Being Homeless in America; My story

I have heard many people complain about their financial problems, credit card debt, and how they cant afford to go on vacation next year.

The issue of homelessness is a mayor problem in this country due to lack of affordable housing and the fragmentation of our economy. Leading to cut backs in programs and services that catered to the lower middle class, the mentally ill, substance abuse, the unemployed, domestic violence victims and poverty stricken families are among those at high risk.

As of 2009, somewhere between 200,000 and 500,000 Americans were then homeless.The numbers suggests that roughly 1 in every 200 persons in the United States used the shelter system at some point in that period. My family and I became part of those statistics.

In 2009, I flew my family to kissimmi, Florida with the promise of a job with a prominent clinical laboratory firm. When I got there, the position was closed and I was stranded in Florida with my disabled husband and our 3 children. We lived in a motel for 3 weeks, which was stressful enough. Digging into our savings to pay for our way. After all, how hard would it be to find a job?Any job?

The money and opportunities were scarce, so I began to panic. One day back in March 2009, I was on a side walk with my family and one bag of clothes each. As I sat on a bus stop looking at my children and wondering ,-” Where are we going to sleep tonight?”

I remember it was so cold, and it was getting dark. So we started to walk. There in the corner close to the motel there was a church. I tried to find someone but it seemed closed. There was a lady coming out of the building and I asked her if she would help us by letting us use her phone and the yellow pages. We were hungry, tired and cold. In my pocket there was only $12.00 and a list for local shelters that had a waiting list of 4 to 10 months!!

It was beyond me of how this was happening. No family, no contacts, no money, no transportation, in a place where I knew nobody. An hour later, with still no luck in finding a place to stay. The church agreed to pay a room in another motel for the night, and a box of food. With the promise that someone would take us to an emergency shelter in downtown, Orlando the next morning. I had no idea that this was the beginning of an eleven month ordeal .

The next morning, we were taken to The Coalition For The Homeless in the poor stricken part of Orlando. Words cannot describe of how I felt that day. There was a line that circled the block, just to get a sandwich. The kids were confused and exhausted and my husband and I were devastated and scared. By some kind of a miracle there was a spot on the shelter, and our next meal was secured.

For months, we had to learn how to survive among all sorts of circumstances and individuals from all walks of life. We became regulars at the soup kitchen, we learned how to take care of each other,safety was a major issue. We had to share meals and a hallway with pedophiles, drug addicts, prostitutes and mentally ill people.

Dig through piles of donated clothes to find a coat and still go to school and keep hunting for jobs. Witch no one would give us a chance hence the address on our ID was of the local shelter. We all fell into a deep depression that made the experience even more unbearable.

The things we witnessed, the discrimination , the stigma was so crippling that hope was sometimes hard to come by. We were afraid to go to bed at night and the food available at the soup kitchen sometimes was expired so we got sick a lot.

You could not trust no one, but needed to create civil relationships with others around you , then again for safety reasons. My children were labeled at school, and bullied on a daily basis. The stress was so great that my husband and I separated while being in there.

Finally, I contacted my father that lived in California and told him about the situation. He gathered up the money and we left Florida the same way we arrived, with the clothes on our backs and a duffel bag each.

Being homeless is something that can destroy a person’s sense of self. It’s like going to battle in your own back yard. Humanity and hope gets a whole new meaning. And even in that situation you become grateful because the person next to you literally is eating out of a dumpster. Our lives changed that year. The perspective that centers us, is one of hope and utter faith. Grateful that our situation was not as bad compared with some of the people that we met there.

Saying this, I have to also mention and give thanks to all of those strangers that donated their time to give a blanket when we had none. The Good Samaritans that, without knowing us cooked meals for us and made possible that my children had a Christmas that year.

The case workers that helped me cope with the situation by being a friend. For those people still living in the streets that shared their only meal of the day with us.

The biggest lesson that we all got from our experience is NOTHING IS MORE POWERFUL THAN THE HUMAN SPIRIT. Even if you think that it could never happened to you, think again.