My name is Howard, a ‘friend’ of Billy Bob, I am in my late 20’s, life has been hard, I am currently homeless.
This is life from my vantage point right now, not complaining, but speaking what is current reality so that understanding can come to many others about this plague of homelessness. Why am I speaking to you, because the myths and lies need to be dealt with so that we can reach an accord that will bring an end to homelessness. Just as with many areas of life, you are ‘taught’ truth, but not given the truth, it is what they want you to have, not what you need for life. And it is no different with the homeless problem.
Homelessness should not be so easily acceptable as something that happens to ‘those’ people and thus relegated to the back burner of problem-solving energies. See, I want to speak to leaders in the local communities, they can solve problems, great leaders are molders of consensus, or so I have heard and that is what we need, both sides.
See you all have been told repeatedly that homeless people and those ‘down on their luck,’ all fit into one single category and thus because of that, they do not need or deserve any help. Society has been trained and programmed to look the other way. To respond negatively and to ignore our needs and requests because of wrong information and training.
I want to start to change that through dialogue. This dialogue should come from someone on the streets otherwise it may be filtered again for the socially acceptable agenda that is out there.
How do you see this agenda and know I am speaking truth? Simple, City A destroys a park and sends the homeless scurrying south, City B increases night raid patrols and moves them. Then yet another city C fines and tickets those helping the homeless, but nowhere are the homeless assisted in the progress of all this. It is the old animal herd mentality applied to humans, just keep them moving, whatever it takes keep the moving along.
I want to work, I want to live in a home again, I want to be reunited with my family, I want a warm shower and a soft, safe bed. However when one ‘slips or slides’ into the cycle of homelessness it can become long term fast and one is stuck in a vortex of struggle. Wants are fast and quickly replaced by survival and when survival comes hope begins to fade away and the end of that road is often an end of one’s life out here.
And yes, wrong decisions are a large part of the picture here, but how do we always have to pay a higher price for ours then you do for yours? I do not want my life journey to end to this way, but I need help, will help be found to assist me to change course so that my life may be preserved? I truly am just a kid, lost in an adult world that makes no sense and already people don’t like me for no good reason, this hurts.
Here is the sad fact of truth, I am in my 20’s without help my life will slide in the stereotype of homelessness and I will become that thug, that panhandler, that bum that you envision each and every time you drive the roads in your favorite city. You can help this not happen or you can allow it to happen, it is a choice, that is the only choice here, homelessness is not a choice. Thanks for listening, singing off, this has been Howard talking to you.
