Writer-in-Residence at a Homeless Shelter
guernicamag.com
guernicamag.com
Homelessness traumatizes its victims. We might even call it a triple trauma. First, your life falls apart: family and friends shut their doors; your belongings disappear. This is a kind of living death. Then you’re traumatized again, separately but relatedly, by the stress of living in danger. Shelters are lousy with drugs and violence; streets are cold and your last possessions are imperiled. You’re disdained by your fellow man. You’re lucky if the despair doesn’t drive you to addiction, but addiction is a third kind of trauma when it arrives.
And this is why we need to solve affordable housing. It is unconscionable that we do this to so many Americans.
Conversely, one of my best experiences was helping with organizing a massive Christmas party for the homeless. It was... surreal and confusing and confronting to see some very 'stereotypically' homeless people dancing and flirting and getting drinks and snacks at the bar like, well, 'normal' people.
I feel that often best things we can do for the homeless and those with mental health issues is to ensure that they feel like full human beings, rather than at best objects of charity or pity. And, as you say, a core part of that is making sure they have as much 'normal' in their life as possible. Having a place to call your own is pretty fundamental to that, I'd say.
You cannot treat someone like an outcast and sub human and expect them to recover into being fully functioning human beings again after such trauma.
I used to find it really stressful to get asked for change or food or whatever but by talking to people you realize they are often not that different although I haven't dealt with many people with severe untreated mental illness. The unfortunate side effect (and maybe this is why we don't do this more as a culture) is that you'll feel worse about their predicament. When you find out that the person used to be an electrician and had a decent life but money troubles and maybe addiction took that from them, its a little harder to look forward to the restaurant or show you were on your way to as much as you did before.
It was eye opening how rampant mental disease is among the homeless. It seems addiction for many was a way to self-medicate and or just get away from the constant stress. One person I remember was a former community college professor and he would come regularly. He was calm, intelligent, well read, I forgot what he taught maybe history or literature. But then I also heard stories from people who were there longer to be careful, sometimes he would snap, see daemons and yell obscenities and so on.
Some people were always cheery and happy, that was surprising. Most were quiet, looked down just took the food and left. Some would come for seconds and would tell us they have a family, a child or someone else waiting for it.
Anyway the point was that it was a very good experience and taught me a few things. It definitely dispelled the often repeated myth how homeless people are just lazy and don't know how to manage their money and so on. It is a pretty complex problem. I understand that a while back there used to be state mental institutions. Those closed down and states just let the homeless out onto the streets. Why don't they open them again, was a budget issue?
There was talk about YC trying out basic income, wonder if there is any space there having a non-for-profit startup which provides a shelter like that with psychological help and counseling. If it is worth disrupting coffee making, or nutrition or taxi monopolies, maybe it is also worth seeing if there is something to be done for those who need help the most.
I don't know how bad things were, back in the day, but dumping thousands of mentally ill people on the streets with no further assistance doesn't seem to have helped.
The result was, basically, if it couldn't be proven that you were an immediate threat to yourself and other people, and you could vocalize your desire to be let out, they kicked you to the curb.
Unfortunately, they got kicked to the curb with little support and few legal methods to demand they remain in treatment, as well as no funding to ensure they remained in treatment.
Then, there was the rampant abuse that was going on in many of the facilities. The stories are full of atrocities and those came to light. Suffice to say, State run mental health facilities had/have some serious optics issues.
As to your comment about their jovial nature... I think I can shed some light on that? However, I'm not an expert.
I've had the chance to visit the war torn, impoverished, and even the combat zones. I have traveled a lot and paid for my education by serving in the military. Specifically, I spent eight years in the Marines.
In that time, and as a civilian, I got to visit numerous places where death from starvation was a serious risk, where combat actions took the lives of civilians, and where every single central government agency had failed the citizens. In short, I've visited some places where the situation was pretty terrible.
The striking thing is, in all those places, the children still mustered enough energy to laugh. In all those places, people still sang and danced. They still shared what they had. They still celebrated life. They still had weddings and celebrated love. They still wrote poetry, drew pictures, and told jokes.
I guess there's a point where those things stop happening at all, at least for the truly destitute. The siege of Stalingrad is an example, though I guess even that wasn't entirely without people expressing joy. People still got married in the Nazi concentration camps.
My conclusion is that we humans are pretty resilient. We are pretty tough. Even when faced with daily horrors that most can't even really imagine, we still can maintain some humanity. It seems that, no matter where I go, people are people.
I've heard children's laughter immediately after people stopped firing their weapons. I don't know if they were laughing during it, but I know they laughed and played afterwards. So, even the homeless retain some humanity. They laugh, cry, sing, and enjoy art - just like the rest of us.
Sorry, I'm no philosopher and I'm not a psychiatrist. So, I don't have a better way to describe it.
You described it very well. Thanks for answering and sharing your experience.
Yeah people seem to find a reason to laugh or be happy even in the worst conditions.
It interestingly goes the other way too -- people who seemingly have everything and more sort of get used to it and still find ways to be unhappy and resentful. Even over the littlest things, like say the barista making the wrong coffee or someone cutting them off when driving.
Something I read some time ago that really resonated and I'll (badly) paraphrase:
We think that a person becomes homeless when they spend their last dollar and have none left for housing. But that's not true, and in fact they become homeless when they spend their last social connection and have none left for housing.
Framing it this way, for me, it became easier to understand why, in societies without strong safety nets for those with mental illnesses, homelessness and mental illness is so strongly correlated. Such people run out of doorways they can darken, couches they can surf, and then have no further fallback option short of being out on the street.
This isn't the only situation someone becomes homeless, of course. But it seems a common one.
And weak ties get broken, too. (I've never been homeless, but I've seen it happen to friends and acquaintances).
Things like going to church, browsing in a bookstore or stopping by the corner bar to watch the game or Game of Thrones are doable when you're just poor: go light on the collection plate, read a book and put it back, or nurse a $1 Coke all night.
Walking in with all your possessions and in need of a shower is a different story. You might have friends who will let you wash up and drop off your bag, but can you get to them easily? Are they going to be home?
Maybe you should just head to your campsite early and save that favor for when you really need it.
The state-run institutions were essentially prisons for lunatics. The conditions were horrible and abuses were rampant. They were frequently sued for civil rights violations. So the institutions were shut down.
The "patients/inmates" were then dumped on the streets. With no support, medication, or coping strategies, they inevitably moved into regular prisons, and are now "inmates/patients". They still experience many of the same conditions, but now they "deserve it", because they are criminals. US prisons are simply not set up for rehabilitation or treatment. There is no money to help you, but millions of dollars available to punish and contain you.
The problem now, as it was then, is that the mentally ill were never in specialty hospitals to treat their specific needs. They were dropped into oubliettes, to be ignored and forgotten.
If the institutions re-opened, it would be the same problem, because the same kinds of people would be running them and funding them.
The problem is that often those communities already have poverty problems. What is the path to employment, permanent shelter, and (if needed) treatment?
Exactly, if you put them far enough away with no economy you will still have to provide the resources for them to survive. At least in a dense city per capita living expense goes down.