Rebecca Twigg is homeless

[oldpotatoe]

I just didn't have enough money to both eat and have a place to stay.

The fallacy of today's much balley-hooed unemployment numbers. Yup, low 'unemployment' but greater numbers of 'working poor'..throw in the busted healthcare system=a lot of homelessness. Richest country on earth, in the history of earth and the 'budget' written for a small, vocal 35-35%..so they can rattle their pitchforks.

[Rpoole8537]

Originally Posted by 2LeftCleats

I'd be curious to know which is more common: substance abuse preceding homelessness or do the homeless become so depressed/discouraged with their situation that they turn to drugs to dull the emotional pain? Anyone have any knowledge other than anecdotal?

I worked for a social services agency for the last 14 years of my career. I thought it was a transition job after losing my job during the dot.com recession. It was the most fulfilling job of my career. I decided to stay because I felt that trying to save the world one person at a time made me feel validated. Getting back to the quote above, many people with drug and alcohol issues suffer from mental illness and they are self medicating. Of course, it doesn't work! My father was a WWII vet and suffered from severe PTSD. He spent the last 25 years of his life as a dysfunctional alcoholic. I was fortunate to have a mother to provide food and shelter, or I would have been homeless. Perhaps that why I enjoyed giving someone else a helping hand.

[Gummee]

https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-...obzCKnPWvsE1us

[colker]

Originally Posted by berserk87

This has been an interesting thread.

This thread, and Twigg's own plight have re-opened some pretty awful memories for me. I was homeless myself in 1991 for several months. I've been reluctant to comment about it but I'm hoping it might help some of our community see homelessness from maybe another perspective. I'm going to simplify things for the sake of brevity.

I am not nor have I ever been a substance abuser. I was 22 years old, just out of college, with no job and no "Plan B", after my "Plan A" for a career was ruined by a severe injury I had sustained. I had earned a degree that was worth nothing in an of itself, toward having any employable skill. I had no direction, no purpose, and no money. I was frightened of the future and depressed about my lack of a plan for it. I was ignorant about a great many things.

Staying with family was not an option. My family was (and still is) highly dysfunctional, and being on my own was safer that being at home, emotionally speaking. Home was a frightening and dangerous place. It was made clear that I was not welcome at home, and my leaving was a violent and regrettable event.

I stayed with friends, and their families, as long as they could tolerate. I lived out of my car. I stayed in a vacant house under auspicious circumstances (I wasn't supposed to be there). I only had $37 in my pocket when I left home, and I picked up a part time job waiting tables.

Eventually I got a one-bedroom apartment for $195/month in a neighborhood infested with heroin addicts and prostitutes. I barely scraped by for the next year, hopping from low-paying job to low-paying job, mostly part-time, and often 2 to 3 at a time.

I was only homeless for 3 or 4 months. That doesn't seem like a long time, but when you are going through it, and don't see the end of the story, it feels desperate and endless. I had a very hard time during that span imagining how things were going to work out for the good.

I can't speak to anyone else's story. I can't claim to understand homelessness in general, as each story is unique. Mine ended up being the perfect storm of circumstances versus my own vulnerabilities. It was the hardest period I've lived through. It took years to recover from, and in some ways, healthy or not, I'm not sure I fully have.

I rather read this than all the opinions of the world on the internet. Thanks.

[colker]

Originally Posted by weisan

A very well resourced nation like the United States shouldn't be allowing homelessness to exist or should be able to solve the problem of homelessness. That's like saying we should be able to solve obesity, gun laws, teen suicide, tax evasion or any other problems in our society. It's not that simple. Sometimes it takes more than just throwing money, people, time or resources at the problem.

As always, like a lot of the problems we are dealing with, it starts with us.

It has nothing to do with obesity or suicide.. it´s about Governement building houses for the underprivileged... like in Europe and Latin America. It´s tax money paying social obligation instead of buying weapons of mass destruction.

[David Kirk]

Originally Posted by colker

I rather read this than all the opinions of the world on the internet. Thanks.

Exactly. Real life experience is worth so much more than all the judgement from on high.

We are all much closer to sleeping in a car than we would ever care to admit.

dave

[Climb01742]

My sister was (and may be today if she's alive) homeless and living in her car. Her other 'home' was a VA hospital. She has a mental illness. And when she has care and medication and help around her she's ok. When she doesn't, a side of her comes out that all the love in the world can't breach.

She had a 20-year Naval career. It's when she got out that she and her life fell apart. I don't know the details of her life in the Navy but she rose to be a Lt. and had a pretty substantial degree of responsibility and command of not a few people. If I look at her life inside and outside the Navy, at least one major difference was structure and support and care.

One of the great American myths is self-reliance. The rugged individual who pulls themselves up by their bootstraps. And yes, those folks exist. But I wonder how many there really are? And how many of us keep our ***** together because of others? Because of structure and support and care? Are we 'strong' because of the strength around us? If we lost our moorings and bearings and the walls and hands supporting us, where would we be?

I'll be honest. Growing up, my sister was the 'strong' one, the disciplined one, the one on the straight and narrow path. I was the flakey one. And there are moments now when I feel things and wonder, could I fall off the edge too if it wasn't for those around me and what is around me? She fell off the edge. Could I? It makes it harder for me to judge others harshly and far easier for me to want everyone to have structure and care around them. My sister isn't a bad person. Only an ill one, and on her unlucky days, an alone one.

[SlowPokePete]

There are some incredible personal stories here.

Thanks to all who have shared them.

SPP™

[Hawker]

Originally Posted by David Kirk

We are all much closer to sleeping in a car than we would ever care to admit.

dave

If I buy another bike anytime soon and my wife finds out....that could happen.

[XXtwindad]

Originally Posted by Climb01742

My sister was (and may be today if she's alive) homeless and living in her car. Her other 'home' was a VA hospital. She has a mental illness. And when she has care and medication and help around her she's ok. When she doesn't, a side of her comes out that all the love in the world can't breach.

She had a 20-year Naval career. It's when she got out that she and her life fell apart. I don't know the details of her life in the Navy but she rose to be a Lt. and had a pretty substantial degree of responsibility and command of not a few people. If I look at her life inside and outside the Navy, at least one major difference was structure and support and care.

One of the great American myths is self-reliance. The rugged individual who pulls themselves up by their bootstraps. And yes, those folks exist. But I wonder how many there really are? And how many of us keep out ***** together because of others? Because of structure and support and care? Are we 'strong' because of the strength around us? If we lost our moorings and bearings and the walls and hands supporting us, where would we be?

I'll be honest. Growing up, my sister was the 'strong' one, the disciplined one, the one on the straight and narrow path. I was the flakey one. And there are moments now when I feel things and wonder, could I fall off the edge too if it wasn't for those around me and what is around me? She fell off the edge. Could I? It makes it harder for me to judge others harshly and far easier for me to want everyone to have structure and care around them. My sister isn't a bad person. Only an ill one, and on her unlucky days, an alone one.

Very profound. Thanks for posting. This thread has been - by a long shot - the most moving and illuminating I've read here.

[echappist]

Originally Posted by Climb01742

My sister was (and may be today if she's alive) homeless and living in her car. Her other 'home' was a VA hospital. She has a mental illness. And when she has care and medication and help around her she's ok. When she doesn't, a side of her comes out that all the love in the world can't breach.

She had a 20-year Naval career. It's when she got out that she and her life fell apart. I don't know the details of her life in the Navy but she rose to be a Lt. and had a pretty substantial degree of responsibility and command of not a few people. If I look at her life inside and outside the Navy, at least one major difference was structure and support and care.

One of the great American myths is self-reliance. The rugged individual who pulls themselves up by their bootstraps. And yes, those folks exist. But I wonder how many there really are? And how many of us keep out ***** together because of others? Because of structure and support and care? Are we 'strong' because of the strength around us? If we lost our moorings and bearings and the walls and hands supporting us, where would we be?

I'll be honest. Growing up, my sister was the 'strong' one, the disciplined one, the one on the straight and narrow path. I was the flakey one. And there are moments now when I feel things and wonder, could I fall off the edge too if it wasn't for those around me and what is around me? She fell off the edge. Could I? It makes it harder for me to judge others harshly and far easier for me to want everyone to have structure and care around them. My sister isn't a bad person. Only an ill one, and on her unlucky days, an alone one.

that notion and its first cousin, the overly sanguine version of the American Dream, really ought to be squashed under the heel like a smoldering cigarette butt. Examples of both are often laced with survivorship bias. After all, no one wants to hear stories of those who don't make it.

In reality, we are much closer to Victorian (or should I say, Dickensian) England than most of us care to admit. One merely has to look at how overwhelming majority of the elderly are funding their retirement to understand why this is so...

[joosttx]

I was homeless for about 6 weeks during graduate school. I needed to finish my Masters thesis. My graduate assistance had run out and I did not want to go into debt. So I found an abandoned house in the sticks and slept in a sleeping bag and built a fire. I bathed with a garden hose behind a barn. It was winter time and it was cold. Sometimes I just slept in the lab. I ate ramen and free coffee. It was tough but I was but I was young, knew I had a future. I cannot imagine doing this with kids or not having a job. Also, I did have safety nets. I could of swallow some humble pie and called my parents or taken a student loan but I did not. I was never scared of in fear for my life. I cannot imagine being homeless in a big city.

[makoti]

Originally Posted by Climb01742

One of the great American myths is self-reliance. The rugged individual who pulls themselves up by their bootstraps. And yes, those folks exist. But I wonder how many there really are? And how many of us keep our ***** together because of others? Because of structure and support and care? Are we 'strong' because of the strength around us? If we lost our moorings and bearings and the walls and hands supporting us, where would we be?

I'm fairly well off. Not much chance of being homeless any time soon (knock on wood). Good job, a little savings, doing ok. How did I do it? Simple - DFL. Dumb F'ing Luck. If I hadn't had the parents I had, the chances I had, the help I had, I shudder to think where I might be.
About 12 years ago, my life was headed for the crapper. Job flushing, relationship gone, finances not good. Again, I got lucky and fell in feathers instead of crap. Looking back, the distance between the two piles was very, very small. If things had gone even a little different, I don't know what would have happened to me. By the grace of God, as they say. The cushion is frighteningly small.

[BobbyJones]

We’d call this camping out. Tough to see the parallels to the topic at hand.

Originally Posted by joosttx

I was homeless for about 6 weeks during graduate school. I needed to finish my Masters thesis. My graduate assistance had run out and I did not want to go into debt. So I found an abandoned house in the sticks and slept in a sleeping bag and built a fire. I bathed with a garden hose behind a barn. It was winter time and it was cold. Sometimes I just slept in the lab. I ate ramen and free coffee. It was tough but I was but I was young, knew I had a future. I cannot imagine doing this with kids or not having a job. Also, I did have safety nets. I could of swallow some humble pie and called my parents or taken a student loan but I did not. I was never scared of in fear for my life. I cannot imagine being homeless in a big city.

[joosttx]

Originally Posted by BobbyJones

We’d call this camping out. Tough to see the parallels to the topic at hand.

I agree. Except for the camping out part