The Best Season Of Homelessness
“I got jumped the other night, and they stole everything. So now I have to start all over again.”
“You’ve got my housing voucher, right? I don’t want to expect anymore delays on getting into housing.”
“When are we going to be getting kicked out of here? You know we are trespassing right here, don’t you?”
“I don’t think I could do the kind of work that you do for a living.” (Person donating supplies to the R.O.C.)
“I know I have got to be dehydrated right now.”
“Are you sure you don’t want a puppy?”
“Here, take this new coffee mug I found with you when you go.”
“I’ve got a job if I could just get my ID.”
“I’m out of my medicines, but every time I go down to Homeless Healthcare, all my stuff here at camp gets stolen.”
“Thanks for the water. I was just about to head out to fill up my water jugs. So you saved me a trip.”
“I am just so scared they’re going to come and take my son away. We are trying everything we can to get us out of here.”
“Went to the doctor, and they said it’s twins. I’m thinking of putting both of them up for adoption. But after carrying them for as long as I am going to carry them, I might end up keeping them.”
“I went to the clinic, and they said they couldn’t find the baby’s heartbeat.”
“I don’t want to move or get up.”
A couple of ROC members this week discussed the difficulties of answering the question they get asked often:
“Which is harder or better for people who are homeless, winter or summer?”
This question is difficult to answer, because the question itself is acting as though there is a more optimal time to experience homelessness. There is an assumption within the question that one particular season is the better one to have to live and sleep outside every single day. A question like this one takes attention away from the overarching issue that people should not be forced into living and sleeping outside every day in 2023 in the first place.
So the answer is neither. All the seasons are hard. None are better than another. They are all bad. They are all unacceptable. No one should be living outside without access to a proper safe, secure, stable, permanent, inside place to call home. Homelessness shouldn’t happen in spring, summer, fall, or winter. Homelessness shouldn’t happen in the morning, evening, or night. Homelessness shouldn’t happen in January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, or December. Homelessness shouldn’t happen on the sidewalks, on the streets, in the woods, behind dumpsters, behind buildings, in shelters, in parking lots, in drainage ditches, under bridges, in trees, in cars, along railroad tracks, in abandoned houses, in hotels, on friends’ and family members’ couches or backyards, or in caves. Homelessness shouldn’t happen in the frigid cold, in the scorching heat, in the pouring rain, or when the weather is absolutely perfect. Homelessness shouldn’t have happened in the past. Homelessness shouldn’t be happening in the present. And homelessness, hopefully in the near future, won’t and shouldn’t happen anymore.
At the R.O.C. we are working our hardest every day, in every season, to have that part about the future become a reality! While some of the environments we find people in are beautiful, like the one pictured below, it is the people themselves that are the real beauties!
#ROCAndRoll
#ROCRetrospective
#ShouldntHappenAnywhere
#ShouldntHappenAnytime
