IN THEIR OWN WORDS
How many more times was I going to drive by without stopping? How many times was I going to turn my head when a panhandler was begging for change with a cardboard sign that concluded with the words, “God Bless You”?
The homeless are all around us, on sidewalks and street corners. They sleep under freeways that you and I commute to work on. They are tucked in the shadows of old buildings, sleeping behind dumpsters, camped in abandoned lots.
The homeless, someone once told me, have become the nameless, faceless, silent wanderers of our time.
From that conversation, an idea was born: I would find out their names, document their faces, let them describe in their own words how they landed on the streets, how they survive.
I set out with a tape recorder and a portrait camera, timidly at first, afraid to approach these very private people. My reluctance--my fear--was born from the unknown and from a lifetime of presumptions about the homeless: that the homeless were dirty, didn’t care, were all the same.
My first session was an eye-opener.
I began by photographing four people in the yard of a soup kitchen in Santa Ana. The first was a very quiet man shrouded in black. The second was a paraplegic woman. The third was a man who lived in a storage unit, the fourth a woman wearing a business suit.
During the next two months I traveled the streets, the alleys, the parks and the shelters where the homeless live. Each time I met someone, I asked permission to photograph them and record their stories. Most said they weren’t interested.
Days or weeks would go by when no one would talk to me. Eventually, though, the spell would break. I met Danny, who sleeps under bridges; Don and Kathleen who live in their car, Ken who stays in county campgrounds. There are many degrees of homelessness, I learned.
As I shed my preconceived ideas about the homeless, I realized that not only are they like the rest of us, but often, they are us. My camera and tape recorder became like a mirror. I could see parts of all of us reflected in their words and images. I could see myself, I could see my wife, my parents, my sisters and my children. I could see the nightmare of losing everything--of physically and mentally falling apart.
There is harshness, there is violence and there is hunger on the streets, but there is also compassion.
Many times I was offered food by the homeless. At first I refused it, then I realized that it was meant as the warmest of gestures. I learned to accept food from people who had nothing and who wanted nothing in return.
I have been on a journey that affects the way I think about my family, friends and society. I will never again be able to drive by a homeless person without thinking of him or her as an individual.
As someone, who, like everyone else, has a name, a face, a story.
A CRIME TO GO TO SLEEP
SHRIMP DOG, 45, lives in Laguna Beach. He says he worked as a shrimp fisherman for many years in Florida before coming to California to try to escape his addiction to crack cocaine. He says the addiction took everything he owned--his fishing boat, his home, his family. He has a 27-year-old son he hasn’t seen in 10 years. Shrimp Dog says he no longer uses cocaine but is a heavy drinker. He has a handful of tickets, issued to him in a one-week period, for sleeping in public.
“I have a spot that I stay where the police don’t check, on a rooftop. I stayed on the beach most of the winter, and they didn’t care much because it wasn’t tourist season. They’re just going to give you tickets till you go someplace else. I went to court for my last sleeping ticket, and they didn’t even see me in the courtroom, just dismissed it.
“I panhandle, bum off my friends, you know, just get by. I’ve found a surprising amount of money just lying on the ground, on the sidewalk. Just, boom, all of the sudden there it is, $50; there it is.
“I have no future plans. No plans to become sober. I like the freedom of the street. That’s where I’d rather be, you know; there’s no responsibility. I had responsibilities for a lot of years, and it about drove me crazy.”
A LIFE WITHOUT STRUCTURE
FARRAH, 24, and McKENNA, born June 22, live at the Precious Life Shelter in Los Alamitos for homeless pregnant women. Farrah was homeless for three months while pregnant.
“Before I was pregnant I was a stripper, so I could pay for motels and stuff. When I found out I was pregnant, I kind of stopped. When I couldn’t do it anymore, we had nowhere to go ... nowhere at all.
“My boyfriend really didn’t work. We were staying at his boss’ apartment, and he got evicted. Then we stayed with a couple of friends, but that was drug-infested; I wasn’t going to be around it. I was getting over that; I’m in recovery now.
“One of my friends had us stay at an abandoned house that he had. Then we went to a mission place before I came here, and they gave us a voucher for a week at a hotel. I’m thankful that we never actually had to sleep on the street.
“Living at the shelter is a structured environment, which I need, and it’s teaching me responsibility so I can be a mom to my daughter. Now I know what I need to do to get back on my feet, and hopefully my boyfriend will learn. He’s staying at a shelter too.”
BETWEEN CONCRETE AND A HARD PLACE
DANNY CURTIS, 57, lives under bridges in Santa Ana and Orange. He’s been on the street about two years. He says he was a truck driver for 35 years and has been married five times. Nearly blind, he says he gets monthly disability check from the government. He was evicted from the mobile home park where he last lived after he threatened a dogcatcher he believed was bothering his guide dog. Most days he eats lunch at Mary’s Kitchen, a soup kitchen in an industrial section of Orange, tries to keep busy until 3 or 4 in the afternoon and then goes under the bridge to sleep until about 3 a.m., when he gets up and goes dumpster diving to look for aluminum cans. The cans are worth $1 a pound--27 cans. He does his can collecting under cover of darkness to avoid being ticketed for scavenging. Curtis has a large concave area on his right temple. He says that’s where he was struck with a baseball bat as he was being robbed of $10. He carries a knife for protection.
“It’s very dangerous living under a bridge. But you’re dry. When it rains you stay dry. You’ve got rats coming up and chewing on your toes, and waking up in the morning with a possum in your lap. The damn little black ants are all over everything. Strangers walking by . . . steal everything you own. I’ve been robbed three times in the last three months. They even take your dirty clothes.
“I wouldn’t live here if I didn’t have to.
“Ever been hungry? Hungry with no way to get food? That will give you an idea what it’s like to be homeless. No place to go, being dirty, no place to take a bath. Needing to shave, no warm water to shave with. There’s no water or bathroom facilities; you have to walk three blocks to use the restroom at the park when it’s open.
“I got a sister, she lives in Orange. Every time I see her, she says, ‘Oh, you’re drunk,’ and that’s the end of the conversation.
“I was a truck driver. I was never home and kept getting divorced. I have about 15 kids, but they’re all grown. I haven’t seen any of them for, let’s see, 25 years since I saw the last one. They don’t even know if I’m alive or not, and that’s the way I want to keep it. They’ve got their own lives; they don’t need my problems. I figured it was better for them.
“When you live alone you don’t have to put up with any malarkey from anybody. That’s the way I prefer it. I don’t like people; every time I get around people I either get stolen from, beat up or belittled, and after a while you get tired of that, and it’s a lot easier to stay alone.
“I really don’t care what other people think of me. I don’t really think about that because the rest of society is not living my life, and I’m not living theirs.
“I’m kind of between a rock and a hard place, but I’m a survivor. Living in the world you have to learn how to be a survivor. Ask any used-car dealer.”
‘GOD HELP ME TO DO SOMETHING ELSE’
FINCHER BROOKER, 62, has become a minister to the homeless, mostly in Orange. He has been without a place to call home since April three years ago. He says he tried his hand at various jobs since coming to California in 1984 to sculpt metals. He has two sons with whom he has some contact. Brooker says he has played Santa Claus to schoolchildren and played roles in the “Glory of Christmas” pageant at Crystal Cathedral. He says he became homeless after he was laid off from a job as a security guard at a bank building and was hospitalized with chest pains. Last year, he spent a week living under a bridge in Anaheim. He has a car to sleep in now and feels like things are going better.
“I’ve been living out of my car since January; it was a gift to my ministry. I usually pick up food. Last year I spent seven nights under a bridge near Anaheim Stadium, and that’s what I consider homeless.
“Well, the third day that I was under the bridge, I woke up in the morning and said, ‘God, help me to do something else.’ You know, I know there’s a lot of other people going through this, but this is really devastating. I just don’t think I can make it. You only have that which you can carry, you can ‘catch’ stuff, which means stockpiling here and there. It is like a war where you are soldiering and you get stuff, and you stash stuff here and there; you don’t put stuff in one place. You walk every place.
“If you are fortunate enough at some point to get a bicycle, that’s really a big step in life.
“One of the problems that people don’t understand about the homeless is that they don’t save the money they have.
“What happens is a person gets money, say a couple of fellas go together on a day labor job. They get $22 dollars so they got $40 dollars, well, they’ll go down to a place like McDonald’s or Burger King or Carl’s Jr. and they’ll load up on hamburgers and stuff and they’ll go over and take a room for the night.
“The next day they won’t have any money left, but what people don’t understand is to them it’s like a Caribbean cruise. They’ve got walls around them; they’re safe, and that’s a very uncommon experience. That’s beautiful to have walls around you, and you are safe; you can go in and take a shower any time you want, and they can watch television. These men don’t see television. That’s something far from their life.”
‘I CAME HERE TO DIE’
PETER MANIACI, 65, lives in an old motor home in the parking lot at Wiley Drake’s church in Buena Park. Although he lived on the street for many years, he says, he once had a nice home on Balboa Peninsula. As a tool-and-die man, he worked on everything from farm tools to cruise missiles, he says, and was a a quality-control manager for an aircraft manufacturer. He has been told he has advanced prostate cancer and says he plans to live out his days in his motor home. Having a vehicle is a substantial improvement over life on the street--sleeping in doorways, on the ground, on the beach--as he has done for three of the last nine years. He saved the $500 to buy his motor home from Social Security checks, most of which he spends on food.
“The arrangement that I have with Pastor Wiley Drake is that I had come here to die, and when I came here, everyone thought I was going to die . . . and that was last October. But I haven’t. What I was interested in when I talked with the pastor was the disposal of my remains. Because when I came, I couldn’t afford a funeral. He is going to take care of my cremation. . . . That’s what I want, and if he can get anything out of this motor home, he’s welcome to it.
“The worst part of being homeless is there’s no place to sleep; it’s illegal to go to sleep . . . so you are automatically a criminal. And if you are caught usually they’ll just wake you and tell you to move on, but if they catch you a second time then they’ve kind of got you because if they do arrest you, they tow your car in and if you don’t have the $100 dollars or so in your pocket you’ve lost everything you own.
“A lot of the homeless are veterans; they’re the guys who went out and put their lives on the line . . . but now it’s against the law to go to sleep, or go to the toilet.’
A ROOF, BUT NOT A HOME
KATHY, 5, AND PETER, 6, live in a small, dark motel room across the street from Disneyland. They have lived there for several months. Their mother died recently, at age 27, and their father is trying to keep the family together. Helping out Kathy and Peter, not their real names, are volunteers with Project Dignity, an assistance program run by nurse Linda Dunlap out of her Garden Grove home. The children and several others in similar circumstances play together in the parking lot outside their motel rooms. They are building things with Play-Doh and making masks out of paper supplied by Project Dignity.
Yes, it’s OK to take our picture, the brother and sister say, but immediately cover their faces: Peter puts a mask over his; Kathy Play-Doh over hers.
Kathy gives Peter a tight bearhug and smiles, a beautiful smile, but one marred by a badly decayed front tooth.
Peter holds up two fingers.
“What does that mean?” he is asked.
“Don’t you know?” he asks. “It means peace.”
A BREAKDOWN IN PLANS
DON GARRIS, 33, and KATHLEEN COMEAUX, 37, have been homeless for three months, living in their barely running Ford station wagon and in the bushes somewhere between Dana Point and Laguna Beach. Garris, a former newspaper pressman, says a series of bad breaks at home and work left him and Comeaux homeless in Tucson. Comeaux is in constant pain with a back ailment. All of their possessions are strapped on top of or packed into car.
“We spent two months homeless in Tucson. It was incredibly difficult due to the desert conditions; we were parking the car out in the saguaros, and our tempers would flare because it doesn’t cool off out there like it does here. It’s 100 degrees all night long. Cramped-up in the car. We were on our way from Tucson to Fresno when our car broke down in Dana Point. So we’re just staying here.”
WAKING UP ON HIS OWN TERMS
KEN HOPKINS, 38, has lived from campsite to campsite, rotating from one Orange County park to another, for the past two years. He wears a pager so that he can be contacted for an occasional job--he is a tile setter. He says he uses the money he earns to pay for his campsite and buy a steak once in a while to throw on the grill.
“Well, there’s the homeless, then there’s the homeless campers, the people that are actually looking to enjoy life, enjoy God’s land, you know, make the best of it. To make enough money to buy a tent, or to pay your rent every day or to go out and get a case of beer if you want. It doesn’t have to be so pitiful. I don’t want to put the American working man down, but if your work is going to get cans every day, then great. If you require a little more out of life, then you gotta go make it happen. I meet ends pretty good. This is fun to me.
“To be able to wake in the morning and come out and look at a place that looks like this. This is beautiful; these oak trees are awesome. I don’t hear a freeway. Or somebody barking at me to get up and do something. Excuse me, did I punch a clock to wake up? It’s very peaceful; it’s good for your mind. Kind of helps you get your next direction.”
“Still, having one of those nice cool apartments with the nice carpets and the couches has its good points. Things like a TV, because I like to watch the news at night.
“I could get a place any time I want. I don’t really consider myself homeless. It’s kind of like half and half. I enjoy living out here like this, and I could go get a place, but life is all what you make of it. The terrain out here in the different campgrounds is just beautiful.”
HOMELESSNESS IN DISGUISE
LISA HAMMOND, 40, has been homeless since March. She has six children. She says she has made some bad choices, including using drugs, but is pulling her life together. She is wearing a suit and her best shoes as she stands in line at a soup kitchen in Santa Ana: She has just come from court, where she has tried to convince a judge that her children should be returned to her.
“One of the homeless men asked me if I was wearing a disguise,” Hammond says with a chuckle of her businesslike attire as she lunches on soup-kitchen casserole.
“Before I was on the street, I held down two jobs waitressing to make ends meet . . .
“When I was sleeping in the parks at night I slept with scissors under my pillow. It was freezing, so I wore three layers of clothing.
“I stayed very busy. The people on the street are more humble; they aren’t stuck up; they’re friendlier.”
ADDING INSULT TO INJURY
MARIA DIAZ, 28, has been homeless six years. She makes her way around Santa Ana, the town where she grew up, with the help of a walker. She says her physical injuries occurred when she was run over by a car driven by a former boyfriend who was trying to kill her. Although she does not hold a job now, she says she has in the past, working for seven years at a fast-food restaurant.
“It’s hard not having a place to eat and sleep. It’s a hard life.”
‘I’M HOMELESS BECAUSE OF DRUGS’
CARLA, 33, has been homeless since August 1996. She’s pregnant and waiting to have her baby while living in the Precious Life Shelter in Los Alamitos. She says she has lived a destructive life and lost her apartment and everything else to drug use.
“I have other children, and I’ve never been the mom I want to be. Because I haven’t found who I am yet.
“It’s not an impossible thing to be homeless; you know, it’s always possible to be homeless. Not being homeless means having an apartment that you call yours that you can go home to each night, where you have your food, your bed. I was raised in a good family, and that’s something we always had. We never did without.”
“Truthfully, I’m homeless because of drugs. It’s a hard, realistic fact. Living for the moment and not looking at long term, that type of atmosphere is not healthy.
“With crystal meth, psychologically you don’t realize how high you’re getting. Like if you were going to get drunk, you can drink a beer or 10 beers and you would know the difference. It’s a trippy drug. That’s why I think it’s the hardest drug to get off of, cause you aren’t aware you are addicted. You think you’re OK.”
“The worst part of being homeless is feeling like you don’t have anything; you don’t belong. You just don’t feel whole and complete.”
REASONS ENOUGH TO SPARE
DUANE, 30, AND EDITH, 22, have been homeless since February. They live next to a dumpster in Orange. The couple, who married Dec. 31, 1994, are expecting a child. They are living on the street after attempts to live with Edith’s family failed (her father sought a restraining order against Duane following a violent episode in which police were called, they say). An attempt to live at a Salvation Army Hospitality House ended with their being kicked out. Duane says he is schizophrenic, a former Marine who takes 17 pills every morning for the pain in his back, blackouts and other medical problems. He says he and his wife both have learning disabilities.
Edith: “We have no intentions of giving up the baby. I was raised that if you are going to have a responsibility, then you should take care of it. It was kind of an unfortunacy that I got pregnant; I lost my job, then we were on the streets. It was shortly after that time that I was laid off that I realized that I was low on birth-control pills. I didn’t have the money to go get a new prescription.
“I think one of the most depressing things about living on the street is begging for money. It’s degrading to yourself, and you get a lot of people who tell you to get a job, and in my situation it’s very difficult to get a job. I’m a liability; nobody wants to hire me being pregnant. If I slip and fall, they’re afraid I’m going to sue them or something. It’s always something.”
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Duane: “Living behind a dumpster, some nights it gets cold, some nights it gets wet; even with the marine layer coming in, you get the mist, and you wake up damp. You wake up very achy, every bone in your body like someone’s pulled a whole freight train over you. Even having cardboard down, sleeping on a sleeping bag. With my wife being pregnant, with her getting bigger in the stomach there, I’m losing more and more space. So I can’t move around, and I have arthritis in my joints, so I stiffen right up. I’m like a little fetus when I wake up; my wife has to help me get out of bed.
“They always come up with excuses not to hire you, you know. I mean, for me it’s, ‘Oh, I’m sorry your disability won’t allow us to hire you.’ Or they say you’re overqualified, or under-qualified; they find some excuse. What it all boils down to is to one thing right now: You’re homeless; you don’t have a home; you don’t have a phone number; you don’t have a car. You’re lucky, you’re extremely lucky if you have a bike to get around on. They don’t want to hire you because you’ll be late to work; you’re more problem than you’re worth; you’re going to steal from them. It’s always something.”
‘IT’S NOT GETTING BETTER’
GARY PADILLA, 36, says he has been homeless since he was discharged from the Navy in 1989. He says he has no training or skills and that his family is unable to help him financially. He lives on the street but also uses of shelters when possible.
“I feel right now that the law and society are taking out a lot of wrath on the poor and homeless, the ones who are defenseless and the ones who can’t defend themselves. There’s a reason as to why people see people urinate and people get tickets and the cops constantly around. It’s not because they are out there doing it on purpose; they have no choice because it is society’s rules. It’s no excuse, either. Locking them up and throwing away the key is not the answer.”
“We need more jobs. There are a lot of unskilled jobs out there, but they are disappearing and stuff due to computers and technology. There are more and more newer faces out on the street. There are a lot of pregnant women, elderly people. A lot of families out hitting the streets, not just your drug users and alcoholics. It’s a lot of different walks of life. It’s getting worse, not getting better.”
HIDDEN BENEATH THE LAYERS
FABIAN LIVINGSTONE, is one of the most visible of the invisible people who wander the streets of Santa Ana. He wears several layers of clothing, with dark hoods draped over his head and several sets of sunglasses tied to his head with the handles of an old purse. He doesn’t talk much, and when he does talk it is in a quick mumble. There is a lot of Fabian lore: Some say he used to call himself Whoopi Goldberg; some say he used to have a black belt in karate, some say he was married and has a grown daughter. Many who know him agree on this: He comes from a good family in the community that would like to have him off the street.
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)
If You Want to Help
Here are some assistance agencies providing emergency food, clothing, shelter and financial aid in Orange County. For more information on organizations that help the homeless, call the Orange County Volunteer Center at (714) 953-5757, Ext. 106, or log onto its Internet site at www.volunteercenter.org.
ANAHEIM
* St. Michael’s Episcopal Church
(714) 535-4654
Provides meals to homeless
* Anaheim Interfaith Shelter
(714) 774-8502
Family shelter
COSTA MESA
* Orange Coast Interfaith Shelter
(714) 631-7213
Short-term transitional shelter for families
* Assn. Renaissance Creators Recovery Home
(714) 540-5803
Community service program and shelter
* Someone Cares Soup Kitchen
(714) 646-8181
Provides free hot lunches
GARDEN GROVE
* Project Dignity
(714) 534-4271
Provides food, clothing, medical and other services to about 4,000 people living on the street and in motels
* Thomas House Temporary Shelter
(714) 554-0357
Shelter up to 90 days
* Travelers Aid Society of O.C.
(714) 530-2426
Crisis intervention, welfare advocacy
IRVINE
* Orange County Harvest
(714) 718-1380
Food is harvested for the needy
* Home Aid Orange County
(714) 553-9510
Helps build and renovate shelters for homeless men, women and children
LAGUNA HILLS
* Saddleback Community Outreach
(714) 380-8144
Provides emergency food, transportation, prescriptions and lodging in the Saddleback area
LOS ALAMITOS
* Precious Life Shelter
(562) 431-5025
Provides emergency shelter, classes for pregnant women
MIDWAY CITY
* Shelter for the Homeless
(714) 897-3221
Provides outreach and assistance for organizations serving homeless individuals and families
ORANGE
* Lutheran Social Services
(714) 771-2969
Provides assistance in emergency situations with food, clothing and prescriptions
* Mary’s Kitchen
(714) 538 0513
517 Struck Ave.
Serves breakfast and lunch, provides showers, clothing, laundry and haircuts
* Sheepfold
(714) 237-1444
Provides shelter for homeless and abused women with children
SANTA ANA
* Orange County Community Housing Corp.
(714) 558-8161
Provides food assistance for adults 60 and older and children under 6
* House of Hope
(714) 289-7744
Transitional living center for abused or homeless women and their children
SEAL BEACH
* Food Finders Inc.
(310) 594-4379
Collect excess food from businesses and delivers it to shelters and missions
WESTMINSTER
* Habitat for Humanity of Orange County
(714) 895-4331
Builds homes for low-income families at risk of becoming homeless
YORBA LINDA
* Love Inc.
(714) 693-1112
Christian organization that networks with churches to serve the needy
