Have you ever been Homeless ?

hollydolly said:
Yes I was homeless for a short time when I ran away from home at barely 16 with no real plans and just enough money to get on a train and let it take me where it landed me...
Long story short, I ended up living in the Salvation army hostel for women...
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Many people go through hard times during their life. Most are able to get through them and come out the other end, not unscathed, but still with a semblance of positive self esteem and awareness.
 
In 1964, for a few hours, my father managed to help get me a place at the Salvation Army Home for young woman in Los Angeles, California. I was 17, and they did not take any one younger than 18. I had a job as a typist at an Insurance company in LA. But, I had joined the army, during the Vietnam conflict and was waiting to be 18 for that as well. Once I showed them my enlistment papers I had a room.

My father had remarried and I couldn’t live with him. My mother was remarrying, and refused to let me live at home for only four more months, so I moved to my grandmothers. My grandmother let me stay with her for two weeks, but she had a live in job, and her employer would not let me stay any longer.

Those that constantly say that there is always a choice have never really faced or understood the harsh realities of life. Yes, there are choices, but sometimes all the choices are awful.
 

Not really, guess I have lead a fairly privileged existence, so far.

When I was between 18 and about 20 I spent summers in Wyoming and Idaho living in a tent and picking up work where I could. But that was voluntary, I had a car and knew I could always go home to my parents. The tent living was to save money. And in college I lived in some very low rent housing, but it had some semblance of heat and running water, on most days anyway.

It is interesting reading the experiences of others here, gives me a better appreciation of real homelessness.
 
Gary O' said:
Have you ever been Homeless ?
Yeah
Rode the rails a few months when young
Ya find out what yer made of, that's for sure
Click to expand...
I see what you mean. I never actually thought of it as being homeless but you're right. I spent about 7 years hitching around the world. First from Sweden to South Africa and then again from Europe in an easterly direction ... around the globe eventually back to Sweden. The world is definitely not flat! I did stop and work now and then in Rhodesia, Australia, the US, Germany, France, and Norway but I was theoretically homeless because until I found work ..... I was "homeless". I did save up enough money at each place to carry on again so I wasn't destitute except for a couple of times when my money ran out and I was forced to do some fast-talking to get a job and a place to stay. I did a whole lot of hitch-hiking but I never "rode the rails". I desperately wanted to try it but the only time I had half a chance a heavy storm came up and I had to seek shelter under a bridge.
 
Alligatorob said:
Not really, guess I have lead a fairly privileged existence, so far.

When I was between 18 and about 20 I spent summers in Wyoming and Idaho living in a tent and picking up work where I could. But that was voluntary, I had a car and knew I could always go home to my parents. The tent living was to save money. And in college I lived in some very low rent housing, but it had some semblance of heat and running water, on most days anyway.

It is interesting reading the experiences of others here, gives me a better appreciation of real homelessness.
Click to expand...
I think starting conversations like this one allows people to talk about their experience and how they handled the situations that arose.
Many people become homeless and remain homeless their whole, usually shortened lives.
I personally knew two homeless people, alcoholics, who passed away on the street from hypothermia.
Life is becoming harder for millions of people with no end to their torment in sight.
 
If "hitching" counts I have a little more experience. Hitchhiking around the Western US and sleeping along the roadside. But again it was voluntary, I knew I could always go home. I think that makes a big difference.

Summer of 1970 I was trying to hitch a ride near Jackson, Wyoming. At the time Stanley Baker, another hippie hitchhiker murdered and cannibalized a man who gave him a ride, happened just a few miles north of where I was - made it real hard to get a ride... even though I never ate anyone.

From https://murderpedia.org/male.B/b/baker-stanley-dean.htm

On July 13, 1970, a hippie hitchhiker named Stanley Dean Baker was arrested in California for the murder of a Montana man who had stopped to give him a ride. According to police, Baker admitted that he had shot the man to death and then cannibalized the body. (In fact, Baker admitted to cutting out and eating the victim’s heart and also had bones from the man’s fingers in his pocket when apprehended).

Baker was branded a “hippie satanist” by the popular press because he had both a recipe for LSD and a copy of The Satanic Bible in his possession when he was arrested. While Baker would later tell both law enforcement officials and fellow inmates that he had participated in a “blood drinking cult” in Wyoming, he later confessed that his crimes were actually the result of his drug use and had nothing to do with any involvement with satanism.
​
After a few days being stuck I finally got a ride from a bunch of hippies in an old converted school bus. A real classic of the time. They seemed to have no radio and be unaware of the news, a good thing for me. Rode a few hundred miles with them, to near my home. Kind of ended that summer of fun...
 
Bretrick said:
........................ I personally knew two homeless people, alcoholics, who passed away on the street from hypothermia.
Life is becoming harder for millions of people with no end to their torment in sight.
Click to expand...
Now it's drugs. I managed to stay clear of the worst of it. I played with a bit of hooch (very little really) but nothing else at all.
 
Alligatorob said:
If "hitching" counts I have a little more experience. Hitchhiking around the Western US and sleeping along the roadside. But again it was voluntary, I knew I could always go home. I think that makes a big difference.

Summer of 1970 I was trying to hitch a ride near Jackson, Wyoming. At the time Stanley Baker, another hippie hitchhiker murdered and cannibalized a man who gave him a ride, happened just a few miles north of where I was - made it real hard to get a ride... even though I never ate anyone.

From https://murderpedia.org/male.B/b/baker-stanley-dean.htm

On July 13, 1970, a hippie hitchhiker named Stanley Dean Baker was arrested in California for the murder of a Montana man who had stopped to give him a ride. According to police, Baker admitted that he had shot the man to death and then cannibalized the body. (In fact, Baker admitted to cutting out and eating the victim’s heart and also had bones from the man’s fingers in his pocket when apprehended).

Baker was branded a “hippie satanist” by the popular press because he had both a recipe for LSD and a copy of The Satanic Bible in his possession when he was arrested. While Baker would later tell both law enforcement officials and fellow inmates that he had participated in a “blood drinking cult” in Wyoming, he later confessed that his crimes were actually the result of his drug use and had nothing to do with any involvement with satanism.
​
After a few days being stuck I finally got a ride from a bunch of hippies in an old converted school bus. A real classic of the time. They seemed to have no radio and be unaware of the news, a good thing for me. Rode a few hundred miles with them, to near my home. Kind of ended that summer of fun...
Click to expand...
"Ignorance is bliss" they say and being young is a bliss for sure. I've also had some close calls or found myself "in harm's way" several times. I'm not going to tell you about all the wars I've been in and the various in-my-face dangerous situations I've experienced but your story about the hitch-hiking serial killer reminds me that I was in several of the places in India, Nepal, and Thailand where Charles Sobhraj met and eventually murdered some of his victims and I was there at the same time he was active. I'm talking about the same hotels, hostels, and restaurants. Let's talk about something else for a while.
 
I think the longest I was ever unemployed was two months so I have never been homeless. My grandfather would say if a man is willing to work hard there is a job out there for him. In the Army I learned there are times when you have to put your pride in your back pocket and get the job done. So I have keep my nose to the grindstone and kept on with keeping on.
 
I was homeless for a couple days once, but a series of very kind strangers gave me money, found homes for the rescued puppies I was lugging around in a box, gave me a bed and food, connected me with a man who located someone whose kids I could nominally babysit (one was old enough to babysit the others which had been the family's plan) for a month while the mom was out of the country, and subsequently the man found me a job and arranged for me to get a government subsidized apartment. And an agency gave me a starter set of bed, space heater, plate, one set of cutlery, etc.
I had to wash my laundry in a bucket for a while (probably just until I received some money from my parents) but everything worked out.
 
Gary O' said:
Been to the under the bridge hotel
The accommodations were a bit under four star
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Yes, the price is affordable but there is a distinct lack of windows and doors so there is one hell of a draft. And then there is the faulty wiring! :mad: And if its' raining and blowing you have to climb up into the crevice otherwise your sleeping bag will get soaked.
 
Verisure said:
Yes, the price is affordable but there is a distinct lack of windows and doors so there is one hell of a draft. And then there is the faulty wiring
Click to expand...
Y'know, that reminds me of something I penned a couple decades ago
I try to put memories into the clarity of black and white before they become fuzzy

Anyway, I had an experience in a not so good area of Houston;


The familiar stench of pine sol, tobacco, and long ago spilt beer permeated my senses, as I traded a bright southern day for the dank refuge of Tony’s Bar and grill.
Marguerite, the well past middle age but still a bit fetching bar maid was deftly applying yet another coating of pine sol with her bar towel.
Old Charley, a sixteen hour fixture, sitting at the bar, half way through his dayshift of diluting the mourning of the loss of his two timing woman from previous decades, turned to focus on who just walked in.
The dirge of a refrain from ‘I Walk Alone’ twanged from the juke box.
It was Charlie’s favorite song.
It was Charlie’s only song.
It was Tony’s favorite song, as Marguerite yarded out a bag of quarters every four hours or so from the gaudy chest.

Big John was jacking his jaws toward a poor soul, gettin’ too close as usual, talking loud enough to make one think he had a miniature mega phone tucked in his mouth.
And he wasn’t as big as he thought he was…just tall, and loud…I called him loud John, just to get a rise outta him.
And there was Tony, at his post, way in the back, sitting at his round table, heavy black sun glasses, thick plaid shirt, Panama hat, eternal two day beard, accounting ledger under his pudgy hands…never could tell if he was studying his ledger or staring a hole through you. He was not animated. The odds were in favor of a bet that he was actually deceased.
His two cronies flanked his sides…never knew their names, but the one was always quite verbal, high pitched, gravelly voiced troll of a human. An unlit cigar perpetually toyed by his lips and teeth. Racetrack bookie type.
Barmaid legend has it that Tony had hundreds of thousands of dollars hidden upstairs where he resided, and a revolver in his lap at the table, where he spent all his waking hours.
Yeah, happy hour.

I settled into a dark wooden booth.
Marguerite brought me my beer.
I tried to lose myself in thought.
Had I become one of these predictable fixtures?
If so, was that so bad?
Can I just drift through the rest of my life?
Up to now, it had all been pretty traumatic, and hectic.
Now, living hand to mouth was quite liberating.
Yeah, long range planning was non-existent, but again, a relief…….

Esmeralda came hustling in from the back. She was the self-appointed darling of a gaggle of mongrels that frequented this fine establishment.
A bit chubby in the middle, like most thirty some year old señoritas.
Did have a good smile.
Thought about one day yielding to her come on, or even Marguerite, but I heard Marguerite would cut ya if things turned sour. Loud John talked about how she was such a tiger. I didn’t feel up to tiger standard.
And Mel, as I called the smiling enchantress, would require major expense in the antibiotic department.
And there’s all that paraphernalia of a possible relationship..


People that had actually worked today started filling the joint, so I settled up with Mel and sashayed out into the sun.

A couple doors down was the Sally, or Salvation Army mission. There were rules there.
Had to be in at a certain time.
Had to check yer bag behind the counter.
Had to sit through a sermon to eat.
Had to go to bed at lights out.
Couldn’t keep your clothes on in bed, even though it was a good chance someone else would be wearing them in the morning.
Had to be out at a certain time.
But it was a step up from the under the bridge hotel.

Around the corner was the Bayou Theater….fifty cents and you can watch five old run movies…and stay out of the cold or heat when pushed out of the mission. You did have to put up with the clientele however, and a commentary throughout the show, ‘Hey that’s Robert Taylor!’…..’No s***’…..’shut the hell up!’

Then across the square was home sweet home.
The Standard Hotel.
$1.25 a night or $5 a week…a five day week.
It was a converted warehouse of a thousand partitioned ‘rooms’, 6 x 4 rooms. The cots had some sort of linen and thin blanket. Not sure what color anything was, because they all had their very own 20 watt light strung to the middle, hanging from god knows where. It was enough to scatter a few hundred exoskeletal friends. I remember my first night, thought I had a brown comforter.
The end of each hall had a wash tub with sometimes warm water, along with a toilet
..usually flushable…sometimes clogged…but always caressing a brown flaky crust.
But hey, you could stash your belongings.

I pulled my duffel bag from under my cot and tossed myself atop.
Staring at the ghost of a ceiling, I let my mind drift through the past.
 
Last edited:
Gary O' said:
Snakes already know this......especially moccasins
Click to expand...
I had no problems with snakes but scorpions, tarantulas, guns & bombs, and sexual rapture are another matter.

I woke up one morning in the Arizona desert and as I started to roll up my sleeping bag I found that a scorpion had spent the night under it. Thank God it crawled under the foot end! Another similar incident in Mexico when I awoke to noises in the night to find that a young couple had left their car by the roadside and laid a blanket down not more than 20 metres from me to have a screw! Again in the Bahamas when my sleep was shattered by horrendous gunfire and bombs. I had been sleeping just below the fort where nightly displays of a light & sound show reenact some battle that took place there in their history! Still again in South Africa near the Limpopo border with Rhodesia I had trouble getting to sleep because some animal was moving about in the bushes near me. I figured it was baboons but the next morning when I broke camp and started to hitch-hike further the driver asked me I had been disturbed by the leopards that were active in the area.
 
Gary O' said:
Y'know, that reminds me of something I penned a couple decades ago
I try to get memories into the clarity of black and white before they get fuzzy

Anyway, I had an experience in a not so good area of Houston;


The familiar stench of pine sol, tobacco, and long ago spilt beer permeated my senses, as I traded a bright southern day for the dank refuge of Tony’s Bar and grill.
Marguerite, the well past middle age but still a bit fetching bar maid was deftly applying yet another coating of pine sol with her bar towel.
Old Charley, a sixteen hour fixture, sitting at the bar, half way through his dayshift of diluting the mourning of the loss of his two timing woman from previous decades, turned to focus on who just walked in.
The dirge of a refrain from ‘I Walk Alone’ twanged from the juke box.
It was Charlie’s favorite song.
It was Charlie’s only song.
It was Tony’s favorite song, as Marguerite yarded out a bag of quarters every four hours or so from the gaudy chest.

Big John was jacking his jaws toward a poor soul, gettin’ too close as usual, talking loud enough to make one think he had a miniature mega phone tucked in his mouth.
And he wasn’t as big as he thought he was…just tall, and loud…I called him loud John, just to get a rise outta him.
And there was Tony, at his post, way in the back, sitting at his round table, heavy black sun glasses, thick plaid shirt, Panama hat, eternal two day beard, accounting ledger under his pudgy hands…never could tell if he was studying his ledger or staring a hole through you. He was not animated. The odds were in favor of a bet that he was actually deceased.
His two cronies flanked his sides…never knew their names, but the one was always quite verbal, high pitched, gravelly voiced troll of a human. An unlit cigar perpetually toyed by his lips and teeth. Racetrack bookie type.
Barmaid legend has it that Tony had hundreds of thousands of dollars hidden upstairs where he resided, and a revolver in his lap at the table, where he spent all his waking hours.
Yeah, happy hour.

I settled into a dark wooden booth.
Marguerite brought me my beer.
I tried to lose myself in thought.
Had I become one of these predictable fixtures?
If so, was that so bad?
Can I just drift through the rest of my life?
Up to now, it had all been pretty traumatic, and hectic.
Now, living hand to mouth was quite liberating.
Yeah, long range planning was non-existent, but again, a relief…….

Esmeralda came hustling in from the back. She was the self-appointed darling of a gaggle of mongrels that frequented this fine establishment.
A bit chubby in the middle, like most thirty some year old señoritas.
Did have a good smile.
Thought about one day yielding to her come on, or even Marguerite, but I heard Marguerite would cut ya if things turned sour. Loud John talked about how she was such a tiger. I didn’t feel up to tiger standard.
And Mel, as I called the smiling enchantress, would require major expense in the antibiotic department.
And there’s all that paraphernalia of a possible relationship..


People that had actually worked today started filling the joint, so I settled up with Mel and sashayed out into the sun.

A couple doors down was the Sally, or Salvation Army mission. There were rules there.
Had to be in at a certain time.
Had to check yer bag behind the counter.
Had to sit through a sermon to eat.
Had to go to bed at lights out.
Couldn’t keep your clothes on in bed, even though it was a good chance someone else would be wearing them in the morning.
Had to be out at a certain time.
But it was a step up from the under the bridge hotel.

Around the corner was the Bayou Theater….fifty cents and you can watch five old run movies…and stay out of the cold or heat when pushed out of the mission. You did have to put up with the clientele however, and a commentary throughout the show, ‘Hey that’s Robert Taylor!’…..’No s***’…..’shut the hell up!’

Then across the square was home sweet home.
The Standard Hotel.
$1.25 a night or $5 a week…a five day week.
It was a converted warehouse of a thousand partitioned ‘rooms’, 6 x 4 rooms. The cots had some sort of linen and thin blanket. Not sure what color anything was, because they all had their very own 20 watt light strung to the middle, hanging from god knows where. It was enough to scatter a few hundred exoskeletal friends. I remember my first night, thought I had a brown comforter.
The end of each hall had a wash tub with sometimes warm water, along with a toilet
..usually flushable…sometimes clogged…but always caressing a brown flaky crust.
But hey, you could stash your belongings.

I pulled my duffel bag from under my cot and tossed myself atop.
Staring at the ghost of a ceiling, I let my mind drift through the past.
Click to expand...
It would have been best if you'd have left that west Texas town of Houston out to the badlands of New Mexico ,....
 
Irwin said:
There are some homeless people living in an SUV down by the park behind the local community center. They even have two dogs living in there with them. I wonder what they do all day (not the dogs, the homeless people).
Click to expand...
Probably smoking a joint, scratching the bellies of their dogs and saying, "How ya' doin' buddy!"
 
Verisure said:
It would have been best if you'd have left that west Texas town of Houston out to the badlands of New Mexico ,....
Click to expand...
Freight trains seem to have their own direction.
Almost ended up in Genoa Nebraska on a hot shot.
Hot shot trains don't stop anywhere in between.
And they put the peddle to the metal
Quite bumpy
No sleep
 
Gary O' said:
Freight trains seem to have their own direction.
Almost ended up in Genoa Nebraska on a hot shot.
Hot shot trains don't stop anywhere in between.
And they put the peddle to the metal
Quite bumpy
No sleep
Click to expand...
One of the things that worried me about trying to ride the rail was not knowing where the thing was going. Do you just hop in without knowing?
 
Gary O' said:
Y'know, that reminds me of something I penned a couple decades ago
I try to get memories into the clarity of black and white before they get fuzzy

Anyway, I had an experience in a not so good area of Houston;


The familiar stench of pine sol, tobacco, and long ago spilt beer permeated my senses, as I traded a bright southern day for the dank refuge of Tony’s Bar and grill.
Marguerite, the well past middle age but still a bit fetching bar maid was deftly applying yet another coating of pine sol with her bar towel.
Old Charley, a sixteen hour fixture, sitting at the bar, half way through his dayshift of diluting the mourning of the loss of his two timing woman from previous decades, turned to focus on who just walked in.
The dirge of a refrain from ‘I Walk Alone’ twanged from the juke box.
It was Charlie’s favorite song.
It was Charlie’s only song.
It was Tony’s favorite song, as Marguerite yarded out a bag of quarters every four hours or so from the gaudy chest.

Big John was jacking his jaws toward a poor soul, gettin’ too close as usual, talking loud enough to make one think he had a miniature mega phone tucked in his mouth.
And he wasn’t as big as he thought he was…just tall, and loud…I called him loud John, just to get a rise outta him.
And there was Tony, at his post, way in the back, sitting at his round table, heavy black sun glasses, thick plaid shirt, Panama hat, eternal two day beard, accounting ledger under his pudgy hands…never could tell if he was studying his ledger or staring a hole through you. He was not animated. The odds were in favor of a bet that he was actually deceased.
His two cronies flanked his sides…never knew their names, but the one was always quite verbal, high pitched, gravelly voiced troll of a human. An unlit cigar perpetually toyed by his lips and teeth. Racetrack bookie type.
Barmaid legend has it that Tony had hundreds of thousands of dollars hidden upstairs where he resided, and a revolver in his lap at the table, where he spent all his waking hours.
Yeah, happy hour.

I settled into a dark wooden booth.
Marguerite brought me my beer.
I tried to lose myself in thought.
Had I become one of these predictable fixtures?
If so, was that so bad?
Can I just drift through the rest of my life?
Up to now, it had all been pretty traumatic, and hectic.
Now, living hand to mouth was quite liberating.
Yeah, long range planning was non-existent, but again, a relief…….

Esmeralda came hustling in from the back. She was the self-appointed darling of a gaggle of mongrels that frequented this fine establishment.
A bit chubby in the middle, like most thirty some year old señoritas.
Did have a good smile.
Thought about one day yielding to her come on, or even Marguerite, but I heard Marguerite would cut ya if things turned sour. Loud John talked about how she was such a tiger. I didn’t feel up to tiger standard.
And Mel, as I called the smiling enchantress, would require major expense in the antibiotic department.
And there’s all that paraphernalia of a possible relationship..


People that had actually worked today started filling the joint, so I settled up with Mel and sashayed out into the sun.

A couple doors down was the Sally, or Salvation Army mission. There were rules there.
Had to be in at a certain time.
Had to check yer bag behind the counter.
Had to sit through a sermon to eat.
Had to go to bed at lights out.
Couldn’t keep your clothes on in bed, even though it was a good chance someone else would be wearing them in the morning.
Had to be out at a certain time.
But it was a step up from the under the bridge hotel.

Around the corner was the Bayou Theater….fifty cents and you can watch five old run movies…and stay out of the cold or heat when pushed out of the mission. You did have to put up with the clientele however, and a commentary throughout the show, ‘Hey that’s Robert Taylor!’…..’No s***’…..’shut the hell up!’

Then across the square was home sweet home.
The Standard Hotel.
$1.25 a night or $5 a week…a five day week.
It was a converted warehouse of a thousand partitioned ‘rooms’, 6 x 4 rooms. The cots had some sort of linen and thin blanket. Not sure what color anything was, because they all had their very own 20 watt light strung to the middle, hanging from god knows where. It was enough to scatter a few hundred exoskeletal friends. I remember my first night, thought I had a brown comforter.
The end of each hall had a wash tub with sometimes warm water, along with a toilet
..usually flushable…sometimes clogged…but always caressing a brown flaky crust.
But hey, you could stash your belongings.

I pulled my duffel bag from under my cot and tossed myself atop.
Staring at the ghost of a ceiling, I let my mind drift through the past.
Click to expand...

Thank you for painting a unique picture of tough times with humor and clarity. You have a real gift. Please keep writing.
 
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