Shelter systems and what they don’t tell you

Posted by Carey Fuller in Homelessness - (3 Comments)
revolvingdoor050809

One of the most common preconceptions people have when someone says they’re homeless or about to become homeless is that anyone can just show up at a shelter and be housed. Nothing could be further from the truth. From my experience, service providers will gladly tell you all about their programs and what they have to offer and how many people they’ve helped but there’s a side to them they all too often do not mention. For one thing, how many of them will openly admit that they feed a revolving door system?

In order to get funding, many shelters must fill quotas and in order to fill those quotas, shelters may have too many people in them or strict stay times to keep the flow of people coming and going in order to have the numbers required by funding programs. Overcrowding leads to safety issues you may not be aware of but the homeless people who have gone to shelters certainly do! If you want to know what goes on at some shelters, click on this link to get an idea.

One of the reasons I personally didn’t just show up at a shelter is because I knew I couldn’t do that. There is a “process” that you have to go through and even if you go through that “process” there is no guarantee of immediate permanent housing due to the indefinitely long waiting lists. Many places expect you to keep calling them every day to let them “know” you still need help and they won’t call back unless there’s an opening and no one can tell you when that will be. Say you get through “processing” and by a stroke of luck, there’s an opening. Guess what? You get to stay for maybe 90 days. Where do you go after that if you can’t be moved into housing? So my line of reasoning is “If you can’t guarantee me immediate permanent housing, why would I call you?” For one thing, I’m wasting cell phone minutes to call when I should be saving them in case a possible employer calls.

Another issue I have with some shelter providers is if they are faith-based shelters that require conversion from its patrons. I’m going to call out the Union Gospel Mission on this one because when I first called them I was told that attending services was mandatory! What if you’re a Muslim, a Buddhist or Jewish? Even if they tell you that you don’t have to be a Christian to get help, the expectation is very much one of conversion as I was told “I would still have to hear about Jesus”. That’s fine but how can you say you’re helping ALL of the community when you obviously have an agenda? The idea that you won’t help because someone does not choose to believe as you do is both ignorant and disrespectful to other cultures. If you don’t believe me, talk to us natives about conversion….and what’s up with those homeless guys standing around downtown Seattle with signs screaming about God and for sinners to repent? Every one of the ones I talked to said they came from the Union Gospel Mission’s shelter system. The only thing this kind of behavior tells me is that you’re a creepy organization!

Also, some shelters discriminate against LGBT youth and adults. I find that to be rather sad due the fact that from everything I’ve read about Christ, he didn’t discriminate against anyone much to the dissatisfaction of the clergy during his time. From what I’ve read, Jesus served the very people everyone else looked down on as an example of compassion. Seems to me some folks pick and choose from their belief systems to justify their attitude towards other people.

A big reason I find myself on the outside of some programs is because I don’t fit their eligibility requirements. For one thing, I’ve never had a problem with addictions or the law. I’m also not a domestic abuse victim so I can’t go to those shelters or programs. What if I were a single dad with kids? If you think it’s bad for a single mother trying to get help from programs, you ought to talk to these dads about how little help they get! Not many family shelters exist and if they do, it’s women with children only. Dad gets sent to a men’s shelter if he can get into one.

I have a question to service providers to answer honestly if they can: How can you offer help to get into housing when you already know that Section 8 has been closed to application for years and state funding has been slashed? In the case of Seattle, what shelter are you going to send folks to considering the fact that many are closing due to lack of financial support? How safe and clean are your shelters? How much of your budget is spent on “administrative costs” versus providing more housing?

How many of you know that there are no standards on health and safety in shelters? If you and your family were to suddenly become homeless, would you go to a shelter that was dirty or dangerous to be in? How many of you have seen the news bits about some shelters having problems with bed bugs? If you as a service provider wouldn’t stay at the shelter you run, why on earth would you expect others to do so?

Now it’s not my style to just bring up issues without thinking of ways to make better solutions to an obvious problem. I’ve been pondering about whether or not shelters should figure out a way to get corporate sponsorship to help with funding issues because I’ve noticed that many programs to help the homeless tank when government funding does. I’ve also noticed that programs and shelters not dependent solely on government aid stay in operation when others are closing. Many companies that are able to, often look for ways to give back to the community and I can’t think of a better way for them to do that than to provide support to responsible local shelters or food banks.

Standardized health and safety policies in shelters are badly needed. You cannot just cram a bunch of different needs into a room and think there won’t be problems. A prime example of this is putting families in the same shelter as severely mentally disabled homeless adults who might be prone to violence or individuals who could be undocumented predators. Also, how do you separate individuals with contagious diseases from everyone else?

Here’s another suggestion: how about treating patrons with dignity? I spoke to a man who showed up at Nickelsville one night looking for a safe place to sleep for the night. The man told me that a shelter ran in the bottom of a church had just kicked everyone out because someone did not hold up their end of an agreement to help with housekeeping therefore EVERYONE was punished for what one person failed to do. I understand the need for rules but seriously, how does punishing people not responsible for the actions of another, help? Homeless people are people and do not appreciate other people looking down on them anymore than you do.

I could sit around talking about homelessness all I want to but the only way anything is going to actually change is if individuals get involved in their local communities. Writing blogs can help bring awareness but awareness doesn’t mean a thing if there’s no active involvement behind it to make real changes to end and prevent homelessness. The biggest loss in the homeless population today is hope. How can hope exist if nothing changes? The government isn’t going to make new opportunities for change, WE DO!

So here’s my challenge to all of the non homeless people out there. Pretend you’re a homeless person or about to become homeless. Look up services for homeless people in your area and call them. See, this way you’ll own the experience of what it feels like when you call “resources” looking for help. If you’re a services provider, the same challenge applies only call your own facility or org so you can see what a homeless person hears when they call. You may be in for an eye opener…..

At the bottom of this blog is a list of links with helpful information on it regarding shelters and how they operate. Get educated….get involved!

http://www.nyc.gov/html/dhs/html/home/mccainenglish.shtml

http://www.wlwt.com/r/26213912/detail.html

http://www.coalitionforthehomeless.org/pages/the-revolving-door-spins-faster

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/8/17/893974/-Homeless-LGBT-Youth,-Lost-in-the-Crowd

 

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Open letter to the Bon Jovi’s

Posted by Carey Fuller in Homelessness - (6 Comments)
Jon and Dorothea Bon Jovi

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Bon Jovi,

I am a homeless mother of two living in Seattle, Washington. I recently heard about your restaurant, the Soul Kitchen. I think the idea of a community restaurant that serves the less fortunate with dignity is an idea a long time in coming and I am so proud of you for making this a reality in New Jersey. Whenever I see celebrities “helping” the homeless, it’s usually a publicity stunt or photo op that does little if anything to help homeless people out of homelessness.

My kids and I have never been to a four star restaurant and even if I could afford to go, I would be uncomfortable in doing so simply because I would worry about how we would be treated. My kids are acutely aware of what it’s like to have others look down on us simply because we don’t have a home of our own. Your restaurant treats its patrons with dignity; something society seems to feel isn’t worth giving to the less fortunate.

The homeless population grows nationally and I have seen an explosion here as well. I may be homeless but that does not mean I’m helpless. I am active in helping homeless youth locally who have nowhere to go and no hope of seeing a better life. A restaurant like yours would be a blessing here. The kids I talk to go days without food because $200 a month in food stamps will only go so far. Food banks can be visited once a week if there’s enough food in the food banks to give out. Because of this, I ask members of the community to get involved directly. They can volunteer or share extra food with those who need it. Not only that, I’ve been handing out donated tents, sleeping bags, tarps and other camping gear to these kids to help them survive the coming winter. The need is great but due to these economic times, help is hard to come by.

Even though I’m working towards ending my own homelessness, I have realistic expectations that it will be awhile before I have my own place to live. In the meantime, I do what I can to educate others about homelessness and who the homeless are. I have my own blog at careyfuller.com and with it I show readers what it’s like to be homeless. I also let homeless youth tell their stories because the public needs to see the reality of homelessness. I also manage a page on Facebook called We Are Visible. We are a community of homeless folks giving each other support via social media. Mark Horvath of Invisible People Tv started this site to help the homeless have a voice. I met him when I used to blog for change.org and to my surprise, he handed the We Are Visible page over to me. It would be an honor if either of you would visit our page. I try to get guests to visit us for one hour Q&A sessions to talk about what they do to raise awareness on homelessness and how to get involved in the cause to end homelessness.

Little things mean a lot when you have nothing. For the kids out here (and adults) that listen to Bon Jovi’s music, imagine how much impact could be made in knowing that someone like Jon or Dorothea took the time to show that the homeless are not invisible to them!  Maybe someday you’ll bring your community restaurant to Seattle, then again maybe this letter will never find its way to you but for the homeless youth I see almost every day, any effort I make for them is an effort worth making.

Kudos to you both for your compassion and your vision!

Sincerely,

Carey Fuller

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Letter from Angelo Chase…formerly homeless in Kent

Posted by Carey Fuller in Homelessness - (2 Comments)
Angelo Chase
The following is a letter I received from an Apache youth once homeless in Kent, Washington:
My name is angelo chase and i used to be on the streets of seattle, kent, and quite frankly all over the west coast due to a couple of things. the issue im talking about now is the police and how there interaction with the homeless but more of for my own personal issues with the police and how they treated me. due to officer majack and the other police that interacted with her quite a few times, i no longer live in the state of washington. i moved to south carolina with two charges of trespassing. one of these charges was on the rail road tracks and the other was in a house that me and a couple of friends were trying to find a place to stay for the night. officer Majack had made it clear to me that we were not wanted in the city and even in the state. she had told me to leave and that the mayor was the one giving orders to do so.
It was me and a couple of friends walking to cross the train tracks, and anything that we do on the streets has nothing to do with how we feel about each other. our backgrounds, our friendlyness, our anything… we just choose to come together and form a family that’ll take care of each other.coming from the streets for so many years, i learned to appreciate what not only God has to offer, but i learned to appreciate what we have to do for ourselfs as people and how to love everyone no matter what. i am not a perfect person in any way possible, but i do know that i did whatever it took to survive on the streets and to take care of what i learned to call and learned to love as my family.. and that was the homless kids and homeless in general. so one day we had an issue between our family and mainly our sisters.. one sister took another sisters shoes so as me and a friend walked ahead of our group due to one of the females being shoeless and one person swapping shoes, we walked ahead to cross and saw someone that we knew inside a wharehouse on the tracks, we werent there for more than 1 minute until our whole group came up and the police ran up on us. there must have been one union pacific railroad officer, four cop cars, and probably five to eight bikers, and only three of us rolled off with a charge for trespassing and one other one left with other possessions of drugs that has nothing to do with our group, it happened and its life, but its not on us.. the cops heard our stories and still only let everyone but three of us go not even the fact that we were all on the same page and that we were all on the tracks, six of our people left free and three of us were charged. the officers kept trying to pin me with snitching and wouldnt let me leave. they had told me that they knew i didnt have anything on me due to the fact that i was in front of there camera and i was in the most visible spot to them and the camera. when they had arrested my friend, they told him i snitched on him and that never happend.. even though i proved who i was and that i knew the other people they let go and we all had a matching story, they still charged me with trespassing in the first degree and four months later i get a notice that i have a warrant out for my arrest without any form of citation or anything saying when court would be. we all were trying to cross the tracks that day to get over and it happened to be faster, we have done that quite alot and never had a problem. the cops didnt like us and made it clear. they took down all our street names, especially mines since they didnt know me very well because i knew what they were doing and how they were treating us.
Another trespassing in the second degree happend a few nights later. it was four people total, me and three other friends. we were in an abandoned house trying to find somewhere to sleep. we di not see any trespassing warnings on the house, it was quite late out. the cops had gotten us all out of the house and searched our belongings, they kept trying to accuse us of stripping copper, and yet we had none or even no copper utensils on us. officer majack was there and had let me and a friend know that we needed to leave the state and go somewhere else that we were not wanted. in her exact words, she was explaining how much of a problem to the city we are and so on. i never even got a citation, they told me that id have court to attend, and yet no set date , no signed papers, they just let us go. she had told us that if we didnt leave the city and state, then we’d get trespassed from the state and wouldnt be allowed back, so then thats when i chose to leave the state and start over in life.
I do know one of a couple things, and thats that the police had come to our group and trespassed us from the local/public library, the water park, the ponds park, and every local park in the city of kent, all because the mayor said to. we werent allowed to attend kent cornacpoia or any local event without being arrested. i know a few friends that kept getting arrested and let out the next day without any set court date, and still to this day, four to five months later, doesnt have a court date and doesnt show up at all. we were never served papers by the police and never were told when court dates would be. we had never signed paper work for trespassing, abnd i believe that in its own makes us legal to go anywhere we want, even if it means being arrestred. we have a thing called rights, even the homeless has rights, and we used them to our best ability. the mayor would show up to our feeds and talk about changes and talk good to us, but then she would tell the cops to trespass us and that we werent welcome.
I grew up in foster care and my foster dad was a cop for twenty-five years and i know my rights, but to me, its not worth going to jail over fighting the police. everyday we’d struggle trying to eat, stay warm, stay clean, and just to be presentable. kids at young ages would come to kent because of family issues and being kicked out and so on, and they’d come to us homeless kids to be taken care of and with the police, it’d become really hard. i have watched youtube videos of the police surrounding one person, and like ten cop cars and the police take that one guy to an invisible spot to see them, then re appear.. im not saying everything we do is innocent, but we workwith what we have. imagine your own kid coming out onto the streets and you find them healthy, but not dressed well, but you thank the street kids for taking care of them, thats what we tried to do. imagine if your kid comes out and keeps going to jail/juvie for trying to ask for a dollar for a burger, and yet, your kid lost ten pound in a week and looks starved and has un healthy habits because they do what they can alone because everyone around them is trying to survive for themselves.. i know both sides of these stories, and they are real.
I met kids coming in healthy and trying to find a purpose to live and they come out doing good, but then ive met kids coming in just wanting to see a what the world has to offer, and they see what the cops do to us, and they see how the cops treat us, and they see what we do for each other, and they choose to do bad because they see the world for what it is and how the wrold will treat them if they keep choosing this same path, but they choose to do nothign to change it. i grew up on the streets, and now being in a different state and going to church, i have gotten off of drugs and off the streets, i am married now, and my age is only 19. i want to take my new wife to seattle to meet my family, and especially my blood family that i havent seen since i was six years old and i just started working out my relationship with them, but i cant becuase i will now be doing time for what the cops had chosen to charge me with over absolutely no consideration to me or what its like to be homeless by no choice. i didnt do anything wrong, i just tried to walk over the tracks to cross, and i tried to find somewhere to sleep, that the police would be fine with because its out of there way. like i said, im not perfect, but my record seems to show it very well.. officer majack and the police of kent washington are in the total wong. and i will not say anything about the mayor because it wouldnt be appropriate to say. i have alot of resentment towards the city of kent and the mayors office, but it took me this time to move to start over, when i tried while i was there, i was trying to work and trying to find a place to live, but its hard to start from nothing and work your way up.
All i ask is that justice be served against the police, they are in the total wrong, and i just want to be able to see my family without being arrested for something i had nothing to do with in criminal ways, just to survive. if you dont believe that it was survival. in the past four months, i have gained back over thirty pounds that i lost, i am dealing with my health issues since i been here, and i have been trying to find a job. my health is almost back to where it needs to be, the drug abuse i quit cold turkey, and it haunts me, but my wife helps me out and supports me. when i came to south carolina, i was promised a job and a house, and everything worked out except the job. i am no longer in one pair of clothes, i own more than one pair of clothes. i have been able to look into schooling and other options to live and not survive. My trespassing charges were in june and there was court in september. i had no way back to court due to the fact that my foster dad had moved from the airport to boeing. i just want an equal opportunity to defend myself and to see what i can do about these charges.

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I beg to differ

Posted by Carey Fuller in Homelessness - (0 Comments)
Sammiejo and Carmen

It always amazes me when people ask me why I bother doing what I do for homeless folks, especially the homeless kids. If I were to write an essay to win some big money prize, this is what I would say:

To Whom It May Concern,

You probably have never heard of me, most people haven’t but that’s alright with me. I’m not a celebrity or some hero on the cover of TIME Magazine. I’m not a glamorous model in some fancy fashion show or a television personality. I don’t have a radio show nor am I wealthy. I’m just a grown up kid from the projects doing the best I can for homeless kids and homeless adults I happen to run into. I do take more of an interest in homeless kids though simply because of an incident that happened when I lived in a place called  Tukwila, a Chinook word for “hazelnut”.

At the time, I worked two jobs because the economy was similar but not as bad as the current one. I lived in a seedy part of town in a slum lord’s apartment complex. I had moved into a small one bedroom with literally nothing but the clothes on my back and a four month old. Welfare was a joke just like it is now but I managed to keep afloat by working a minimum wage day job at Joe’s Pit Stop pumping propane and serving espresso. Across the street from Joe’s I worked the graveyard shift at the 7-11 convenience store. It was during the graveyard shift that I ran into two native girls, aged 9 and 11. I would watch as they would wander late at night around the neighborhood with younger siblings and wonder what they were all doing out. The eldest was very straightforward about her family’s homelessness and this aunt of theirs that was a known drug addict and prostitute. These two girls would come in and buy what food they could if they had the money to do so. More often though, they would beg me for food for all the kids but since I had just started working there, I barely had enough to feed my baby. Once I got paid though, I began making sandwiches for those girls to take to their siblings. I also made it clear to their aunt that she had no business encouraging these girls to walk the streets with her at night. Let’s just say a few times I threatened the woman’s health because of certain behaviors I caught her engaging in and after that she stayed clear of me on the street. I was more concerned with those two girls because I saw the path they were headed down and it scared the hell out of me.

I called social services to see if they could help but there was only so much they could do and it would take six months to investigate”. I couldn’t believe what the caseworker told me over the phone, six months??? These girls need help NOW! It wasn’t long before I noticed the girls dressing more and more provocatively and wearing heavy makeup to look older than they were. They knew I didn’t approve of their behavior and I kept doing my best to talk them out of it but even I could see how desperate they were for cash. I tried to get people from the community involved to help the family out and their attitude was very much one of not getting involved. Whenever I didn’t see these kids I wondered where they went and after three days went by without seeing them I got really  worried. I went looking for them but no one around recalled where they had went to. Then one day after I got off work, I turned on my small television to watch the news and there on the screen were pictures of those two missing girls. Their bodies were found in a shallow grave, dumped there as though they were disposable garbage. Their names were Sammiejo White, 11 and her sister Carmen  Cubias, 9. They disappeared when they went out panhandling on Aurora Avenue North in Seattle so they could buy dinner at a nearby Taco Time. That was the last time they were seen alive. Just today I found a news article on the individual police believe was responsible, a sex offender named Joseph E. Duncan III, the same scumbag guilty of killing three members of a family in Idaho and kidnapped two siblings just so he could have sex with them. He killed the boy and the poor girl, 9 year old Shasta Groene is the sole survivor of a nightmare she will live with the rest of her life.

The memory of those two girls haunts me to this day. No one gave a damn about them and assumed they couldn’t be helped but even though I’m homeless myself I cannot look away from youth on the streets. I cannot take an apathetic attitude about where those kids will end up. I do wonder what’s wrong with the parents of these kids though especially if it’s safer for them to be out on the streets than at home.

Yeah, I’m homeless myself and I have to worry about things like useless bureaucracy that puts people on endless waiting lists for housing programs you can’t apply for or don’t exist due to budget cuts. Even while I sit here typing this, I have no idea how I’m going to pay for the tab renewal on my van that needs to be done asap, or if I’ll have enough cash just to do laundry let alone put gas in my tank. I worry about constantly getting sick and my kids losing time in school due to illness. I worry about hypothermia in the  winter and heat stroke in the summer. I worry that I’ll never get a job because of being unemployed for about over three years now. It took two of those years to go through rehab just to be able to walk a straight line without falling down thanks to a weird migraine/stroke/seizure thing I had a few years ago. I worry about police harassment against the homeless because it’s already  happened to me.

With all that I have to worry about in my own day to day struggle to survive, I still feel helping homeless youth is a priority. You ask  me why I bother to help homeless youth. Maybe those who ask that believe that helping any homeless person is a waste of their time. I beg to differ.

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Some dreams don’t come true

Posted by Carey Fuller in Homelessness - (3 Comments)
Dress in a donut box

Yesterday was definitely a Murphy’s Law day. Everything that could go wrong, did. The morning started off with a frantic call from formerly homeless “Legion”. He’s been struggling looking for work while couch surfing at a friend’s. He lost his medical and food stamps benefits due to 5 year time limit. His friend has been patiently waiting for Legion to pay $100 a month but per Legion, last night was the last night he could stay at his friend’s house. Legion’s health appears to be faltering as his face was grey and he showed me lumps under his jawline that appeared after he started couch surfing. He’s supposed to go to a doctor’s appointment on October 17th but without insurance, most cancer clinics won’t see him. Legion’s biggest concern isn’t homelessness, it’s what the cold will do to his daily pain. My concern is getting his cancer status checked and seeing what can be done to keep him at his friend’s house.

I spent the morning running my “son” Strey to thrift stores to get him outfitted for my daughter’s homecoming dance. After that the plan was to take him to his soon to be new apartments to sign paperwork with his new caseworker then go back to his camp and move him into his new apartment. What ended up happening was paperwork not getting to Strey’s employer before yesterday so employment verification was missing and now Strey has to show up at the apartment complex Monday but that isn’t the worst of what happened. You see, part of the housing program requirements is that youth be employed or actively looking for employment in order to keep his housing. My daughter’s first homecoming dance is today and Strey could not get tonight off from his employer. If he doesn’t go in he loses his job. If he loses his job what do you think will happen to his housing opportunity?

Add to this that I was frantically calling around and sending text messages to everyone I could think of to make my daughter’s dream night happen and accidentally sent a text intended for someone else to my daughter. I told her to disregard the accidental texts in case I could work something out. Caseworkers are great for homeless youth but try getting in touch with one after hours. That’s one of the beefs I have with social services. Homelessness doesn’t clock out for the day when you do and homeless youth have no one to call at night or on weekends if program offices are closed. Anyway, I spent last night parked outside my brother’s house where my daughter was, stalling having to tell her that after all the work I did on her dress, after all the kind donations people sent in, sending her to the dance isn’t going to happen after all and once again another setback adds to another missed birthday and another missed social function. No wonder then, that to my teen, it’s not worth the effort to have too many hopes.

I watched as Strey knocked on my brother’s door to tell my daughter he was so sorry about not being able to take her to the dance. He kept blaming himself over and over and she kept assuring him that not going to the dance is alright with her. She’d rather not have Strey lose his chance to get out of homelessness. I even asked if she wouldn’t mind going to the dance alone but she said that she didn’t want to go without Strey and she doesn’t really have any friends at her new school to hang out with so….

So here I sit using free wifi at McDonald’s and staring at the screen of my laptop dreading every minute I have to write this. I apologize to everyone who did what they could to help a homeless teen go to her first homecoming dance on her birthday only to have everything fall through the cracks. I’m looking at this dress wrapped in a donut box and the only thing I’m thinking about is how to repay everyone even though I’m not sure how long it will take me to do so. Today is just another scratch on the tip of an iceberg I call our homeless life. Yeah, we know getting out of homelessness is more important than a dance and no one knows that better than we do. After Strey and Ariella accepted the fact that the homecoming dance isn’t going to happen, they rode with me to Kent to hand out donated camping gear, a tent, a sleeping bag, camping gear, tarps, flashlights and $5 McDonald’s gift cards to homeless youth with nothing. Even little Maggie got out of the van to hand out items.

Watching my daughter last night made me realize something I hadn’t really paid attention to when I was working two jobs to avoid the situation we now live with. Like me, she is tougher than I thought.

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Homeless life is not pretty

Posted by Carey Fuller in Homelessness | Uncategorized - (0 Comments)
Images found on Toshiba flash drive 228

I want to thank everyone who follows me around on Twitter and Facebook because to me, it shows that others actually take an interest in what I do as a homeless person and as a homeless parent. Perhaps you learned something by seeing that I’m really not all that different than everybody else. Sure, I may get involved when others don’t, won’t or can’t. I might tell the truth even if it’s inconvenient for others to hear.

In turn I’ve learned a lot about people just from observation. For instance, when I first wrote a letter to change.org about what it’s like to be a homeless mother, it generated more hits than I thought was possible. To me, it seemed incredible that so many people were either astounded that homeless families were everywhere or didn’t want to believe what my experiences have been. So for those of you still “baffled” by us homeless parents, here’s a list for you to consider:

  1. How do you keep a roof over your head if child  costs more than your rent?
  2. Just because there’s a child support order in place, there’s no guarantee you’ll receive it and if dad can only find minimum wage jobs, just how much child support do you think will be received?
  3. Don’t assume there’s family help especially if relatives are barely making it themselves or choose not to get involved because it’s not “their problem”.
  4. Don’t tell people to “get on welfare” if you don’t know what the current welfare system is or the fact that programs are being cut…permanently. In case you didn’t know, there’s a “process” to see if
    you qualify and then you may be put on a waiting list. Section 8 for housing may not even be open to apply for in your state.
  5. Don’t assume someone can just show up at a shelter and get help. In case you haven’t been watching the news, many shelters are closing due to lack of financial support. If you have shelters still open, it’s possible there will be a waiting list after being seen by an intake specialist because not all shelters will take you. Not only that, the shelter in question may not be a safe place to be and you may get turned away due to not enough room.
  6. Don’t assume that just because your community has ample services available, things will be the same in other cities or states. Also, it may not be feasible for a homeless person to just pick up and move where you are.
  7. Get ready to have a family be split apart if local shelters take either men only, women only or women with kids up to a certain age only.
  8. There’s a time limit on how long folks can stay in a shelter so don’t assume that just because they’re in one, “they’ll be ok now”.
  9. Don’t assume that families are homeless because of drugs, alcohol, mental illness or being irresponsible with finances.
  10. Little things you take for granted that act as a “suspension system” for you simply don’t exist out here, like being able to shower every day or get to an indoor bathroom. Having a state id., driver’s license, mailing address, place to do laundry or a cell phone are things that can prevent a homeless person from being able to get work or have access to services.
  11. This is for educators: Homeless kids have to do their homework either at a public library (if there’s one nearby and they can get to it), a restaurant or in a car. If they’re too busy trying to survive, don’t assume they’re falling behind in school due to not trying hard enough. Also, it’s easier to get sick out here and it takes longer to recover without your own home so absences due to illness are common. When it comes to school functions, many times homeless families will opt out if they can’t afford nice clothes or uniforms for their kids, can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to deal with that even though schools were told we were homeless. My teen couldn’t join most sports because she couldn’t afford the costs involved with being on a team.
  12. For families living out of their cars, a minimum wage job will barely keep a vehicle maintained, insured and the tank full of gas. Gas is always a priority because there aren’t too many safe places to park for the night so sleep is a luxury that comes in naps or not at all.
  13. As far as food banks and public feeds are concerned, if you can get to them, they will help stretch a food budget especially if you’re a homeless youth who only gets $200 a month in foodstamps. By the way foodstamps won’t buy any hot foods from a grocery store deli so if you don’t have a kitchen or way to cook food, you’ll be eating cold items. The other thing is that even though you can buy groceries, if you don’t have a refrigerator to store anything so buying perishables is on a day to day basis. Also, if you’re in a heavy need area, public feeds can only bring so much food before having to turn folks away, the same is happening to local food banks. If you didn’t already know this, most food banks allow homeless folks to visit once a week and if you’re housed, once a month.
  14. Don’t assume homeless kids are necessarily anti-social because they don’t show up to birthday invitations or dances. They might be ashamed of their clothes or the fact that they can’t buy a gift. Homeless kids are acutely aware of the fact they can’t have sleepovers with their friends and some parents have a problem letting their kids visit their homeless friends at a shelter.

As for me, I will continue to post on Twitter and Facebook about what I deal with on a daily basis regardless of who might find it uncomfortable to watch. Homeless life is not pretty. It’s a day to day struggle that goes on whether you’re part of it or watching it from afar. Maybe you’ll get uncomfortable enough to go out and do something about it, maybe not. Either way, don’t say you weren’t informed….

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A homeless teen’s homecoming

Posted by Carey Fuller in Homelessness - (3 Comments)
Ariella and Bryce

If you were on Twitter last night, you may have seen my tweets regarding my oldest daughter, Ariella. You see, this Saturday is her birthday but it is also her high school’s homecoming dance. While watching her peers pick out dresses and talk about going to the dance, my teen fell into a depression she tries to hide. I know she wants to go but because she’s embarrassed about our financial situation, she’s been telling everyone she doesn’t want to go. I know that look in her eyes because I’ve seen it too many times before, it’s the one where she’s resigned herself to another missed birthday and another school function she can’t afford to go to. I didn’t want to post anything on Facebook and risk her finding out about it but then I got an idea today. She hardly ever looks at my blogs so putting this blog on my page might go unnoticed by her, ha ha ha!

Going to the dance will be a two-fold project for me as it isn’t my daughter who needs to have a break from homeless life. There’s a boy I’ve been helping ever since he got abandoned at a Kent, Washington gas station by a relative. He’s been camping out in the woods with the tent and sleeping bag I got for him and he’s been getting a lot of help from the good folks at Auburn Youth Resources. Thanks to their efforts, “Strey” will soon be housed and thank goodness it will be before the winter sets in! “Strey” and my daughter met and hit it off almost immediately. They have a lot in common and they even think alike! I am impressed with him because he asked my permission to date my daughter and unbeknown to her, he’s been trying to figure out a way to make sure she goes to the dance on her birthday but at four hours a week at a local restaraunt, he can barely afford to eat and he isn’t getting any more hours. “Strey” has decided that taking my daughter out this Saturday is more important than the part-time minimum wage job he has so he told me that he was calling them this morning to tell them he won’t be working there any longer.

I got donations last night and this morning to help me buy fabric and notions for my daughter’s “dream” dress but now I have to worry about “Strey”. I believe someone is helping him with a tux but I think it’s customary for the guy to buy the girl a corsage or something? Forgive my ignorance but I have never been to a dance so I’m pretty much guessing as I go! My brother asked about transportation and I said if nothing else, I could drive them to the dance in my van since going to the dance was all they were hoping for.

I am writing this blog from a McDonald’s while waiting for the local JoAnne’s Fabric Store to open so that I can get everything needed for Ariella’s dress. I will be working as fast as I can on it since I can only work on it when the kids are in school as this is supposed to be a big surprise for my teen. If everything goes right, this will be a night to remember for my daughter and her date!

A big thank you to all of you who have been donating to make these two kids one night dream come true. I haven’t always been able to give my daughter what she wanted or even what she needed when I worked two jobs and things only got worse when we became homeless but I can sew and I can give her this dress.

Happy Birthday, Ariella!

 

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