January 16, 2015
Leading up to the night I spent most of my time at the library reading and eventually ended up on the benches across the street doing much of the same. There were several other people at the surrounding benches some of them sleeping and it didn't take long to make an observation, these benches are not designed to sleep on! I can understand that the city probably doesn't want people sleeping on them, but if they are going to do it anyway, WHY IN THE WORLD do the benches have to suck so bad. They slant the wrong way and all have a rail in the middle that makes it impossible to lye. Slouching or sitting straight up is the only way to make it work. Since they are cold metal I don't understand why we don't all just sit/lay on the ground?
I've been emailed a couple cool questions I didn't address yesterday so thanks for those! Here's what I've got for you:
*Why did you wait to tell Shelby last minute about your intended homeless experience?
-Short version is two parts: 1) I was honestly still debating going through with it. It took a lot of prayer and self-convincing to go through with it. 2) Shelby and I go way back and even though we tell each other everything; I kind of wanted to freak him and his wife (Lindsay) out! Haha. That's just how I roll.
*What did you bring?
-Trash bag with:
-Sleeping bag.(In hindsight I should have bought some type of arctic tested thing, but this bad boy was $Free.NinetyFree
-Sheet.
-Spare sweatshirt.
-Backpack with:
-Small toiletry/first aid kit.
-Roll of toilet tickets.
-Vitamins
-Jar of peanut butter (duh)
-2 cans of beenie-weenie things. (Thanks again Jordan)
-1 can of Sardines (I had never had them and they were $1)
-Hot Sauce and forgot the fork.
-Rag
-Pen & Journal.
-'EPIC' by John Eldridge
-Bible
-2 apples
-Spare socks and gloves.
-Pocket knife & pepper spray.
-This emergency bracelet thing that I've always wanted to have to use...and probably still never will.
-And my 2 vices: 1) 2 apples 2) Can of dip, sorry mom but i was anticipating some stress :(
In full transparency, I had to make a trip home to get Jordan and Greg to get me a blanket and my iPad. It was freaking colder than I thought and realized the library is too difficult to get a cpu and time restraints were going to keep me from getting any work done. I did not go inside despite their feeble attempts to woo me with 'a whole mess of warm meats.' Ha
The past 2 nights have been cold. That is the worst part by far. I can tell that during the winter most people must get in to a shelter because compared to warmer times there are far fewer people on the streets at night. Both nights I have walked to stay warm for about 2 hours before I lay down and I've probably observed a couple dozen people sleeping...I guess I'm still a rookie because I don't sleep on the benches, to revisit that topic--it is so uncomfortable! Another observation is the people seem to sleep in groups of 2 or 3. My guess is for safety, but IDK. I'm sure other smarter people have already learned that reason. My hope is to be able to at least sleep in the vicinity of someone else, but honestly it just makes me nervous.
During the day people flood downtown from the Rescue Mission's area of town. It is impossible to know who is actually homeless and who might just be caught up in poverty struggles, but there are a ton of people downtown during the day. On a sad note, I came across a little old lady carrying 2 heavy bags. She was stopping every 10 yards or so to rest...I made my attempt to help, but she had a bit of a panic attack and started talking some serious jibber jabber. My best guess was that she thought I was going to steal her stuff :(
"If things are cold around you, start a fire. It's not the stone-age." -It's a metaphor people.
-#homelessmatt
No comments:
Post a Comment