've made the leap.  You are now a 'sheltered' streetpuppy. 

However, Uncle Sam still views you as homeless because you are not yet at a 'fixed' address, so don't throw away that sleeping bag just yet.

Being a sheltered streetpuppy has advantages.  And disadvantages.  Let's go over some of those advantages and disadvantages.

You have a place to sleep at night that is not moving around under you.  You most likely have a sheet or a blanket to cover you.  You can take a shower...in fact, you are forced to take a shower.

 You can go to the bathroom without squatting under a tree.   You are assured of a meal...if it is a longer term shelter, you are assured of up to three meals a day.  You might be able to watch TV for a couple of hours a day. You will probably be given clean clothes to wear, and some hygiene materials.

 You may, if it is a longer term situation shelter be assigned a 'case manager' who will help you get an ID, or maybe a job or help you solve a legal problem, like that warrant for failure to appear, or open container charge.

 The kind of things that happen when you are on the street and looking the wrong way when Mr. Policeman slides up.

There is a sizable staff of underlings to the counselors, usually called associates.  The associates are there to tell you what is where, and when to go to bed, what chore you will be expected to do,  and when to change your underwear and so on.

You have companionship and understanding  from your shelter mates/street puppies, and a lot of nods of the head when you tell your 'story.'  After all, you are all in the same raggedy ole' boat.

The above fall into the category of advantages.

Let's look more closely at those advantages.

Depending upon the kind of shelter you have landed in, you will be sleeping either in a  large'dorm in a bunkbed on loan from a jail; a large room filled with either mats or single beds on loan from a jail; a smaller dorm with fewer bunkbeds from you know where, or simply sprawled on a large sofa filled with Gawd knows what kind of vermin, and it will be in front of a large TV which is never turned off. 

You can take a shower, but be mindful of the fact that most shelters have very little hot water to spare, and the showers are old and moldy and often open to the dorm area ditto the bathrooms which are old and moldy and very often broken down and downright aromatic. 

If there is food at all, other than donated sandwiches, you will be eating the chef-cook's idea of whatever it is that he happened to put together from the food left from the large pile of donations which went to his and his helpers homes, or sold to local stores.  Thus, you should take a supply of vitamins with you, as the nutritional value of most shelter food is far less than even the most meager food served at 'feeds'.

Don't bother with the TV thing.  Vicious fights break out over control of the remote control in these places, and you don't want to be around when the cops are called to arrest the guy who lodged the remote into the nose of the guy who wanted to watch something other than "Billy The Exterminator."

Generous people very often drop mounds of clothing at shelters.  Those clothes are picked over by the staff of the shelter so you will be getting the dregs of the mounds, but if you are patient, you will come up with something decent to wear at the job interview which your case manager will help you to arrange.

Ooops.  Case Manager.  Job Interview.  Help with an ID. 

Good luck with that.

Your Case Manager probably knows as much about job interviews as she knows about changing a tire on an 18-wheeler.  She/He doesn't belong in that job because they have no training for that position in the shelter other than something they have lied about on their own application.  And if they are responsible for giving you vouchers for outside supplies and/or bus passes...there will likely be a kick back situation, and if you refuse, you may find yourself back squatting under that tree real fast.

Ditto if you refuse any sexual advances.

Ditto if you report any of this to a 'higher up person.'

The staff of underlings who man the front desk and hand you stuff like the hygiene kits.  Now, we are out of Klingon territory,and are into Darth Vader territory.  Many of these people have been homeless.  And that experience has twisted their minds so badly that they now take out their previous suffering on street puppies who are under their, if not guidance, well, at least the key to the bathroom.

They will taunt you with trivial matters, implying that your IQ is no higher than your blood pressure reading, demanding to know where you are hiding the corn crinkles they know you are hiding in your bag..as they are the enforcers of the 'no contraband' rule in every shelter, that rule being the rule that says 'hand over everything you buy at the family dollar store on the corner, because I need it.

They will send you packing out into the cold or heat with everything you have on your back or your bags or suitcases, and if you don't make the exit curfew, which is usually around dawn, and lug that stuff around with you all day, well, they will just help themselves to your belongings and claim they threw it out and the police took it away.  And you have absolutely no legal recourse at all to prevent this from happening.

The underlings are also in charge of bus passes.  Good luck with that one, even if one has been approved for you, they will take it for themselves, deny they got the memo approving the pass, then accuse you of lying about getting the bus pass.  Force you to change your clothes if they think your pants are too tight, and to most of these people, everybody's pants are too tight because the underlings sit around all day confiscating and eating  all of those treats from the family dollar. 

Don't ever talk back to them.  They will call the police and say you have battered them.  Then they will go into your room while you are being carted off to jail, and take all of your contraband.

Do what they say, never mind the foam at the mouth as they break into uncontrollable screaming about the banana somebody managed to slide by them last night, you will find yourself right back squatting under that tree.

Ditto if you refuse any sexual advances.

Ditto if you report any of this to a...'higher-up' person.

Companionship, Understanding ears and nods  of the head  from other street puppies   are important, but you need to know, that you will be in the company of people who seem to  have been suckled by wolves.

You may be an anomoly.  A blip on on the Homeless Nation screen just sailing through on your way home.

Most of your companions in the shelter will be die-hard, seasoned street people who are looking at you with such understanding eyes and ears because they want to know when you will fall asleep and it will be prudent to take everything you have brought with you. 

These are not comrades at arms.  They will twist your head, twist your arm, and twist your soul if you are weak enough to dumb yourself down enough to be able to communicate with them in any meaningful way.

And they don't care about your story.  They are interested in you for one thing.  Their motto is, "What's mine is mine, and what's yours is mine."  And they are so skilled and charming, they can get away with giving you the shirt off your own back.

Now that we've gone through many of the advantages, let's see about the disadvantages of shelter living.

The main disadvantage of shelter living is that you may be off the street just long enough enough to lose your edge if you are foolish to stick around any of these places for too long.

And you need that edge to survive on the street. 

If we sound too distrustful, too harsh, way too negative.  It is.  But  in order to survive on the street, you need to be distrustful, and harsh and negative when dealing with the likes of many of the people you will encounter, be they  streetpuppies, counselors and underlings at shelters or the big shots who thunk it all up and will probably serve time some day for mismanaging millions of dollars which was headed for Homeless Nation, but somehow ended up in the Cayman Islands.  Or Vegas.

If you stay at any one of these shelters, it is about 80 percent likely that one early morning, you will load all of your belongings onto your back,  on the way out the door, sock the underling you hate most right in the nose, and never go back.  You'll get a new sleeping bag, and go back to squatting under that tree...and breathing free.

It happens.







Saturday, December 17, 2011

HELTER SHELTER

Homeless nation is partially populated -some would say littered - with thousands of  structures, ranging in size from a Chicago style bungalow of the late 30's, to behemoth concrete structures sprawling over an entire city block.

These structures, sometimes called shelters, or havens or harbours or ministries are filled with street puppies seeking shelter from the elements, or havens from, well, each other, and/or food and and help with finding jobs and clothing and footwear,  and underwear, and deodorant and toothpaste and shampoo, and most important of all, a place to sleep every night without fear of rolling over and falling into a river.

Whatever they are called, and/or  for whatever purpose the streetpuppy has landed in one of these shelters, havens, harbours or ministries, these structures are not not to be thought of as any kind of permanent fix in the life of the street puppy who either walked through or was kicked or dragged  through the door behind which they will find a lifestyle that is more fun than a barrel of klingons. 

These shelters are merely a stop on the way -the hope is - out of Homeless Nation, indeed a portal through which shimmers the light which  beguiles every street puppy into thinking he/she can and will make it through this detour in the life and all will be well on the other side of that portal.

And in each and every one of these shelters, behind all of those doors, and through all of those portals, lies the crux of the whole problem with homelessness. 

For each and every street puppy, at some point in the trek through Homeless Nation, it must be determined if this journey is a detour, or was, in fact the destination.

And many of the shelters, havens, harbours and ministries are, er, staffed with people who are in charge of making that determination.  Kind of like a triage operation, except the victims are walking and talking.

Anyway, that is what the staffers in these shelter places are supposed to do, and some of them have even gone all the way through college to  study how to do this.

Yup.  It's right there on the curriculum thing, all of the courses you need to get a degree in "Helping Street Puppies get off of my street, and your street, and onto their own street."  Or something like that.

Let's see, these are courses which the college attendee starts attending well into the Junior year when the attendee...or the attendees parents have figured out that junior or missy is going nowhere with a degree in "DJ spinning for dollars,"  or "Designing Apps for ordering gyros over the cell phone from another county," or "Making a killing in the trade of cheetah pelts."

Yup.  Every shelter, haven, harbour and ministry in Homeless Nation is filled not only with Street puppies who are -maybe- trying to find their way out of Homeless Nation, all of these places are cluttered with people who, armed with some social this or that diploma and a few months of internship in a hot dog stand, are there in the shelter for one purpose...to make the life of the street puppy so miserable, the puppy will, at  one point bolt, even though it has not been determined  if the puppy is indeed a visitor, or a future casualty.

They hate their jobs, the hate the people they are supposed to be serving, they hate the surroundings...bleak by any standard, and they hate the fact that they have to pretend to like what they are forced to do until that major job at K-Force or Bio-tech opens up.

So, having all of this hate and disdain for the puppies, brings out the worst in them, these care-givers, these guardians of the gate into Klingon territory, these master minds of the knife in the back trick, they turn to the practices which get a lot of them fired....when they are caught doing the things they do so well.

These guardians cheat the street puppies out of money intended for them;  they force them into personal liasions using the threat of expulsion from the shelter; they sleep with the husbands of the women street puppies; they sleep with the wives of the male street puppies, using the power they hold as a counselor to them both; they obtain a job as the "addictions counselor" using the guise of a recovering Heroin addict and all the while robbing the ministry of money in order to pay for an ongoing Heroin addiction;

They steal all of the good food which rolls into the shelter from kind and caring citizens and use it to allow them to feed themselves and their families high on the hog, while the puppies are scarfing up eight month old sausages;  They  unleash their hidden bigotries upon to young women who are struggling to learn to cope with a baby and the concept of working by brow beating them endlessly until the puppy is totally beaten down;  They use their power over the simple things, like, leaving a tooth brush in the wrong place as an excuse for a tongue lashing, and a punishment added if the street demurs.

In short, what you have staffing most of these so called, shelters, havens, harbours, ministries, et all are, largely a bunch of  misfits who do not have a clue as to how to guide a street puppy anywhwere, except straight into the hands of the many misfits and charlatans who line the streets of Homeless Nation waiting for new meat to stray out of those shelters, either in banishment or absolute frustration with the system.

Granted, most of the puppies who wander into these shelters, are not exactly flavor of the month.  In fact, many of them are what we, back in Chicago would call "Mean Motor Scooters." And they are lookin' to work the system, and victimize the rest of the puppies, and create the kind of mayhem which exists in most shelters.

But there are the innocents who are there out of absolute necessity and who are truly on a detour, and not at their destination, and are the butts of endless jokes of the Mean Motor Scooters for their pieties and grace.

 And there are some angels.  Once in a while you come across some angels in these shelters.  Seldom, but it happens.  And these angels should be given the National Legion of Honor Medal for their truly heroic and loving and charitable work and attitudes and care and guidance through the mean streets of Homeless Nation.

And, you never know...maybe one of those  Klingon staffers, one day, well...just two pay checks away from, you know where, and then, then you will see...were these staffers on a detour through Homeless Nation....or was that shelter,  their own destination.

It happens.














Thursday, December 8, 2011

GET YOUR KIT TOGETHER

Joining up with the Streetpuppy corps is a little like joining the Marines.

Except that you don't have to go through a recruiter, or one of those goofy, teary going away parties with mom in the kitchen, wringing her hands, and weeping, "Oh, my baby is all grown up, and that nice judge gave him  - or her -the choice of the slammer or the Marines..."......and you don't have to get one of those high and tight hair things or get that ring thing out of your nose. Or eyebrow.  Or...wherever.

But, in order to soldier on in the Streetpuppy corps, you are going to have to be, or at least act like , one squared away Marine.

And that starts with the kit. 

You may call it the back pack, or that awful rolling wheel  suitcase thing that breaks down the first day you use it, or you can use a gym bag, doesn't matter, this will be the one piece of equipment which needs to carry the  few actual essentials required for life on the street.

It's the Brits who named the bag which holds the collection of articles necessary for survival the kit... so don't blame us that it wasn't named bag, or purse.

We recommend the back pack as the kit of choice.  gym bag too small, rolling wheel thing too noisy and cumbersome, and it breaks down the first day you use it.  Usually right in the middle of a busy crosswalk.

Don't chintz out on the back pack.  The cheaper packs are not built for wear and tear, we don't care how many cute things are hanging off the sides, or that Sponge Bob has endorsed it.

You'll want a plain, dark colored, thick canvass number with a whole lot of pockets, and durable straps, and industrial  strength zippers and snaps,  and the ability to carry up to 30 pounds without ripping apart just as you are trying to run from the person who has decided he wants the back pack....and everything in it.

 And everything in it, should be minimal and multi-tasking, and easily replaceable.

You're not packing a trousseau here -for the guys, that word is something that women used to call the collection of delectable lingerie and such that was put together for the honeymoon.

There is no use for lingerie in Homeless Nation, unless you have ripped it up in order to make hankies.

And you will be ripping up tank tops for hankies, so ixnay on the lingerie.

Ok.  First, a small baggie, into which you will place:  social security card;  birth certificate;  Photo ID required in your state;  health insurance card;  bus pass;  emergency notification card -unless you are really trying to get lost in homeless nation, in which case, pretend you have amnesia from the beating.
five bucks.  That's pin money, in case you are enough of a pin head that you let somebody steal the kit;
debit card, that's if you have one, and you should, and remember the pin number, and do not let anybody even know you have one of those things, it is an open invitation to kidnapping.

Now.  This small baggie does NOT go into your kit.  This small baggie is your life line.  Only an idiot would put it into the same bag holding things which are -though costly - not real hard to replace.

No.  That baggie goes around your neck, on a string -or piano wire -, or in the summer, around your waist, just under the pants line.  And do not ever, ever let anybody know this little bag exists. 

Okay.  Now the kit.  Socks.  Undies.  Flashlight.  Swiss Army Knife.  Toothbrush.  Toothpaste.  Washcloth, which will double as a towel.  Two shirts.  One extra pair of pants.  One pair of flip flops.
(that's because, and you can be sure of this...if you take your shoes off while you are sleeping, they will be stolen.)  Small pack of kleenex.  small spray cologne.  one small bug repellant. One light blanket. One sweater.   One poncho.  (forget the umbrella, too easy for an attacked to use against you as a weapon)  headband.  baseball cap.  Reading glasses..  Sun-glasses. Small bag of toiletries.  And we said small.

Don't overload with the hygiene bags at feed giveaways.  Nobody needs five bottles of shampoo.  Or hand and body lotion.  And the ladies should be allowed one lip gloss and one eye liner.

And just because the giveaways may include fabulous five year old designer jeans with the label intact, does not mean that you need them.  Who cares if Donna Karan or Calvin Klein once embraced the muscles in your butt?

The cell phone goes into your front pocket, and don't be stupid and use it in public, it is another thief magnet.

And no food.  Ants can smell that stuff five miles away, and bug repellent does not work on them.

Now, you may think all of this is too lite, even for lite traveling.

Wrong.  You are not going to need too much. And you will be replacing things as you go.  And, if it is not absolutely necessary to your survival, it's dead weight. 

And, you're not planning to stay here forever, anyway, and if you came into homeless nation with luggage, that's not a good thing.  Kind of like a trousseau.

And one more...and maybe the most important thing to put into your kit. 

We don't care if you call it the Lord,  God,  Allah,  Buddha,  or the Temple of the Blue Parrot.  Make room in your kit for the higher being who will stay with you through this perilous journey.

  And speak to and listen regularly to the Lord, God, Allah, Buddah, or the Blue Parrot, or whomever else you need to hang onto while you're in homeless nation.  The knowledge of, and the comfort of the love of that higher being will get you through what surely will be a time of hell.

And remember what Winston Churchill said at the onset of WW II  "When you're going through Hell...keep on going!"