Have you ever been homeless?
The closest I came was in my twenties when my boyfriend, Bill and I were vagabonds. Traveling from city to city, we would stop on a whim to look for jobs and a place to live. He was a short-order cook, and I worked in record stores: Wax Trax, Zia, Tower Records. It was a stretch for us to come up with first, last, and deposit, so we would crash on friends’ couches or stay in dive motels until we could afford a place of our own. One time we went to look at a rental near City Park, in Denver. This was back in the 1990s, before downtown Denver had undergone major plastic surgery. There were plenty of gangs and drugs in this neighborhood, and the back door of the house was a sheet. Just an old cotton sheet hanging in the doorway. We kept looking.
Of course, I always could— and often did, go back to my mom’s house. So, I was never actually completely without a home base. And that’s exactly where I went when Bill left me for a waitress at the pizza restaurant where he worked. Heartbroken and pale, I moved in with Mom, pretty sure I would never love again. But life moves on, and now I feel lucky to have lived and loved and most importantly— left my past behind. By chance and circumstance, I am truly fortunate to have found a home in the Roaring Fork Valley with my husband, Clint.
I lost touch with Bill years ago, but it was still a bit of a shock to find out he died of a heart attack last year.
“Wait— how old am I?” I lamented to my cousin.
“We’re ancient.” Eliza said sagely.
It turns out Bill had married the waitress and they had two daughters, one of whom is still in high school. He was still working manual jobs, with no savings or life insurance, and his family couldn’t afford funeral services. A friend set up a GoFundMe (a modern-day necessity due to corporate tax evasion and congressional neglect of basic societal needs) and in true punk-rock fashion, Bill’s old friends came through, raising the money in small increments. As I donated to the woman who “stole my boyfriend” thirty years ago, it occurred to me that this felt like a life lesson.
I can always tell I’m growing as a person when the fear or prejudice I’ve been clutching onto dislodges, and sort-of oozes out of me like a balloon with a slow leak. Last month I had a huge growth spurt when I went on a Ride-Along with my cousin Eliza and her colleague. They work for Denver Parks & Rec., and they are making a difference daily, assisting homeless citizens in any way they can.
All those people pushing a shopping cart full of belongings, living out in the elements every single day without food, water, or shelter certainty; they were all someone’s children at one point. “How does it come to that?” I usually think, as I speed by in air-conditioned comfort.
Mental health issues, addiction, disability: all the standard reasons we accept, watching a fellow human being live amid garbage under a bridge. Here we all are, living on this planet together, and yet oh-so focused on our individual needs. Living the dream, i.e., working like rats on a wheel to keep a roof over our own heads, buy groceries, pay for water… Shouldn’t the water be for all of us?
“They can always go to a shelter,” I tell myself when the light turns green and I zoom off, leaving them standing there with their cardboard sign. But would I want to spend the night alone in a sterile room at a renovated Sheraton? Where would I be without the support of my community?
I sure wish we had a system in place for everyone; something with grace and equity. A global GoFundMe, if you will. Oh— wait! I know what we can do! And the good news is that we’ve already paid for it. We just have to wrestle it out of the hands of a few greedy old warmongers…