5 Lessons I Learned on the Street

I used to be homeless.

I don't go around telling everyone this. It's not that I'm ashamed or embarrassed. Its just that there are not many times when it fits into a casual conversation. When it does come up, it tends to be because someone else made a derogatory remark about an obviously homeless person we pass on the street, or about homelessness in general. "Why don't those people get jobs?" a person might groan. "The city wants to put a women's shelter in my neighborhood," someone else might grumble. And that's where I step in.

"You know, I used to be homeless," I say, as casually as if I were talking about the color of my eyes.

Then there will be an awkward pause. Eyes will widen. Glances will be exchanged. Throats will be cleared. And finally, questions will be asked.

There was no single event that resulted in my suddenly becoming homeless. As a teenager, I was a runaway. When I turned eighteen, I became a homeless adult, and no longer could my parents, the law, or anyone else force me to return home. For me, homelessness was an escape from something I considered to be worse.

I essentially came of age on the streets. While other kids my age were starting college, I was learning about hunger, about sleeping in overcrowded shelters in rooms that smelled of urine, about having to walk for hours on below-zero Chicago winter days just to get to the next shelter, and then waiting in long lines to get in... sometimes only to be turned away for lack of space. While others were settling into dorms or sharing apartments with peers, I was spending nights sleeping on benches, on the floors of crowded motel rooms, in cars, and wherever else I could find. I learned how to spend a winter night outside, and survive it. I learned of children who had to say goodbye to their pets and their toys and their rooms when their parents were evicted from their apartments, who had to sleep in a noisy shelter and then get up in the morning and go to school with dirty clothes on. I saw a mother with a baby in her arms, huddling in a bus shelter on a cold Sunday morning, the baby crying because he was cold, and the mother crying because she had no where to take him into so he could be warm.

But I learned other things to... positive things that will stay with me for the rest of my life. Here are some of the things I found out.

1. When your life is in turmoil, the rest of the world keeps going as planned. While I was learning to survive on the streets, nothing much changed for the rest of the world. The sun still rises each morning and sets each night. The radio keeps on playing the same old songs and making the same bad jokes as always. Each evening, other people sit down and eat dinner at home or in a restaurant, even if you have to beg and scrounce for your own supper. Its not their fault... don't take it personally! Somewhere, closer than you think, someone else is even hungrier than you.
2. Appearances can be deceiving. I learned this while staying in shelters and getting to know lots of people. The huge, rough-looking man sitting next to me turned out to be a gentle giant. The wide-eyed, sweet little kid who slept in the women's room with his mother would try to steal anything that wasn't nailed down, the minute a person's back was turned. The well-dressed volunteer serving food to us at dinner time once stayed at the same shelter, not too long ago. The sullen teenage gang member watching TV with me would light up around little children, playing with them and reading to them when their own parents were too tired or worried to do so. To understand a person, I learned, you have to see them from the inside.
3. All crimes are not necessarily committed by "Bad People." Hunger, loneliness, anger, sadness, mental illness, desperation, and other factors contribute to driving good people to doing not-good things. I, myself, have stolen from and scammed strangers in order to get money, food, or places to stay, when I thought I had no other choices left. I have seen grown men, hardened inside and out by years in prison, break down and cry when they spoke of their children who they hadn't seen in years. I'm not saying that crime is a good thing, or that it should be excused. But your views on drug dealers, robbers and other "bad guys" change a lot, when the criminals are not statistics in the news, but your own friends or loved ones... or even you. Think about it. Every single person in prison or jail right now is somebody's kid, somebody's brother or sister, somebody's mother or father, somebody's friend.
4. Love is found in unexpected places. Once, I found myself homeless, penniless and alone on the streets of an affluent Chicago suburb. I had gone there to try to start my life over, thinking I would have a better chance in a place where I wasn't surrounded by homelessness. I tried to hide the fact that I was homeless, by blending in with the kids who hung out in that town. At midnight, every night, the cops would come around to send all of the kids home. I would walk away with the rest of them. But I had no place to go. So I would walk around the block, and return to the same spot, to go to sleep on a bench. It soon got out to the kids I hung around with... a group of nose-pierced, gothic-dressed teenagers who called themselves River Rats... that I was homeless. One day a boy asked if I Wanted to go with them to Burger King. He told me he was treating everyone. I went along, for fun. It turned out that all of the kids had chipped in their money to buy me a burger, fries and a pop. I had only just met these kids! But they explained with smiles and shrugs, "Its no big deal. Your friends wanted to buy you dinner." I could go on forever about the love I found on the streets, throughout my life. Older homeless people shared with me what little they had. Volunteers in shelters sat down and gave me the attention I craved. Little kids on the sidewalk smiled at me, and blurted out their honest questions about homelessness. ("How do you go to the bathroom, if you don't have a house?" was one of the questions I heard most often! Despite all of the horrible things I saw, there were always beautiful things that made up for it. Things that made my heart swell up and kept me hoping.

5. So, above all, love. Love whatever family you have. Love your pets. Love your friends, your neighbors, and your enemies. Love the sky and the stars and the squirrels in the park and the strangers on the street. And don't forget to love yourself. As long as you have love, you have everything you really need.