I Was Homeless. Now I’m looking at Studying for both bachelor's and master's degree in Social Work. Here’s What I Learned About Life on the Streets.
I published this article last year on March 9th, 2020 and I thought it deserved another re-posting.
- Published on March 9, 2020
Daniel Pressello
Founder at Ink Group. Internet - Startup Specializing in Government Contract Awarding.
“Everything started to crumble. I lost my job, my money ... and I was forced to start living in my car.”
Most people, even some locals, don’t know it, but there’s a river in Los Angeles. It starts in the San Fernando Valley, cuts through downtown, and 50 miles later, ends in Long Beach. The reason people don’t know about it is because it’s always dry and goes without notice. It looks like just another cement ditch and kids use it as a playground or as a canvas for graffiti.
Some adults use the riverbed as well, but for a vastly different reason: It’s their home because they have nowhere else to go. In fact, there are an estimated 60,000 homeless people in Los Angeles and the actual number is much higher.
Many unsheltered individuals and families were uprooted or even killed in an unthinkably devastating storm in December when the LA River flooded, though the local news failed to report on how the storm affected the homeless.
I remember driving by a stretch of the riverbed the day after another storm and seeing dozens of floating tents, camp stoves, shopping baskets and shoes ― there must have been hundreds of orphaned shoes. It might have been the first time the “vagrant problem,” as popular disc jockeys began calling it, became truly apparent to many Los Angeles residents, but it wasn’t new to me. Seeing all those images of broken lives created a second flood ― of memories.
"People usually don’t plan to become homeless. I certainly didn’t."
I grew up in a high middle-class family ― my dad was an executive at Ford Motor Company and my mother was a senior executive for a health care company, which operated in the province of Ontario, in which we lived and the rest of Canada.
Until I was in my teens, I had never seen a “bum,” “hobo,” “transient,” “derelict,” “beggar,” “tramp,” “wino,” “vagabond” or “drifter” (pick your derogatory label) or really anyone who was considerably different from me. That’s how impenetrable my childhood bubble was.
Even during my sexual assaults as a young child and in my years and as a teenage prostitute, I seemed to be headed toward the typical path expected of a man like me: graduation from high school and college or at a university followed by a job that would provide security but no real excitement. And I’d get married and have a couple of children along the way.
Instead, I dropped out of school at 17, left home, and ended up in Los Angeles. I arrived with no diploma, no job experience, no money, and no clue how I was going to get any of these things or survive on my own. A few weeks after my sudden arrival in Los Angeles, I begged my way into a position as a dishwasher in a restaurant.
A man I met allowed me the chance to take showers at his apartment, but not without the cost of having him wanting to perform sexual acts on me. This was horribly abusive to me, so I started to drink heavily (heavy to me was a 6 pack of beer each day.) I knew that addiction did not run in my family, but this drinking daily triggered my own battle with alcohol.
What I didn’t know until much later in life is that I also suffer from depression, anxiety, PTSD, and symptoms of being Bi-polar, due to my many years of sexual, physical, mental, and emotional abuse (which is part of life an abused person, mental and emotional abuse by an abuser - this is how they maintain control over the persons they are abusing. The mental and emotional anguish makes you feel you need the abuser in your life.) These mental health conditions left untreated or not treated properly lead me to self-medicate even more.
Everything started to crumble, I lost my job, my apartment, my money, and everything I owed in life. I remember winding up at Budget Suites on the Sunset Strip. I didn’t have enough money to stay there for very long, and a few days later, I was forced to start living in my car.
People often ask why someone doesn’t “just call” a relative, friend, former co-worker, a scanty acquaintance ― anyone ― when they first find themselves without a roof. But it’s usually not as simple as that.
After I left home, my family and I stopped speaking to each other. By the time I found myself camped out in a parking lot ― where it all began, ironically ― we hadn’t spoken in years. The thought of calling them at that point, when we had fought so bitterly in the past, was too much to bear.
I had begun to pick through hotel and casino dumpsters for food and other provisions, including discarded liquor bottles that might still have a swig or two left inside of them. I kept imagining the pain and shock on my dad’s face if he saw his oldest son in this condition and I wondered if he would blame himself.
I did try to find work ― I remember interviewing for a graveyard job at a local restaurant, but I was immediately sent out the door when they saw (smelled?) me. This was happening at a time when job listings were moving from the newspaper to the internet and finding open positions on my own was practically impossible, let alone trying to make myself look presentable and figuring out how to get there ― I still had a car, but no money for gas. It’s also difficult to secure work without a permanent address or a phone number ― just one more Catch-22 that keeps people on the streets.
Mostly, I survived on the charity of tourists and locals who saw me wandering street. Often, they commented on how rare it was to see "a well-kept and sane white guy" in a place like that.
I also survived thanks to my fellow unsheltered friends, who gave me food, spare change, even discarded books and magazines because they knew I liked to read. They also helped shield me from harassment, violence, and sexual assault all which is part of being homeless in a big city - I felt protected, safe, and looked after by them, it truly was like a surrogate family.
In some ways, I felt that not telling my actual family about how I was living was a way of protecting them. And, of course, much of it was rooted in my pride. I often wonder how pride has contributed to other people’s struggles with homelessness.
I am studying literature now, so of course, looking at other homeless camps now from a different, a vastly different angle than that of the apocalyptic storm had just come and destroyed the area. I saw being homeless on the banks of a river, through the eyes of writers like Raymond Chandler, Nathanael West, James Cain, and Joan Didion.
Academia has been, like a lot of other journeys in my life, unplanned and unexpected. I never thought I would finish a college term paper, let alone pursuing a master's degree.
I never thought I would become anything much, let alone a graduate of Social Work and have a degree in the subject, or being homeless, let alone write publicly about it.
My history of homelessness is something I’ve often kept secret from everyone in my life. Part of my silence has been because of shame and embarrassment, and the other part of it is that I’m not sure people would believe me ― I don’t look like someone who once called their car home. There is only one group I’ve ever felt completely comfortable sharing my story with - fellow homeless people.
After another mammoth storm in Vancouver, Canada (where I now Live,) a friend of mine wanted to visit a homeless encampment along the Fraser river, she shared her fear of approaching and talking to the homeless people there. I offered to tag along and help. I wanted to show her that this population is nothing to be afraid of, and that, while studying the problem and its causes ― rising housing prices, stagnant wages, overcrowding, little to no access to health care ― is essential, we need to remember that the homeless are Real People.
What’s more, it’s crucial that we understand and discuss how mental illness affects and challenges the homeless. It’s been estimated that up to 45% of that population has some form of mental illness and that 25% of these individuals are severely mentally ill, which obviously complicates finding these individuals, providing outreach to them, and moving and keeping them off the streets.
The media tends to see homeless people as all the same ― as though everyone who’s living on the streets has the same origin story, the same challenges, and the same ill-fated destiny.
"This approach often ends up stripping these people of their humanity."
What if we thought about who these people were before they were homeless? What if we reminded ourselves that they were once ― and still are in many cases ― someone’s child, father, mother, sister, brother, friend? What if we thought about who they are now on the streets and who they could be after homelessness?
The homeless are often portrayed as drunk, high, unmotivated, crazy, scary. If they’re not being ignored or dismissed, they’re often being mocked or criticized. But what if we saw them as who they really are: parents who work full time but still can’t afford a place to live, or people who have severe mental health or addiction issues but can’t afford treatment or the physically ill who can’t afford proper health care so they’re forced to self-medicate in whatever way they can?
I was lucky. After almost four years without a home in Vancouver, Canada I finally put my pride aside and called some friends I still had in Ontario, and they helped move me into a motel. I was so embarrassed when they came to get me, I could barely look at them. How could you have let this happen? their faces seemed to be asking.
The truth is many homeless people ask themselves the same question hundreds of times a day if they’re cognizant of what they’re going through. So many of them, unlike me, have no one to turn to ― their family and friends have either disowned them or they have no family or friends ― and government and non-profit organizations can’t find them or can’t truly help move them in a direction of getting off the streets permanently.
Soon after I moved into the motel, when I was in Los Angeles, I called my father and he paid for an airline ticket for me to head home. I’m fortunate I had a place to go and parents who helped me start again. They still don’t know the full extent of what I went through during my time on the streets ― I think it will reveal itself slowly, over time.
After spending a year in treatment, I went back to school. I can’t say I never looked back because I did and do all the time. I can see why some people keep returning to the streets ― not because they want to, but because the task of rising from the ashes and integrating themselves back into “the real world” can seem insurmountable.
Starting from zero is challenging, but it’s not impossible. I still marvel at the small conveniences like easy access to food and water and a phone, being able to take a hot shower every day, and having money to buy basic things that have changed my life, and I’m grateful for all of them.
Though I’m off the streets, I still find myself thinking constantly about the time I spent on them in Los Angeles and Vancouver and of all the people who are out there trying to survive.
There are so many questions I ask myself about what I went through and what allowed me to get out: If you lived in a car, did it really count? Did you really have it as bad as those who are living in tents or gutters or on park benches? If you had someone you could call and ask for help, were you truly homeless, or were you choosing to be? And once you get out, should you bury the experience, or should you use it to help others?
I don’t have the answers to all these questions, but I think I’ve finally found my answer to that last one. I hope this essay can be the start of something that might make a difference to you - that difference is "You can't and shouldn't judge a book by its cover."