What Helps The Homeless

One of the things that has made my life bearable is people stopping their cars to give me free used clothing in cold, wet weather. They either were giving me and my sons something warmer than what we were wearing because it was cold or they were just giving us warm, dry clothes because it had rained and we were soaked and it was cold. Changing in to clean, dry clothes is potentially life-saving for a homeless person in cold weather. I specify used clothing because one woman pretty obviously had bought us new jackets, socks and other stuff. Well, I don't have any means to wash my clothes and I don't have a place to hang things up and put them away. I don't have separate sleep clothes. I sleep in my street clothes and, in fact, I need a jacket much more at night to stay warm enough to sleep deeply than I do during the day. During the day, if I am outside, I am usually walking somewhere. If it is above 40 degrees and the wind is not too bitter, I am in little danger of dy

A high percentage of people on the street have serious medical or mental health issues. This often fuels addictions and then the general public concludes that homeless people are all alcoholics, addicts and crazy people and it either is basically their fault or there isn't much that can really be done because we don't know how to cure insanity. In short, it gets dismissed as a personal problem, not a symptom of a systemic problem. But, homelessness is on the rise nationwide. So, it really doesn't make sense to act like homelessness is merely caused by individuals being irresponsible or unfortunate. This is clearly a systemic problem. In the 1950s, new homes were around 1200 sq. ft. and housed an average of about 3.5 people. These days, new homes are around 2500 sq. ft. and house around 2.5 people. They also have more amenities, such as appliances. Meanwhile, homelessness is on the rise and the availability of affordable housing has been shrinking for decades. Additional

These are awesome. They aren't very expensive. They are safe and environmentally friendly. They do not require electricity and cannot burn you. They don't seem to give off any odor or fumes when activated, something I am extremely sensitive to. If you are worried about homeless people in your area in winter, in addition to a hot meal, jacket or similar, give them a ten pack of Little Hotties. These have really made a difference for me on cold nights.

Most people on the street have medical problems of some sort. A lot of them also have mental health problems. Even if you didn't start with them, life on the street can make you a little loony, due to social isolation and other stressors. I have a serious medical condition. I have been getting healthier for a lot of years. This started well before I went homeless, but has continued while on the street. Eating healthy and avoiding exposure to more germs is a big part of how I am doing that. Most soup kitchens are unclean, crowd together people who are unclean and unwell, serve food that isn't all that good and are just uncivilized environments. My first six weeks in downtown San Diego, when I was especially destitute, I went to soup kitchens very regularly. As soon as I had food stamps, I mostly stopped. I did keep getting a free breakfast at a women's center that was really good and I did sometimes have lunch there, when I was really flat broke late in the month. My s

I was walking along today carrying a couple of bags of recyclables. A very obviously homeless guy pushing a shopping cart asked if I wanted more bottles. I said sure, though I couldn't take much more unless he could also give me a bag because my bags were nearly full. He gave me a 10 cent beer can. I crushed it and stuck it in one of my bags. He said with surprise "Where do you go that takes CRUSHED cans??!" I named the three closest places of the five I use. One was about a 10 or 15 minute walk behind him -- it was, in fact, where I was headed -- and another was about a 10 minute walk in the direction he was going. I repeated myself a time or two and gestured at the one I was going to. He said "I'm not going back down the hill." But then you could see by his face something clicked. I guess he realized how close he was to the one behind me. He got excited and asked a bunch of questions about where exactly he needed to go and what exactly he needed to do.

Most people on the street have some kind of health issue, either medical or mental health or both. Free meals and other homeless services tend to attract the most desperate and destitute. Unsurprisingly, the average quality of health and ability to interact well socially for groups of homeless folks at meal sites and other services trends pretty poor. This means that if you have a serious health problem, getting the help you urgently need today in order to not starve can expose you to all kinds of other illnesses and even things like the threat of violence. It's an extremely stressful and sometimes downright counterproductive way to muddle through. It also tends to be hugely time consuming. There are typically long lines and if you want to be guaranteed to get something, that sometimes means showing up an hour or two early. They can also be incredibly hard to track down and hugely difficult to physically get to, in addition to sometimes requiring a lot of paperwork and so on. Unl

One of the things which makes homeless individuals stick out like a sore thumb is the fact that many of them live without a car. So they walk a lot -- and/or use a bike and/or public transit, but for purposes of this post, I want to focus specifically on the fact that homeless individuals walk a lot more than most Americans. I have literally had the cops called on me for walking in a neighborhood where no one ever walks anywhere. So simply walking in some places is such weird behavior that it makes you very suspicious, and there can be serious consequences merely for walking. There is an excellent essay called Walking While Black (PDF) which is about a black man's experience of walking in his own neighborhood after his car broke down and getting stopped by the police for it. I am a white woman who rarely had anything to do with the police prior to being homeless, yet the piece resonates with me because of my experiences since becoming homeless. So one thing you can do to hel