I lived for four months in 2019 without a home. There were a variety of circumstances that led to my situation, but primarily I attribute them to financial hardship and debilitating mental illness. It was a difficult period in my life, and I’m thankful that I was able to find support through friends and family, and eventually work my way out of that mode of living.
When I first moved to the Pacific Northwest, I was amazed at the sheer number of homeless and transient people who occupied the cities and towns here. My first taste was living in Eugene and seeing the tent camps lined up on sidewalks, or hearing the late-night outbursts and recycling bin rummagings. It occurred to me that these people lived in such a visible way, but were also largely invisible to people around them. They were “just another bum.” I never agreed with that sentiment even before I experienced homelessness for myself, but it was most certainly echoed by neighbors and friends. I have a name and a life, why should the people who live on the street be denied theirs? They should not be considered as some faceless, nameless mob undeserving of compassion or thought. I hope the few experiences I share will help change some of that.
I did not live on the street, or sleep in a tent. I was fortunate enough to have a vehicle to exist in, and that did provide me with some degree of privacy and protection. I had the comfort and ease of quick travel, and a way to escape a bad situation if needed. I had a roof over my head and a door to lock for safety. Some might think that I was not truly homeless, and that may be the case. However, I do think that much of what I experienced is the same, emotionally, psychologically, and physically.
Weight gain: With little money, cheap and easy food became my only option. Fast food, or convenience stores were the only option available, and many of the products there are low in nutritional value (the cheap stuff), or high in fat and sugars.
Weight loss: Not having enough money meant that sometimes I would go more than a day without eating. Plenty of days I would survive on a single 20oz soda, something with sugar for energy and carbonation to calm a nauseous stomach.
Hygiene: I did not have easy access to showers. Towards the end of my period of homelessness I was able to shower at a friend’s place, maybe once or twice a week. For the first three months I probably took a total of three showers. The result of this led to skin and fungal issues as I was sweating a lot in the summer heat and I developed rashes and fungal problems. It also made me smell! The combination of these affected me psychologically and I tended to become even more reclusive and less likely to interact with people who could potentially help me. It also made finding work or any sort of income difficult. The lack of shower access also meant lack of bathroom access. Finding a public bathroom in the city that you don’t have to pay for was extremely difficult. Sometimes I would have to wait an hour or more in order to relieve myself. Other times in desperation I would go to a park at night and do my business in the cover of trees. Portland does offer a few 24/7 public bathrooms around the city. However, at night these places are not well lit, if at all. Apprehension about who might be in them or lurking around them would also cause anxiety. Cleaning myself afterwards wasn’t particularly easy either, and there were some hygienic issues associated with that as well.
Sleep: Where do you sleep when you have no home? Again, I was fortunate to have a vehicle to sleep in. I did not have to find shelter out in the city. However, there were challenges with sleeping in a car. First, I had to find a place where I would not be hassled either by private business, or by the police. If I was able to sleep, I was either too cold or too hot. I certainly couldn’t waste precious gas to regulate the temperature of my vehicle to be comfortable. I had many nights where I would wake up constantly shivering and cold with damp clothes. When I finally could get to sleep, I would often sleep late into the morning. Because I was fearful of my own safety and security, all my windows would be closed and the car would lock. In the summer I would often wake up completely drenched in sweat and dehydrated. Sometimes the inside of the car would be over a hundred degrees. Muscle pain and stiffness was also a factor because of the cramped nature of sleeping inside a vehicle. I developed bruises on my legs and hips from the pressure of the seats and other interior pieces jabbing into my body while I slept.
Fear: People. They were always my biggest fear. At first I felt relatively safe in my vehicle, that was until my second week. I awoke during the middle of the night face to face with a shadowy man, his face pressed against the glass of the car I was sleeping in. His eyes penetrated me and he was smiling at me in the most unfriendly way. I was frozen with fear. I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. We stared at each other for almost five minutes until he slapped his hand against the glass and slowly moved away and back into the night. I’m not sure what his motivations were. Whether it was a friendly reminder that he was out there, or if it was to intentionally scare me. Maybe he was suffering from mental illness. I don’t really know. Whatever his motivations, it shattered any notion of safety and security I thought I had. After that night, paranoia and anxiety ruled my sleep. I had many more encounters with people bothering or intimidating me while I was sleeping. Some situations required me to drive off as soon as they woke me for fear of my own physical safety. Sleep does not come easily when you’re homeless.
There’s much more I could add to this about my experience, but at the moment I’m not really sure how much more I feel comfortable disclosing. I hope that even after this class is over, perhaps I can edit this post to say everything I want to say. The process of writing this, and all of the remembering and cataloguing of experiences was difficult for me. I’m not ashamed to announce that I was homeless for a time, in many ways I think it was a valuable experience. But, I was also lucky to climb out of it, and I received a lot of help to do that. I hope that anyone who reads this takes the time to consider what it means to have a home, and the comforts and safety that come with it that are often taken for granted. I took them for granted. I hope too that I can inspire people to act and help those who are in need, and to empathize with those who are homeless.
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