What's the Difference? College Students, Homeless People, & Me

I had dinner with last night. At some point, she told some stories about working with people who worked at her father's restaurant. He would hire women on work release (a noble act to help society). One statement stuck out to me: "I was talking to this woman who was my age, but with two kids, another one on the way, and on work release."

I started thinking about The Beacon, the homeless shelter at which I worked and volunteered once. I remember checking in a high school senior whose parents kicked him out to teach him lesson.

I started thinking about how similar my current job is to my job working at the homeless shelter:

Oversee check in/out of clients
Develop helping relationships
Make proper referrals
Listen
Respond to drugs, alcohol, drunkenness, violence, theft, sneaking in/out, manipulation, threats, favors, suicide attempts, suicidal ideation, suicide, self-cutting, interpersonal conflict, depression, mental illness, social awkwardness, and gossip, among other things
Promote and enforce policies
Confront policy violations

There are a number of differences as well, but the major one is the most obvious: the clientele. That delineation is not age, because, as already stated, the age of men at the homeless shelter dipped as low as 18. And we all know children, too, are homeless.

Family help isn't the main difference either. I have college students who are on their own and I knew men at the shelter who visited with family and received things from them often.

A permanent home doesn't really put a name to the difference. A residence hall is about as permanent a home as a homeless shelter. Your time in both of them is limited somehow. At the shelter, you could generally only stay 90 days before having to leave for a two week period. After that absence, you could stay for 60 days. And then 30 days. In the residence hall, you leave in the summer and after you graduate. Even the men in the homeless shelter had somewhere to go during their absence, be it a tent, a friend's home, a family member's couch, or an abandoned building nobody knew he was sleeping in.

Economic status could be the line separating the two groups. Then again, they both receive money for which they don't work, be that money from the government in the form of food stamps or from family members in the form of gifts and allowances. Both are also in debt, be that debt from a foreclosure or from accruing student loans.

A college student isn't all that different from a person staying the night in a homeless shelter.

I'm not all that different from a college student or a person staying the night in a homeless shelter.

I have student loan debt. I have my addictions. I have my vices. I am a slave to many passions, desires, oppressions, and economic and social mores. I earn some things and feel entitled to others. I mishandle interpersonal conflict. I demand change, completely ignoring the words of those more knowledgeable and experienced, even when they tell me the lack of change is for a good reason.

I can keep highlighting the différance, keep pointing how the differences are not necessarily meaningless, but rather unspeakable, and yet, they are still visible. I'm living in a two-bedroom apartment while others live in a room with 50 beds. Some live on the streets. Some live in dumpsters or worse.

Why that difference? If we're so similar, why do their problems place them on the streets while my problems can be hidden enough that I can be an entry-level professional? Why do some people, including both clienteles, handle stress with drugs, while others use alcohol, eating, television, sports, abuse, sex, possessions, social interaction, technology, books, and/or self-mutilation? Is it God who hard-wired people to do these things? Is it Satan or demons who randomly succeed in tempting certain people with certain things? Is it fate? Chance? Genetics? Evolution?

Maybe there are better questions to ask. What are we doing about these differences? What am I doing about these differences? Is there anything I can do about these differences? Should I be doing anything about these differences?

If I help the college students, am I also helping the homeless? Don't both groups need help? Is it better to help one as opposed to helping the other/Other?

I still receive picture messages from a formerly-homeless man. I call him Romeo. At least, last time I checked he was formerly-homeless. His messages are all chain messages, sometimes addressing faith and sometimes including terribly vulgar pictures. I never read the messages, but I always wonder how he is doing. And I wonder if I'm still a contact in his phone for a reason. If I made a difference. If I'm making a difference. If the differences I experience--privilege--are meaningful and what, if anything, I can and should do about them.

Whatever I do, I will never forget The Beacon. And on some level, I will always help. Helping them is helping myself, since we're not all that different.

I miss you guys.

Funny the Way It Is: Two Homes & Two Homeless Men

"Funny the way it is, when you think about it," sings Dave Matthews on his bands' newest CD. The chorus goes on to display the contrast between how one person can be enjoying a blessing that is related to someone else's sorrow. Kids might be playing outside, enjoying some of the most spectacular weather while the same sunny skies shine on someone's house burning down; "one kid walks ten miles to school, another's dropping out ... somebody's broken heart becomes your favorite song."

A friend of mine called me the other day--the tattoo guy. I like to use the word "friend" to describe him, but I am not naïve enough to think our relationship is a friendship. Perhaps we might be acquaintances, but mostly, our relationship is based in resources. We shoot the bull and catch up with each other, but only when he needs something or sometimes I feel guilty about not reaching out to him (hopefully I don't always reach out in guilt). Not the healthiest relationship, but it is a relationship nonetheless. We're trying, at least, and when at our best, we might fool ourselves.

I set myself up for this relationship. I gave him my phone number one night after he left the homeless shelter and he needed some food. I told him to use my number if he ever needed something. I never promised help, but I told him he should try and be persistent. He sends me text messages most often when he wants a ride to recovery meetings. He has also sent a few messages asking for financial help. Sometimes I can help him out, sometimes I can't. It was rough for me the first time he wanted a large chunk of change for his phone bill and I said no. I thought that might be the end of our relationship.

But it wasn't. He called me early this week. He told me things were bad. He had been staying with his girlfriend's family. And this friend of mine--I can imagine him being hard to live with. He has quite the temper, is vulgar, and doesn't seem to care too much for the lives of others. He told me the family was yelling at him and he couldn't take it anymore, so he left. I have heard this story before, just with different people yelling at him.

He was staying at the place where the recovery groups meet, because he has a key. His girlfriend showed up soon after. I don't know if he intended for her to come or not. He might have meant to leave her.

She is pregnant. Very pregnant. I wouldn't be surprised if she had the baby since I spoke with him earlier this week. He said she couldn't go to the homeless shelter, because they feared the baby would be taken away.

He never asked for anything from me during this conversation. I think he intended to ask, though. It doesn't matter either way. I was just glad he called and opened up to me. When I mentioned I was in West Virginia for the summer, he said, "Oh, shit, well," and then continued talking about how he didn't know what to do. I didn't know what to do either. Perhaps I should have called DSS. Who am I to say the child will live a better life adopted or in foster care?

After speaking with this friend, I thought of another guy I met at the shelter. I've mentioned him before, calling him Romeo. I sent a text message to Romeo to check up on him. He said things were going so great for him. He had moved to South Carolina where he was living with his new girlfriend.

I was happy for Romeo, but unnerved by the contrast between him and my other friend. Over the next couple of days Romeo continued to send me text messages. The relationship became rocky. I got updates of ups and downs, so many that I stopped responding. I wasn't annoyed, but I simply had nothing to say. Today I learned he is back in town where he started. He goes back and forth on whether or not he'll be with this woman again, a lot depending on "when she finds herself." He thought he had a place lined up to stay. The last message I got said he has nowhere to go. I suggested the shelter, but he thinks he has too much stuff with him to go to the shelter.

I have an apartment on campus at Gardner-Webb University in North Carolina. Right now only my fish and cactus occupy it, because I am living in a trailer Fayetteville, WV for a summer internship. I have two places to live and I know three people (maybe three and a baby) with no place to live.

Funny, the way it is.

Well, I'm not sure funny is the right word to describe it.

Living the Gospel in Different Places

I helped a friend move into his new apartment today. I saw him at church on Thursday morning. He was there to be served a meal. I was there to volunteer my hands and ears. He asked for my ears first.

He excitedly told me he finally got his apartment. He had been talking about this event for a while and it was finally here. He is no longer homeless. He is another of the wonderful men becoming "(un)sheltered," moving from the shelter to a shelter of his own.

A few weeks ago he moved out of the shelter, because his time was up. He could have come back on the winter nights program, but he reaped the generosity of one of the other men who recently moved out. So, he became the Parson's roommate for a while. After he left the shelter, I offered me and my car to help him move things.

We had put his worldly possessions in a storage unit. It was probably a 5' x 10'. I saw all of his worldly possessions fit inside a storage unit, and with room to spare. A lot of room.

Last month I helped a friend of mine move from North Carolina to Washington state. She and I probably have a similar amount of possessions. I watched her sell things, give things away, mail multiple boxes, and then purchase a roof bag so the two of us could cram into the car with all her earthly possessions (excluding her cats, which flew separately) for the cross-country trip.

We really packed things into her car. I consolidated boxes, making as much room as possible. We stuffed items around her spare tire. We piled items high, giving us barely enough space to see out the back window, and the roof bag was far from empty.

When we we moved Romeo's stuff in the storage unit, there was no art to it, no skill needed. We took the trash bags full of his belongings and tossed them randomly into the 5' x 10'. His clothes on hangers remained on hangers and were laid on top of a box. He didn't even cover the bottom of the unit. He only took a few changes of clothes with him to Parson's. When we moved him into his apartment, we haphazardly filled up my back seat and put a few items in the trunk, leaving probably half of his possessions in storage.

His apartment is a two bedroom. I only saw the downstairs, which consisted of a barren kitchen and a living room with a pull-out couch he sleeps on, a coffee table, some sort of table with cabinets, and a chair. I didn't think about what the kitchen cabinets and refrigerator looked like on the inside. I assume Old Mother Hubbard would feel right at home though.

I offered him an egg crate cushion a friend gave me to offer one of the less-fortunate people I encounter. Then I saw a twin-size comforter in my trunk and he received it, noting how he had been wondering what he would do for a blanket. I had taken the blanket when school ended last year and one of my residents apparently decided he didn't need it and it would do well to be in the trash. He noticed a roll of toilet paper cluttering the floor of my back seat and sheepishly asked if he could have it.

While at the shelter later that night, I compared the carloads of my two friends: one a formerly homeless, white male in his forties; the other a 25-year old, single, white female with two master's degrees. I don't think either of them are where they wish they were. They probably never hoped they would be where they are today.

Was one in a better situation than the other? Which one am I more like? Where will I be when I graduate with my two master's degrees? Where will I be when I am in my forties? Where do I hope to be in either of those situations?

Then I reflected on my purchasing habits. My kitchen cabinets are full of food. If I am in the mood for fruit, I'll buy a few cans of fruit along with some fresh fruit. The fresh fruit goes bad, because my fruit mood doesn't last long and the cans stay in my cabinet until my next mood swing. Now I want vegetables and rice, so I buy all kinds of frozen, fresh, and canned vegetables. Then I want pizza, so I buy frozen pizzas. Cereal is next. Toast. Sandwiches. Casseroles. Pastas.

I don't feel like Jesus when I'm home. I felt like Jesus when I was giving away a blanket, since I have more than I need. I was living the Gospel in that moment. How often do I live the Gospel when I'm hungry or at the grocery store? Just before writing this reflection, a resident came to my door highly upset and in need of things I could not offer, something he knew too well. I had no clue what to do. I wanted to embrace him, but I didn't know what he wanted. He was scared for a loved and for some mistakes he made the previous evening. Did I live the Gospel then? And now I sit here, on my new, university-purchase furniture, full on cereal, writing, thinking, and praying, not that I can necessarily delineate between those three occurrences at the moment.

Can I live the Gospel at home? Do I go check on that resident? Do I sit by myself and surf the internet more? Could I do my homework? What if I read my Bible or a novel? Can I socialize and live the Gospel? Can I drink? Eat?

It is easy to live the Gospel in the face of need. A man needs a blanket, so I give him one. Another needs medication and has no chance of getting any help until Monday, so I buy it for him. Easy. But how do I imitate Christ and honor the imago Dei when I'm face-to-face with no one other than myself?