What It's Like to Live on the Street

When you're downtown in a larger city for whatever reason, chances are you'll see at least a few raggedy-looking people with tousled hair and vacant expressions on most of their faces. Some are unshaven men, but there are women among them as well. Instinctively, you stay as far away from them as possible; they might try to bum money from or, at worst, assault you. Either way, you know they're "street people," homeless and most likely alcoholics.

But what's it like to be in their shoes? Suppose, just for one day, you were to trade places with one of them; you absorb their look, their clothing, their actions - and their tenure:

To begin with, it doesn't matter how you became that way; you're not happy with it either. With wrinkled, dirty clothes that smell of sweat and dirt, you've been beaten by life. Whatever events caused this is passé; you've been on the streets for so long that you don't even remember what they were.

You may awaken in the morning from a spot beneath an overpass, where you've made your "bed" in an old water-heater box. Already, the sticky heat is making your soiled clothes stick to oil-clogged pores of your skin. After getting up and brushing off your clothes, you look for cigarette remnants that others have thrown out of their cars. For all intents and purposes, that's your "breakfast."

Slowly emerging from your little "camping spot", you begin the trek downtown. You shuffle slowly; your feet feel like lead, and you're weakened by the lack of desire as well as food. When you finally arrive at the busy streets, you try to stop someone who looks friendly and ask them for some spare change. To hide the fact that you're a "bum" (although your clothes obviously show it) and to, hopefully, gain their approval, you explain that you need it for food, a phone call, or some other apparently-innocent purpose. More often than not, though, you become discouraged as the person walks past quickly without giving you a cent.

You spend the morning in a swirl of used cigarette butts, a few more attempts at panhandling and thoughts that you find you just can't hold onto anymore. Not only are you bored, tired and hungry; you're frustrated that you can't seem to focus now. You stay in the shadows of whatever building you shuffle by; if the police see you, they might run you in to the jail's "drunk tank."

At around noon, you mope your way to the soup kitchen of a local homeless shelter. Although they've offered to feed you once daily, you're not allowed to stay there because, once, you came in there drunk as a skunk, and they had to kick you out. Still, you've found that drinking calms you down and makes time go faster.

Sometimes, you'll see another person like you hiding behind a building with a bottle and, with a few friendly words, try to finagle a swallow or two for yourself. But, because the stuff's hard to find (especially since you have no money), you may resort to stealing a bottle of mouthwash or aftershave from a local drug store. Most of those items will have at least a small percentage of alcohol in them - just enough for a "buzz." if you drink it.

Whenever you can, you drink with some of your "buddies" around. Sometimes it's behind an old building or cemetery, but wherever you can be out of sight of the police is fine. You're with them for two reasons: If you're by yourself, you have a greater chance of being harassed or even beaten by someone who hates "bums". Also, your memories finally catch up with you and you end up crying until you pass out.

As evening falls, everything is repeated, with the exception of eating; you rummage through dumpsters behind local restaurants, hoping to find something edible (at this point, it doesn't matter what shape it's in). You make it quick, though, because you've been run off their property time and again.

Finally, you shuffle your way back to your little "camp," hoping that no one's taken your box. If he has, you may have to fight to get it back. Finding it empty, you slowly crawl down inside and just collapse due to exhaustion, the end of the "buzz" you were on, and resignation. The sleep will, at least, give you a temporary escape from your sadness.

Besides, you need your rest; tomorrow's going to be a carbon-copy of today.

As dawn breaks, you become restless. You toss and turn uncomfortably as you remember the events of the day before. A sense of hopelessness begins to invade your sleep. You begin to feel anxiety creeping into the sensation, because, as badly as you want something to hold onto, there's nothing there. It's always the same thing, day after day. Then ...

Your alarm clock goes off, and you're shocked back into reality. You're in a comfortable bed with a clean sheet and quilt wrapped around you. Slowly sitting up, you begin to look around at the meager furnishings of the bedroom - or what you thought was "meager" at one time. Then you smile as you shut off the alarm.

No, you don't have much, materially. Maybe your job doesn't pay as well as you'd like. But, for one moment in time, you were in the worn shoes of a street person. You lived their sad, tiring life for twenty-four hours.

So what you have suddenly doesn't look that bad at all. In fact, you're pretty well blessed ...