I failed at being homeless.
In 1976, as a junior in college at the University of Colorado in Boulder, a girlfriend and I enrolled in what we thought would be an easy way to earn three credits: a Sociology class titled, A Dollar a Day. All we had to do was live on the streets of Denver on one dollar a day for three days and write about our experience.
Easy!
The first morning we received a list of organizations that would provide free meals and lodging. We were encouraged not to use our real names and to prepare a convincing story on how we became homeless.
Easy!
Our story went something like this: we were Julie and Jordan, runaways from Nebraska. Our parents were so mean that we had to strike out on our own, (cue the tears). Thankfully we had each other and soon we would find jobs.
I couldn’t wait! As an English major I had so much reading to do I planned to use the time to read Siddhartha, the Hermann Hesse book I’d buried inside my little overnight bag.
Instead I became fixated on that dollar. If I spent a quarter to take the bus I’d only have seventy-five cents left to do what? Buy a candy bar? Make a phone call? I was to hungry to focus on my book. There was nothing to do. Absolutely nothing. We sat in a park all day, stomachs growling, bored, waiting until 5 p.m. when we could get dinner. Food. Hunger. Money. Food. That’s all I could think about.
Even though we’d worn older clothes and skipped washing our hair we looked quite out of place in line at the Salvation Army. The food was nothing we wanted to eat but we couldn’t refuse it either. I vaguely remember a speech about getting our lives together, a prayer and then eating. After that, on to a Catholic charity house where the woman took one look at us and said, “You don’t look homeless, you look like college kids.” We immediately trotted out our stories about being runaways, assured her we were homeless and she let us in. Again, another speech, a prayer and finally we got to sleep. Wakeup came at 5 a.m. with watered down oatmeal, no shower and back on the street at 6 a.m. It was still dark out and it may have been raining.
My friend got sick. Right in front of the house she vomited the thin oatmeal and Salvation Army dinner onto the grass. Ugh. Now what? A repeat of the day before? No way were we going to eat that same awful food and risk getting sick. I’m embarrassed to report we collected our dollar, used a dime to call her boyfriend and pleaded with him to rescue us. White privilege at its finest. While waiting for him we went to a sporting goods store and tried on ski boots. Again, privilege.
Almost fifty years later I still think about that class and how hard it was. The shame. The utter boredom. The hunger. How one bad decision, one sky-high hospital bill, one accident could land me back out there again. It’s the reason I’ve never gone without health insurance.
Recently, when Fox News host, Brian Kilmeade suggested that mentally ill homeless people should die by “involuntary lethal injection” I was outraged. Not surprised, just outraged. As if eliminating the people will eliminate the problem. It won’t.
His callous comment which went viral, jarred me out of my complacency. A few years ago, I collected empty water bottles and filled them with an energy bar, a pair of socks, lip balm and other things I felt might be useful. I kept them in my car and passed out one or two a week.
It’s not the answer but to quote Aesop, "No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted."
Profound.
A remarkable story and profound conclusion. We each need to make sure we do what we can to be kind in many ways every day.