Homelessness in Suburbia : A Few Bad Turns, and You’re Sleeping in Your Pickup

It happened almost without my knowing.

I have more than 10 years of higher education, once owned a two-story, four-bedroom house with a three-car garage, have traveled around the world, am over 40 with two teen-age children, and I was virtually homeless.

As I settled in to spend the night in my truck, I was hurt, angry and perplexed. No one ever thinks this can happen to him.

A writer and consultant by profession, without recent work, I had gambled on a commission job to pay some bills. Five weeks later I still had nothing. After three years of being a single parent, I’d just sent my children to live with their mother in another state. I gave up the house we were renting, sold or gave away a lot of the furniture, stored the rest of our belongings, and borrowed money from friends to pay for immediate needs.

I slept in the back of my truck, parked next to a vacant lot in a residential area, grateful that I had shelter. But unless I could make the next payment on the truck, in a month even that would be gone. I had gas enough for about 10 more miles.

Earlier, I’d been parked in a shopping center when two men in a beat-up pickup pulled up behind me. One got out and looked at the clothes and boxes in the back of my truck. I watched him in the side mirror as he made his way up to the cab. “Damn,” he said when he saw me. As I tried to sleep that night, I recalled stories of the violence of living on the street and wondered who else might come poking around.

A rooster woke me at dawn. Fearing someone would see me sleeping and call the police, I dressed and went for a walk. The numbers and names on the houses seemed from another world. I no longer had an address. A well-dressed woman drove by in a late-model Volvo. A new pickup truck was parked in a driveway with the dealer tags still on the license plate. Ordinary scenes that I saw and appreciated in a whole new way.

A bumper sticker read, “There is hope in Jesus.” Though I’m a believer, at the moment the words felt empty.

Without any money, I nibbled atthe heel of a loaf of bread that would be my breakfast, lunch and dinner for the day. I wondered if there was a soup kitchen in this area, and knew that, at least today, I’d be too proud to go.

I kept walking until I got to the public library. As I sat outside on a bench trying to collect my thoughts, the Amtrak went by, the same commuter train I had taken many times on business.

How had it happened to me, who had even given seminars on living a purposeful life? I knew it was a temporary situation. But it still felt like it could go either way; I could do nothing and become a full-time street person, or I could press on. I thought of those who aren’t aware of their choices, or who, being less educated or in a worse emotional state than I, don’t feel they have a choice.

I had stayed a week with a friend and her roommate in cramped quarters. We were all looking for work. (Ironically, my friend was hoping for a job in a program for the homeless.) My presence was outwardly welcome, but we snapped at each other for stupid things. I left to relieve the stress and to keep from putting our friendship in terminal jeopardy.

Two weeks had gone by since I left my home. I’d made arrangements for phone calls to be referred to an answering service until I found a place to live, but when I used the pay phone to make job calls, I discovered that my calling card was no longer valid. The phone company had decided to cancel it. Without coins for the pay phone or money for gas, I was suddenly cut off from the world and could not even look for work in the usual ways.

I believe that people choose what happens in their lives; I also believe that they don’t always know the best way to make something positive happen. Poor planning, inadequate income, not figuring it would take so long to find new work, the psychological effects of unemployment--stress, loss of self-esteem, fatigue, anger, depression, discouragement--all take their toll. Friends drop away. Some lose patience or change their opinion of your worth and abilities.

I remember reading about a small city that set out to prove that homelessness was strictly a big-city problem. Police units were sent to methodically check everyplace that a homeless person might be hiding from official notice. They found 1,000, among them babies and men over 80. Half of the homeless were entire families, out of money, without close friends, on the street from a variety of circumstances, little of which they understood. None had believed it could happen to them.

What can be done?

Our impulse is to ignore the homeless and hope that they will just go away. But we must look them directly in the face and acknowledge that they are real people, at this moment doing the best they can. Their immediate needs are basic: food, shelter and supervised public restrooms. And to get back on their feet, many need people willing to guide them to the help they need, from job counseling to filling out forms.

Sitting outside the library, I felt my resilience begin to fade. In a Doonesbury strip, the homeless were once referred to by the White House as “campers.” I was beginning to feel like a camper--unshaved and unshowered for days on end. In the wilderness, it was an adventure. In the city, it was a nightmare.

I thought of the people I had met in countries like Thailand, India and Bangladesh, who lived a day-to-day existence on the streets; it had seemed a normal part of their culture. But when they clamored for me to buy something, or for a hand-out, and I looked in their eyes, I saw desperation and deep loneliness. In the press of Third World social, political and economic problems, they saw their future limited to the search for something to eat.

The homeless I have met in American cities are no different. They did not wake up one day and decide to become homeless. They do not like it, any more than I did. Would I ever pass by another street person without knowing how he felt?

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I wrote this column last year. Being almost homeless is behind me now. But I whenever I pass another sad and tired-looking man who seems not to have smiled or bathed in a month, without fail I think that there, but for the grace of God, go I.