‘I’m Embarrassed By My Situation’ : Clinging to Hope While Struggling on the Streets

Don is not ready to give up on life, though he has been homeless and alone for the past four years. Hope is just around the next dirty street corner, he says, one block away from the path that will take him to the world that passes him by every day on downtown sidewalks.

Meanwhile, there are handicaps to overcome, like the embarrassment over his ragged appearance and the stigma of being a nameless face, a person without a home, making the best of a life that offers little else but hope.

Nobody really knows how many homeless people there are in San Diego. Don, who did not want to give his last name, is one of the hundreds of anonymous persons who struggle to survive on the city streets. Ignored by many, mocked by some and occasionally arrested by police, they spend the day moving from corner to corner, and nights seeking shelter in doorways.

“I’m embarrassed by my situation,” he said. “I don’t like people to see me dirty. I know there are people who are embarrassed, perhaps shamed by street people. . . . They pretend that we’re invisible. They walk down the sidewalk and pretend not to see us. But I look at their faces and catch them staring at me out of the corners of their eyes. They look uncomfortable.”

A sensitive, well-spoken man, Don, who is 29 and frail looking, does not entirely fit the stereotype of a homeless person. The son of a Japanese mother and a retired Navy man who live in Otay, Don has two younger brothers and a sister who are professionals. He is too proud to panhandle and attributes this to the influence of his mother’s culture.

“Some of my street friends help me out with food and clothes . . . but $16 a week is about my only source of income, when I feel good enough to go to the plasma center (to give blood),” he said.

Don was interviewed at the height of the cold and rainy weather that visited San Diego this week. Wearing a soiled and tattered denim jacket, dirty long-johns shirt and corduroy pants, he attracted hard and disapproving stares from patrons inside a fast-food restaurant across from Horton Plaza. A sweat-stained red bandanna was wrapped around his head.

If others are shocked by his appearance, his sister, who lives in La Jolla, was “distressed” when she happened on him by chance Tuesday night. She was driving down Broadway when she noticed Don huddled against a building.

“She did seem to be distressed by the fact that I was dirty and slow of mind. . . . That was the first time I’d seen her in months,” he said. “She wanted to know how I was doing and if I needed any clothes. She said she was going to bring me a flannel shirt tonight.”

A slight grin grew slowly on Don’s face.

“You know, when my sister saw me last night, she bought me a meal,” he said. “I appreciated that. She took me to the Broadway Cafe and bought me a meal. She fed me.”

Eating is a luxury for Don. But unlike some street people, he said that he refuses to scavenge in garbage cans for food.

“There have been days when all I’ve had to eat was a bag of Cheetos. But there have been days when I’ve actually had too much to eat,” he said.

“I can’t believe that when I was a youngster I would throw away much of my food. Now, I don’t throw any food away. I even force myself to eat kimchi (hot pickled Chinese cabbage) that I buy at Mr. Chou’s restaurant because it’s cheap, even though I don’t like it.”

Wants to Rebuild Life

If he had chosen a career when he was younger, perhaps today he would be an artist or English teacher, Don said.

“I never chose a career. I wish I had, because I was interested in art, English and even liked woodworking when I was in high school. . . . As soon as I get cleaned up a bit, I hope to get on general relief and rebuild my life,” Don said.

“That’s my hope now. When I get cleaned up, I hope to train in a manual skill, like landscaping, plumbing or carpentry. You know, I like to work with my hands.”

His most immediate need is surviving on the streets, but Don said that he is also looking for help to rebuild his life. Experts say that many of America’s homeless are mentally ill, and Don said he is no exception. Numerous citations for sleeping on the sidewalk have landed him in County Jail. It was during one of those jail stays, he said, that a psychological evaluation determined that he was mentally ill.

Out of Touch

“Someone gave me a psychological evaluation and then a social worker offered to help me get on Social Security disability. But I wasn’t ready to admit that I was crazy . . . But the truth is that I had already told my Dad that I thought I was mentally ill . . . I just don’t feel in touch with reality. Sometimes it takes me a long time to do simple things. I mean, I know I can do these things, but it takes me a long time to do them,” Don said.

If someone were to offer him counseling or job training now, he would grab the opportunity, he said.

Don believes that heavy marijuana use during his youth led to his mental illness. But he said that he has been free of drugs for five years.

“I haven’t smoked marijuana since 1981 and I haven’t used intoxicants since 1982. I drink a beer every once in a while, but that’s about the extent of it . . . Any money that I get goes to buy food or clothes . . . The only thing that I do for leisure, when I can afford it, is play pool,” he said.

Don’s “home” is a two-block area of downtown San Diego, stretching down 4th Avenue, between Broadway and C Street, to 6th Avenue, between Broadway and C Street. His bed is a piece of cardboard plopped down every night under a tree, on a dirt area at 4th Avenue and C Street.

The area where he beds down is surrounded on three sides by a curved concrete barrier that blocks the wind, but it affords no protection from the rain. In addition to the tattered, dirty clothes on his thin frame, Don’s worldly belongings--a frayed yellow blanket, toothbrush, toothpaste and disposable razor--are carried in a plastic grocery bag.

Because of his heavy drug use when he was young, Don said that his parents kicked him out of the house in 1979. In retrospect, he said that he does not fault them for ordering him out.

“I see them once in a great while and they’ve asked me to stay. But at this point, I would still be a burden to them. Out here I’m responsible for myself . . . But you see, when a person lives on the street, it’s as much his fault as it is society’s. I can’t say that society forced this kind of life on me. But you know, there aren’t very many people out there, aside from my family, who really care what happens to me.

“I keep thinking that if I psyche myself out into getting better, I’ll get better. But there’s not much evidence that it’s working . . . But there’s still time and hope for me. I think in one way or another it’s going to happen. It’s simply a matter of going in the right direction and keeping on that path,” he said.