speechless

i recieved this via email from resist today. please read it.
thanks, michelle.

The Top 5 Things I Need When I Am HomelessBy Kirsten Anderberg (www.kirstenanderberg.com)

I am going through homelessness in America yet again, due to being borne into the non-land owning caste, and class prejudice that is unconscionable. And as I battle through this insane maze that defies logic and humanity, putting profits before people and their right to dignity, I am identifying certain reoccurring needs throughout these repeating homelessness cycles in life. My current needs are 1) Daily Storage, 2) Phone Contact, 3) Privacy, 4) Daily Space I Am Allowed to Be In, and 5) Access to Bathrooms. Those are the things I need just to survive and stay homeless. To actually obtain housing, I also need access to a never ending stream of $40 application fees, and some land owner who will rent to someone with a perfect rental history for the last 5+ years, but who has bad credit.

I have heard it said that one of the reasons society stigmatizes the poor is to fictionalize that poverty only happens to “bad” people, thus it could not happen to them. Claiming personal responsibility for race, class, and gender privileges is like blaming individual people who are poor for social discrimination against the poor, people of color and women. Same exact thing, just two different ends of the spectrum. I am experiencing homelessness again first hand, and I am not enjoying it. I have never been evicted, I have not been late paying rent in over 5 years, I have never damaged my rental properties, I am a quiet neighbor. So why am I homeless? My last landlord raised my rent, and I cannot find anyone who will rent to me now, even with a huge deposit and/or a cosigner, due to my bad credit apparently. I cannot see these credit reports due to bureaucratic loops in the credit reporting system, thus I am asking a judge to intervene on my behalf next week to force Equifax and Trans Union to the table so I can resolve this issue and move forward. Until then, I am at the mercy of greedy landlords who want $40 to apply for their units, which adds up mighty quick. And after they take my $40, they say they will not rent to me due to bad credit. Over and over again. Keeping me in the cycle of poverty.

Right now, as a homeless person, I have a few things I need more than others if I am ever to achieve housing again. One of the most immediate problems I have is property storage. I moved all of my things (which means crates of files, no furniture, scrapbooks, etc., nothing of much monetary worth) into a storage unit in the city I was living in, a long ways from the city I am in now. I had to leave that place and go into the city of Seattle because that is where there are resources and friends. So most of my things are not within my reach right now, except via a three hour bus ride. But I am hauling around a warm sleeping bag, a tent, tarps, a small cooking stove, a cooking pan, a few small dishes and utensils, clothing, some dried fruit and cereal, paperwork and files I need to get housing and a few other things like shampoo, etc. What I need more than anything is a storage locker in town, that I have access to daily.Right now, I am sleeping on a friend’s couch in his small apartment. I do not need my tent and cooking supplies this minute. I do not need all of my paperwork either. But when I leave my friend’s apartment, all that shit goes with me, everywhere I go. People who drive cars do not understand what it is like to haul your crap around with you all day. Car drivers just throw things in the car and retrieve or redeposit them throughout their day as needed. People who are homeless without cars are often carrying ALL of their belongings with them, EVERYWHERE. I am not carrying all of my belongings with me right now, but I am carrying my immediate need belongings, and that is bad enough, let me tell you. It is a societal stigma to do that. You are negatively labeled immediately if you haul such things as sleeping bags around in public and IT SUCKS. So my number one need right now is another storage locker in town to use as a base to put things away that I do not need that moment, even on a daily basis. Such as, I need somewhere to store my sleeping bag EVERY DAY. A place I have free access to at all times.

The next thing I need is some kind of phone system that is not connected to housing. Since I am dirt poor, and trying to survive homelessness right now, money is very tight. I simply cannot afford a cell phone, especially not at some of the rates they charge, like 25 cents a minute! I cannot afford to buy chunks of time on a phone, nor do I have a way to recharge a cell phone reliably. If nothing else, I need some kind of a voice mail system with a phone number I can leave for prospective landlords to call with possible housing! And I need to be able to retrieve those messages for free, from a pay phone, not via calling a number that costs 50 cents a pop to retrieve messages.

Another sincere need I am feeling is a two pronged desire to 1) have some privacy while in this chaos, but instead I have to be upbeat and entertaining to be near people, as I need their help, and 2) days and nights are really, really long when you have nowhere on Earth you are allowed to really be. In a small neighborhood park in Seattle yesterday, I saw a woman who looked a lot like me, laying down under a tree, shaded from the sun. She had a sleeping bag, and a backpack. She has to leave there when the sun goes down. I wonder where she went.When you are homeless, parks are one of the only places you are allowed to be legally, during the day. Yet, if you hang out in parks with sleeping bags and backpacks, parents and uptight jerks act as if the homeless are “ruining” the “family” atmosphere of the park, and there is a consternation there. Libraries would seem another ideal refuge for the homeless, but they chase people with sleeping bags and backpacks out of libraries often. I know the media openly reported the new library built in Seattle last year had plans to discourage the homeless from being there specifically in their blueprints. So where are homeless people supposed to be allowed to put their feet on the ground without breaking laws? It is a quick and slippery slope once you become homeless, to keep police away from you and to keep yourself away from an almost inherent criminalization if you are poor and homeless in America.

Also, while you are homeless, you feel especially alienated often. I know that is one of the biggest problems I have to keep addressing is the energy level it takes to not get psyched out. The energy it takes to keep finding forty more dollars to apply to one more place that yet again, turns me down, eating my money and making me hate land owners for their inhumanity even more, is exhausting. Especially when I have been doing that for a month now, and I am STILL in the exact same situation. To keep being nice to even your friends, during such a serious crisis is not easy. People in their daily lives do not understand the depth of your fear and anguish when you couch surf with them. I broke down and cried the other day. I felt overwhelmed. My friend tried to cheer me up asking if I wanted to go clubbing with him. Nothing sounded more horrific at that moment. First of all, I am dirt poor. He went out and clubbed, and I got to sob alone for a few hours, which I needed. But our lives are like different planets.

It is also very hard for me to stay with people living at a middle class lifestyle while I am struggling in poverty. For instance, as I am worrying about how I will pay rent on their couch, after all these $40 application fees and still being turned down, they are out looking for expensive trendy clothing, or a new music instrument they do not need, as they have more instruments than they can play already. As I sit and watch a world around me consume and live lavishly by my standards, I am told I cannot have basic housing at all. Not even with money offered up and a reliable tenant record. Due to bad credit reports I am not allowed to see and red tape I am stuck in. And yes, it is more than basic credit reporting problems, I am not an idiot, there are other complications. For one, I do not have a home address for them to mail the stupid report to. So, while feeling completely alienated, you are supposed to be happy for your friend having lots of money from his family, and to ooh and awe his latest purchase, and for me, that takes a lot of energy. Additionally, while you are grateful for their help, you still harbor resentment for the class chasm and its definite biases and prejudices towards and against arbitrary individuals. You resent the system that gave them this privilege to hand you charity. At this point, I feel like I need some sustained privacy to stand this, but there really is no privacy, ever, once you are homeless.

And lastly, the one topic some cringe at, but it is real. Where are homeless people’s bathrooms? There are daily bathroom needs, from hygiene and showers to toilets, and that is yet another area where homeless folks are criminalized for trying to not burst a bladder. When every restaurant, store, etc. says you must make a purchase to be allowed to pee, this is a serious daily issue for the homeless poor. Even as I sleep on a friend’s couch, his bathroom is in his bedroom. So in the middle of the night, if I want to pee, I have to go into his bedroom and wake him each time. I do not enjoy that at all. Showers also are not free most places, and thus it becomes a catch-22 where people shun the homeless for being dirty but will not allow them anywhere to shower, and cops arrest the homeless for peeing in public, when they were not allowed a legal alternative place to do so.

I am pretty clear that for me, the immediate hardest hurdles are daily storage, phone contact, the need for privacy and a space I am allowed to be in, and bathroom access. If you want to help the homeless, these may be good places to start. Help set up free storage units for the homeless in your town, such as Angeline’s Place (http://www.ywcaworks.org/page/151/) in Seattle. Help set up a free voice mail system that homeless folks can use and retrieve messages through, such as Community Voice Mail (http://www.fremontpublic.org/client/other.html#cvm) in Seattle. Help create safe PRIVATE spaces for the homeless, even if just during the day. Help fund and institute public bathrooms and public access showers in your town. (In Santa Cruz, Ca., when I was homeless, it was easier as all the beaches had free bathrooms and even showers, and some had cooking/fire pits, and we were allowed on be on the beach during the day without stigma. Also, on the beach, as a homeless person, I could either create my own space to hang, or I could hang out with a large group, but since people bring blankets to sit on at the beach, it was a little harder to tell who was actually homeless and who was just having a day at the beach.) Please think about the things I have shared with you, and take some action in these areas today.