?otw

Homelessness.

Have you ever been homeless, or been afraid that you might be close to being homeless? Do you know anyone who is or has been homeless? Do you have any views on homelessness that have been proven right or wrong, or that you’ve changed over the years?

I am fortunate enough to be able to say that I've never been in any real danger of losing my house {knock wood}. I also don't have any close friends who've been in that position, at least not that I'm aware of.

However, I deal with homelessness at work a lot. We have, during the winter especially, our regular, annual crew of people (95%-plus are guys) who move from shelter to shelter every night. That's how it works in our semi-rural/semi-suburban county: every night a different church in a different community opens its doors to house the homeless from October or November through March or April. Our town's "night" is Wednesday, and then there is a drop-in shelter the next morning at a different church. So from about Wednesday noon until sometime in the afternoon on Thursday we have quite a few extra people sitting around the library.

The core group is totally well-behaved and cognizant not only of the rules of the library but how easily they all could be asked to "move along" by the police and library staff. They police each other much more effectively than we could; many times Big S will come and tell us that a couple of newbies are smoking (or drinking) in the bathroom so we will know it's NOT her and her crew.

I don't understand the year-in/year-out homelessness of that core group at all. I wouldn't want to live that way. But they all seem to have some very good reasons for living on the move. Lots of them are addicts to a greater or lesser degree. Lots of them have an unusual outlook on reality, one that differs from...uhm...'normal.'

However, I have never had a real problem with any of them. Occasionally, one will get cranky and swear--usually, they apologize quick-like when thet see staff. Sometimes, one will find some cash and hit Duffy's Tavern and then come visit us...if he's belligerent, we ask him to leave, calling the police for backup if necessary. Sometimes, they stand and tell us long-winded stories about how they're going to turn they're lives around. They all will sometimes sit in the very back at a table and play poker and talk rather loudly; that's easy enough to handle. It's harder to handle the guys who don't get enough sleep at the shelter and crash in one of our chairs...and S.N.O.R.E. like they are intent on bringing the building down around our ears.

Many, many times, I've had other patrons say to me, "Do you know there's someone sleeping over there?" or "There's some guy snoring really loud back in the corner." If it's bothering them, we'll have to go by and ask them to keep it down, but I always feel bad. Sometimes when people have reported to me on someone sleeping, they'll be horrified that I might go wake them. One guy got really upset and said, "I didn't want to get him in trouble! He's just really tired. Let him sleep!" Unfortunately, people like him are rare. Usually, we have patrons who complain because the homeless freak them out and make them mentally uncomfortable.

And sometimes they don't smell very nice. We do have a policy about that: when someone reports someone as being really stinky, we do have a way of asking them to leave until they've stopped at the shelter for a shower. That's not the most fun conversation to have, believe me.