The voracious appetite of those whome are on the street’s is notable, each time someone comes with food or  care packages  they take them with litte regard to others. Their needs come first & if you are one of them they will pick your bones clean if they even have a sent of money, cigarettes or anything that strikes them at the moment. For the sky is falling always for them. I admit at times it has been a day or two before I have more than others to eat. True, the shelter provides for a hot meal at nights after we check in but, I am not an animal, since we are required to step outside in the cold to eat the food. However,  despite the small discomforts we are subjected to they are doing a great job. The little napoleon,  Warden, and the other members of the staff know all to well that if the boundaries are not adhered to strictly, the people in the shelter will eat them alive with little regard for other’s. It’s a intresteing balance between empathy and discipline that they deal with every day/  night. It’s the balancing act between the needs of the many against the needs of the one.
A paradox to say the least.
Those who just want a hot and a cot respect that and actually appreciate it. It is not uncommon for me to get a sandwich bag, from any number of the charities that come by to provide food and hand said bag to someone else. Not because I’m not hungry, but mostly because of the bone crushing depression that I feel. It’s difficult to watch the predators and pray in the same location,   and in the same person.  Occasionally,  I hand my cellphone and one of these stories to read to someone I have been talking to. That person always seems to be well spoken and intelligent. Then, when they start reading my hart sinks to my feet. At best its 3-4 th grade level reading abilities they possess. Myself, being a dyslexic have trouble reading, and spelling words, and am totally applied mathematics blind am dismayed at this person’s inability to read. Maybe, that’s why the people at city hall , and others create such difficulties,  they to have a remedial education also.

I got a message in the bottle from the “Attorney”, and it a story that I feel personally at times, it about a lady in Salt Lake City, I copied and pasted it without changes.

This is the true story of what happened when all the trauma was supposed to be over, when I left my “home” on the park bench on the outskirts of Salt Lake City for the last time in 2017. People like to call this transitional period an “emergence,” lending a triumphal note to the narrative—the unhoused person escaping a disturbing chrysalis to become a fuller and better human, new-winged and free.
But that’s not my story.
My story is about how the pain continued into the healing, morphing from something blatant and socially distasteful into something socially acceptable. I spent two years in homelessness, 442 days in a filthy, noisy, violence-filled shelter, the other 260 in spaces that included a dark room in which I was repeatedly held hostage by a man who beat and sexually assaulted me; public libraries where other men grabbed my breasts; and the brightly lit confines of jail cells and psych wards, where officials locked me up after those assaults. That’s when the assaults became official: police frisking my breasts, crotch, and anus; stern doctors injecting me against my will with antipsychotics that only further separated me from my own mind and body.
My life since has included a series of quieter violations, each still dehumanizing in its own way—but all essentially authorized as part of the way America addresses its “homelessness problem,” a construct largely created by liberals responding to Reagan-era welfare politics.
Thus, to be formerly unhoused is to be the subject of continual scrutiny, stuck in a system that relies on acts of individual kindness and moral surveillance meant to ensure the recipient of other people’s generosity remains “deserving” of it.
And so that’s what I emerged into: a wall of judgment that has made it much harder to reconstitute my own identity beyond what you perceive to be that of a “damaged” and struggling person, one hobbled by the character defects you assume I have, that to reenter the privileges of middle-class life would become an inconceivably herculean task.
“You were homeless?” people like you have often said to me, as if in disbelief that someone so like themselves could ever tumble to the bottom rungs of society.
Yes. I was once, perhaps, a lot like you—college-educated, successful in my professional pursuits, first in journalism and then in business, a home and horse owner. I do not make my accusations lightly. I know that when I point my finger at you, I also point it toward the version of me that hailed from the same belief system.
You patronized me. Told me I was your “project.” Told me you couldn’t pay me properly because I came from “an unstable background.”
I had become a leper whose life you decided was worth saving but whose character was now permanently in question. Yes, you would give me “gifts.” But in exchange, I was required to be grateful, docile, never angry.
Here, let me show you. Walk with me through my “emergence.”

There is more to it but, you the reader can look that up.

I have experienced personal violations , not of my person, but of the perception people stereo type me to be everyday. It has made me extremely,  reluctant and reserved of new people who are there to help. I have an appointment with daily planet next week and was reminded of it by them. However,  with the last interaction with the assigned case worker I am at the point where if I don’t engage them myself, I will not respond to them trying to help me in their condescending manner. This is indicative of the homeless problem the stereo types of others on us.

If anyone really wishes to the can look on the internet about the homeless problem and how it is dealt with in the United States. The most troublesome impression one will get is the apathy the officials on prosicuters offices have when these events occur. Nobody really cares what the homeless are victims of. Weather it be crimes against women or gang related there simply is no interest by many of the authorities until those crimes spill over to the silent majorty and they start to squak like chickens that have been grabbed by the necks. From Las Angeles to New York gangs have setup shop in the ranks of the homeless. Often following the guidelines of the 13th amendment and creating servitude with the unfortunate results. It’s good business for the gangs for that is thiers customer base. To my knowledge it has not occurred yet here in Richmond. But,  give it time.
  For the past two weeks a friend and I where fortunate enough to be granted an hotel room for 4 days. The charity’s name is  monuments of hope. Every Saterday they setup shop in the Azalea shopping center. As if with a military drill they setup their trailers in record time. They provide food comfort, bicycles, clothing and a lunch and a praior table for those who know about them and seek help and comfort. Admittedly they are good at what they do.

However,  this time around after we checked out of our room after 3 days we went back into the shelter. That’s when things got messy again. Sadly, little napoleon & the Warden who help manage the 120 plus people  had something occur that totally out of their control. The hotel where this year’s shelter is, is antiquated. The 120+ of the people who checked in gave their all to the bathrooms and for the second time the antiquated plumbing could not handle it. The repairs of the previous week must have been made on the cheep by the hotel owners. After all we are homeless and subhuman in their eyes why should the spend real money when duct tap will do. So the shelter management got a room and all of us who needed to use the restrooms had to go to those assigned room to take care of our basic needs.

Opportunity and an compliment came out of all this for myself. This morning we where woken up  at 6 am by the “Warden”, at which times she explained the restroom situation. Now being half asleep it sounded muffled to me as if I was under water face down. I packed my stuff up and proceeded down the stairs at which time I was struck by lightning for as I proceeded down those stairs I saw the city’s “police”, repressive for the homeless at the bottom of the stairs. He’ll has no furry like a person denied a toilet never mind the woman part of that quote. To paraphrase the conversation with the “Warden”, I basically wanted to know if I heard correctly, that the shelter would be closed due to the bathrooms. I was corrected by that assumption that the Warden only ment that she was clueless as to when said restrooms would be fixed. I retorted, that it was a shame because all 120+ of us could have moved to the steps of the city hall and slept their instead or even better at the downtown Hilton where the mayor’s condo is. Admittedly, I said this all because that police officer was present. Then as I was walking out the “Warden”, complimented me by saying that I am a pain. That was the best compliment one could give me.. I am homeless, and being treated by the majority of society as subhuman and contempt. This stigma reaches into the additude’s of those who are paid to help us. The stigma will haunt me for the remainder of my life.

We stand in the service of ladies and gentlemen who happen to be homeless. 

I write these posts to hopefully change additude and hopefully help others. Below is my cash app qr code and cash app address. It is my hope that with your donations you will help me out to become homeless no longer.

Thank you for your time.