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it sucks if you're a man, you get to sleep on a thin pad of foam in what is the common area/cafeteria during the day, unless you enter one of the back-to-work programs, or they eventually decide you're too hosed to participate in those programs, and then they put you in your own special 'total fuckups' dorm, away from the dudes in the other programs if you're a single woman with no children, you get shoved in a tiny room stuffed with bunkbeds, full of drug addicts going through withdrawal and old women who have been abandoned. there's sometimes a back-to-work program for women, but not always. there's sometimes a more permanent back-on-your-feet place you can eventually get into, but not always, and if there is, the person in charge of getting you there only comes by once a week. unless a man shows up and tries to break in to kill you, you're not going to immediately get into one of the hidden, secret shelters. If there are any. if you're a single woman with one or more small children, you'll get a tiny apartment with few opportunities to do anything, as there's no childcare until you get into the more permanent back-on-your-feet place, if there is one, and you qualify. also, good luck finding an available tiny apartment, there are an average of three or four per each shelter, and maybe ten shelters in a good-sized city (metro population of 1 mil), although not all of them take women. if you're a single mother with older children, your girls will be stuffed into a bunkbed next to you in the tiny room full of bunkbeds. your son will be forced to sleep out with the rest of the homeless men. if you're a family with younger kids, the mother and children will get the apartment, and the father will be stuck out in the cafeteria, at most places. there's a very heavy 'JESUS LOVES YOU SO NO loving' thread running through most of the people who run these places, so you can see your kids during the day, in the common areas, but not at night, and you can't sleep anywhere near them. if you're lucky, and married, your husband might get to stay in the same room as you, kids or no. I've encountered exactly one shelter that does that, in the three I stayed at, and the fifteen or so I've volunteered at. Not married? He sleeps in the cafeteria. Here, there's a more permanent place, and it's quite nice. Single women have one roommate, unless there's few enough women for you to have the room to yourself. You'll get a small but serviceable room with another drat bunkbed, a metal closet for each potential resident, and chair by the window, that doesn't open, for safety reasons. Families get small efficiency apartments, childcare. Everyone gets a caseworker and as much assistance as they can handle. Even at that place, you'll have chores, curfews, and overwhelming loneliness. No long-distance calls, no TV, no internet. Few books. It's a lot like a psych ward in that the best way to get through it is to make some friends. It's also the only place I've seen with A/C. some places, like churches, don't separate the men and women and children, then it's cots on the floor for everyone, and if someone tries to touch you or steal your stuff, you better be prepared to defend yourself, because no one stays overnight but the homeless. There's a moderate possibility there will be fleas so bad you'll take what little cash you have and take a greyhound to the nearest, bigger city, in the hopes they have something better. all of them either lock up all medication, so you better not have a panic attack, because it'll take 30 minutes minimum for someone to have time to get your meds and dispense them, or they don't, and it's a freaking drug market to rival shakedown street at jam band concerts the safer places are often run by older, religious people. One place I stayed at, you were not permitted to sleep during the day, even if you'd just arrived and had absolutely nothing to do. Even if you were eighty years old and on enough painkillers to drop a horse. No sleeping. The doors to the ladies' 'dorm' (just a small room, used to be storage, stuffed with bunkbeds) were locked four days of the week. If you were caught sleeping once, you were given extra chores to 'keep you awake.' Twice, and you're out on the street again, can't come back for three months. oh and the food is never great. think public school lunches.
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Jul 31, 2014 13:19
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| # ? Apr 24, 2024 11:17 |
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ie0BKwRYSJo&t=268s
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Jul 31, 2014 13:36
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