Homeless. April 9, 2017
In order to pursue our travels around the world for an entire year, Isabelle and I had decided to let go of our apartment in Austin and put all our belonging in storage, essentially going "Houseless". We both have truly enjoyed this mental detachment from our "Stuff" and could definitely continue for a while longer living without a set of keys. But being houseless is an entirely different story than being homeless.
At the occasion of one of our stops back in Texas, for three days in early April, I went “Homeless” and shared the life of the many destitute people living in the street of Austin, TX.
This “Street Retreat” had been organized by Mobile Loaves and Fishes, a non-profit organization who feeds the homeless people in Austin. Mobile Loaves and Fishes (MLF) runs several trucks operated by teams of volunteers. The Director of MLF, Alan Graham, and his team are on a first-name basis with most of the Austin chronically homeless people and are acutely aware of their hardship.
I met Alan Graham a year ago during a visit of the Community First! Village that MLF operates in the outskirts of Austin. Community First! Village is a unique concept: Not a housing project for homeless people but a “micro-houses village” based on the community living of former homeless and people like you and me who have elected to experience and contribute to this alternative community life. This unique village environment is proving to be very effective in rehabilitating chronically homeless in to our society where so far other initiatives have for the most part failed.
I had always been intrigued by what could cause people to "check-out" and become homeless. I became very interested in Alan Graham’s project and started thinking about the production of a documentary exploring the principles behind the success of the Community First! Village. I felt that other cities could benefit from this unique and effective initiative.
This Street Retreat was part of the research phase for this documentary project on Homelessness: The causes and the solutions to this growing trend in developed western countries.
As the date of this real-life-homeless experience approached I became more anxious and scared. Will I be able to cope with the roughness of the street life, sleeping outside, looking for food and interacting with some very unpredictable characters?
But I was well prepared with a brand new yoga mat, a sleeping bag, few nutritional power bars and good running shoes (you never know!). My spirit was high.
Isabelle dropped me a the MLF commisary (the central kitchen and distribution center) where we met our leaders and guides: "The Shepherds". All together, we were 12 participants and 3 shepherds (Danny, Steven and Darrell). A MLF bus took us to Zilker park, where we met one of the MLF food trucks and got our first dinner. We stayed in the park for a while interacting with a group of younger homeless with their dogs, playing drums and smoking weed. My first impression of this first real encounter was a feeling of deep sadness emanating from the group.
From there we did split into three groups, our group led by Danny walked for 45 minutes to the library on 9th and Guadalupe where we were rejected by a group of homeless people who felt that we were merely tourists and just pretending. A women (Brooke) yelled at us saying that this was not "camping" and that we made them feel bad to come here and just pretend to live their life. It was hard to argue with her but Danny, our shepherd and former homeless, was able to connect with her. Brooke became our friend and one of our closest encounter with what it really means to be in the street without a home and hope.
That first night we slept on the stairs of St Mary church on Brazos and 8th. It didn't rain and the night was relatively confortable. We set ourselves next to several other homeless persons including Santa, a fascinating man (his real name is Chuck). Chuck worked for years in a Carnival (sort of circus/amusement park) and lost his job and family. Santa is now "remarried' with Vanna, a homeless women who suffers from a brain trauma and sleeps at night at a Salvation Army shelter for women and spends her days with Santa who takes care of her. They depend on the protection of Rodrick, a tall and strong fellow (left on photo below), and are currently talking to Alan to joint Community First! Village (CFV). They both receive disability subsidies from the State and qualify to join CFV (Being chronically homeless with disability and able to pay around $350/month for a couple). I hope they make it and I will see them again, possibly for an interview for the documentary. Santa is a very attaching man.
We woke up at 4h30am (Walking-up is a big term when you do not really sleep). Danny and I went to the nearby Seven Eleven on Congress to get coffee for the group.
We walked all over town that morning, met again Brooke and had more interaction with her and her group. As it started to rain mid-morning, the mood of our group took a dip. The weather forecast was announcing major downpours for the next couple days. Not good!
Lunch was obtained at the Angel House, a soup kitchen on Cesar Chavez. This was a difficult moment for me. Angel House is a rundown building with a line of people waiting outside to enter. Inside, a room of maybe 500SF is filled with over 50 homeless people, half of them in a line around the room waiting to be handed a plateau of food, the other half sitting having their lunch. I could not describe the food here without sounding like a snob but I was not able to touch it and gave my plateau to the person next to me. Maybe it was the high concentration of people in such a cramped space and the intensity of the poverty, maybe it was the food, maybe I was tired, probably a combination of all but I could not cope with the vision of such misery. I had to run out under the rain where I did ask myself "what the f..k I was doing here?". I felt depressed, the life of the homeless people is definitely not pretty!
The entire group met at 3pm at the Woolridge Square for our daily debrief. Following our meeting, we broke again in smaller groups. This time, I teamed with Ed and Nancy, a charming older couple. Ed is a semi-retired nurse and Nancy, also a nurse, is working full time at the psychiatric department of the St Davis Hospital. They made the decision a year ago to live at the Community First Village, bought a confortable RV and are renting a a spot at the village. This was their first Street Retreat. Our Shepherd was Steven, an energetic and outgoing fellow who works for MLF and runs with his wife, Bethany, the village Bed and Breakfast.
Our first order of priority was to decide where to head and how to have dinner. For food we had there options:
- The first one was to "Fly a Sign": Effectively begging, standing at a red light or stop, with the help of a cardboard sign on which an hand written message is displayed to entice drivers of passing cars to hand you out few coins. On a good day and more importantly a good location, one can make $20 to $40.
- The second option is named appropriately and is self explanatory: "Dumpster Diving". You would be surprised the amount of still perfectly consumable food can be found in dumpsters across America.
- The third one was to find a location where a group, a church or any other organizations would be serving free food to people living in the street.
As you might have guessed, we elected the last and headed North toward UT (University of Texas) where we had heard that a charitable couple was serving free hot dogs every Wednesday at 6pm on the parking at 26th street and Guadalupe.
Spending the evening with Steven, Nancy and Ed provided me with a new perspective on the principles behind the CFV formula. The Community First! Village can really work only if people like Ed and Nancy choose to contribute to the community and become active and loving neighbors of former homeless people. The key ingredient is "Community Life" which actually happens to be in many ways an endangered concept in our modern lives. Homeless or not!
Heavy rain was expected overnight and thanks to MLF we had access to a safe house: A covered gym near St Davis church with an entry code that was given to us in case of bad weather. We had a second and rather comfortable night but I couldn't stop thinking of Santa, Brooke, and all the other homeless people I met over the last 48 hours, they were under a bridge somewhere. They were probably very wet!
Up at 4h30 am, we headed to the Methodist Church located on 13th street and Lavaca for breakfast. We made our way to a very large room where over 200 people were having a hardy breakfast served by young students (high school and university). Every morning from 5h30 to 6h30, the church serves free breakfasts to people in need wether homeless or just living in poverty. I was very impressed by the large number of people depending on this daily free meal and equally impressed by the many students volunteering early in the day before their classes. What an example of kindness and caring!
After breakfast, we walk to the ARCH (Austin Resource Center for the Homeless) on 7th and River Street where we spend time and engaged in discussions with several groups. I saw my friend Santa who was waiting for Vanna. The ARCH is a very depressing and dangerous place. While 9:00am is still early in the day and therefore within the "safe hours", we experienced first hand the devastation of K2. K2 is a new synthetic weed engineered in China and Afghanistan. This new drug is highly addictive and turns heavy users in to Zombie like creatures. The drug kills people. During the three days of our Street Retreat, 4 homeless people died. Over 20 EMS (Paramedics) K2 related calls, each costing the city around $4K, are reported every day in Austin, the city and the police are overwhelmed. A police officer recently told Allan that they were missing the days of crack - this tells you how devastating K2 really is. Our one-hour stay at the Arch was intense and highly informative. I was however happy to leave and head to our next destination.
It rained the remainder of the day. We took a couple buses to North Austin and spent most of the day walking under the route 183 overpass. The overpass is the shelter of many homeless groups. We wandered from one group to the other, talking and listening to their stories - many of them heartbreaking!
The last night was spent at the Community First! Village. Sleeping in a Teepee and eating barbecue was definitely an upgrade. We visited the Village and some of the residents. Discussions around the fire pit passing s'mores was the perfect setting to share impressions and the unique experiences the last three days had afforded us.
My biggest initial surprises were:
1) The presence and the importance of God in the life of the homeless people. Most of them very often speak about Him, refer to Him, pray and thank Him. I was just not expecting this and I am still processing the relevance of this discovery. I am not sure I would be so grateful to God if I had been handed such a deck of card in my life!
2) The prevalence of mental illnesses among the homeless people, the majority of the people living in the street I interacted with during these three days were exhibiting some form of very visible mental instabilty. I knew that mental illness was clearly part of the causes but had the understanding that the main driver to homelessness was emotional distress and not necessarely financial or mental precarity. Nancy, whom I confronted with the question, explained me that the mental instability I was witnessing was often the consequence and not the cause of Homelessness.
3) The strong support that homeless people provide each other. Brother and Sister, as they call themselves, really mean brother and sister. Of course, this doesn't apply to the homeless community at large and it is very dangerous to live in the street. Fear, hunger and hopelessness can induce pretty extreme behaviors, women are particularly exposed. But within a specific group of homeless people, the MO is "I got your back"!
On the other hand, I was expecting street life to be extremely difficult and it definitely was. Not because of the conditions we were living during these three days - In fact, we were very privileged with the availability of a safe house, the guidance of our shepherds, and more importantly, the thought that we would be back in the comfort of our homes in a short time. It was difficult to witness so closely the misery and hardship of the homeless people's life.
This street retreat was very instructive. It gave me a new perspective on the issue of homelessness and greater clarity on what makes the Community First! Village such a unique and powerful solution. Homelessness is principally caused by a profound and catastrophic loss of family. Providing a community environment where homeless people can reconstruct their ability to have relationships is the only effective way to let them successfully check back in our society.
But more importantly, these last three days were a transformational experience for me. After all, we desperately need each other and we can surely learn from the people who have experienced extreme loss, went missing and managed to reconnect with their community.
Upon our return to Austin at the end of our sabbatical travel in few weeks, I am scheduled to team-up with a small Austin film production company to produce this documentary which I hope will not only be informative and interesting but will effectively spread the Community First! Village formula and scale this unique and effective solution to Homelessness nationally.
If I could summarize my learning in only one sentence, I would say: Homeless people, contrary to common belief, are not quitters, there are broken. This can be fixed!
