What's it like to be homeless?

At the University of Manitoba, four business students have been posing as homeless people sleeping out doors on campus for the week. To complete the role reversal, two RaY youth – Libby and Julie – went to visit the homeless students and interviewed them about their experiences as homeless people.

Libby & Julie: What are some of the obstacles you’ve been facing out here?

Students:
It’s cold. Our backs are getting sore. We put cardboard underneath us as cushioning while we sleep and we found cardboard to wall us off from the wind but it’s still uncomfortable. I don’t even think we appreciated the comforts we did have until now when we don’t have them anymore. Everything we have here had to be donated so we had to go scrounging for cardboard. A tarp and tape was given to us but when we were looking for dental floss to tie the tarp town a security guard gave us one of those mouth picks with about an inch of dental floss in it. We’re sleeping outside. We didn’t want to floss our teeth. We miss being able to think straight. You can’t get a solid night’s sleep out here and you can’t get rid of that chill once it sets in and without the sleep our brains just don’t work.

L & J: How have people been treating you?

Students:
People are pretty nice to us. Because we’re students. The experience out here doesn’t even begin to compare with the real thing. We are just getting the very basic experience of sleeping outside. Like you said, we have more food in this cart to eat than you have in your fridge. People are giving us a lot of donations which is great for you, but imagine if people would give out this type of stuff to genuine street people and not just to us because we are students. And we were actually surprised by the number of students here who came up to us and told us that they either had been homeless at one point or that they are homeless now. They just crash at their friends’ places or hang out around campus all the time. Apparently there are some students who have deals worked out with certain security guards where they just let them sleep in certain offices or student lounges – depending on who’s working that night. But the lives of street kids are way different. Peopl earen’t as nice, they don’t have things brought to them for food or warmth. I mean, the other day we had 16 coffees donated in 45 minutes. Of course they’re all frozen now but once they thaw we’ll just pop them in the microwave. Do you want a coffee?

L & J: What do you think are the differences between what you guys are living and the real thing?

Students:
The way people treat us for sure. And we have supportive people all around us, this will be over in a week. People know we’re not really homeless so they’re not mean to us. Some of the other schools have had people say that the students “living homeless” is insulting and a mockery to genuine homelessness. I think that’s partially the media spinning the situation out of control.

L & J: That’s stupid. If they think it’s insulting for you to pretend to be homeless, do they think it’s insulting when we pretend we’re not? Did you guys know each other before you started this?

Students:
No, but we’re getting really close. We’re entertaining each other by dancing to keep warm, running around in circles and then falling on the ice, we have so many inside jokes now. And last night I had one of those hot pockets but it was really big, it went on your back. So I put it inside my jacket before I went to bed. When I got up, he said it got too cold. I had put it on backwards and was heating him up the whole time, not myself.

L & J: What kind of a difference do you think you’re making?

Students:
I think it’s just a starting point. For us, for our families, our friends and all the other students. It’s great that we’re learning about the realities of street life and we’re hearing your stories and now we have stories we can talk about and because we’ve met you we can speak with vindiction about the issues that are out there. It’s encouraging me to help others more and I think the young people we can impact will impact others. It would be nice if we could impact more older people too because there are a lot of damaging opinions out there.

L & J: What do you miss most?

Students:
Taking a shower. That’s nice. My bed. Having nice clean clothes to wear. My comb.

L & J: What will you do first when this is all done?

Students:
I’m taking a shower, putting on clean clothes and going to bed. I’m going to skip showering, me and my bed need to be reacquainted as soon as possible.

Squeegee tales

The only ones I remember are the good ones. I got hired off the corner a few times. To bus at the Palomino club. The first night I got trapped in the corner by a couple lesbians. I don’t really look at the people though, it’s all about the money. I’ve seen naked women lying in the back of cars. I’ve washed the mayor’s window. Politics doesn’t mean anything. What you pass in the field and what you believe in are two different things. The same mayor passed bylaws saying I can’t squeegee your window at all.

I washed a nice Mercedes before. Gave me $20. A viper once. Those are the best. You get so many beaters and people are like “don’t touch my car! No man, don’t touch my windows!” and then you get a nice BMW and the guy's just sitting back and throws you a bill. The guy in the beater is just mad at you because he has to go to his office job that he hates. The good cars though, they can keep you from getting bitter.

It’s just sales though. You take enough knives to people’s homes, eventually somebody needs a knife. You’re selling soap on a stick. Eventually somebody bites. I’m kind of like the avon lady really.

My fears

I asked 3 youth what their top 5 fears on the street were. This is what they said:

T: Where am I going to sleep?
I need to get money without getting caught
PROSTITUTION
Where can I get clean rigs?

P: Drugs and drug paraphernalia
Can I find somewhere warm to stay?
HUNGER
Getting jumped or taken advantage of

B: I need somewhere SAFE to sleep
Drugs and abuse
Gangs
Finding food
Violence

Poverty blows

Poverty Sucks
a poem by rose
http://www.homelessnation.org/

It was being born into poverty that caused me to end up in the foster care
It was poverty that forced out on to the streets when I wasn't ready
It was poverty that just about killed me when I was homeless thirty years ago
I fuck’n hate poverty.

Ihate having to live in.
I hate having no choice
Even worse I hate what it has done to my family.

My child’s dream is to continue his education
To get a degree in something
So that he wouldn’t have to continue on the new old tradition of a new age Indian family
Definition of Tradition: Forced to beg
Tradition of being force to beg for more money
So he can live
So he can carry on living

My partner no longer dreams
He begs for a day that he can
Take a day off without suffering the consequences
He lives in fear
If he were to take a day off
He will be fired
He lives in fear that if he were fired
That he would suffer the consequences

Me I hate being me
For I am an old Indian
UnemployedTo old start over
Too many barriers to over come
With no formal education
I too, live in fear of consequences
That my family will snap like an elastic band
And that we will end up homeless once again
This time without a job
Without a car
Without hope for a better future

My family has never experience a vacation (Not even a honeymoon) which my family used to crave, or not having more than a dollar left in our bank account at the end of the month

I hate poverty
It has stolen my dreams
My hope for a better future
A better future

I read this poem to 3 of the youth I work with. This is their collective response:

All the stuff that that poem said, it’s true.

Poverty has stolen my dreams too. A while ago. But now I have a house. And I got partly over my addictions. But now I’m addicted to something else. Something they prescribe me.

It reminded me of my boyfriend and how it was the same for him. He was in and out of foster homes and poverty. I just found out about my boyfriend’s living history two days ago and that is exactly the way it was. It makes me think about someone I’m so close to and what they went through. It made me want to cry.

It’s hard living in poverty. And with alcoholic parents and shit. That’s how my mom was. I’m the one who told CFS my mom was drinking. I was only 11 and I needed to get out of there.

My mom was on pills. She overmedicated and slept for days. It was shitty. And I still hate her to this day. I don’t even realize that I’m in poverty now. All I know is that my daughter will never deal with this. I’m getting the fuck out of here as soon as I can. To me poverty is living on welfare and living in Manitoba housing. I live there. But I have lots of stuff going for me. There is worse poverty. I’m in school. There are people who aren’t being supported by the government. Poverty is where children live. They don’t have a say in anything and they are stuck with alcoholic parents who don’t buy food.
I didn’t grow up in poverty but I got myself into it. My boyfriend lives in poverty. He doesn’t have anything. Is that what poverty is? He works … but.

This area is a poverty area in general. The whole city: north end, west end, down town, west broadway. It’s so hard to get out of poverty too. How do you learn how to do it if you don’t know another way? It leads you into other things too that keep you there. Like addictions. And then you spend all your money on drugs. And you’re stuck in poverty.

I’d rather people look up to me now.

I still don’t feel like I live in poverty anymore. I guess in a way I would because I don’t get lots of money, I’m on disability.

We need PA: Poverty Anonymous. It’s almost an addiction.

And it can go f itself.

P, TL, B

Where I'm coming from: 3 perspectives

I was in CFS for years. In and out of different homes. Trying to find my place in the world. Then when I got kicked out of my last home, I was living there for the longest which was 2 years. They kicked me out, out of nowhere. It was devastating. I then got put into a hotel and there, I started getting involved with Meth users. I hung around them for a few months, liked the way they all treated me, then I decided to try Meth. When I moved into my mom's. 2 weeks after I started, my dad passed away. That's when I gave up. I lost control for a year. Then I started shooting up ...

Patsy Friesen

I ended up on the street because I got kicked off of independent living and because I was selling drugs. I started using meth chronically and living under the Donald St Bridge. All I cared about was the next needle of meth and all I cared about was how I got my next hit.

Brandon

I chose to live on the street because the drugs were so good. Too good. I just had to be a part of the drug scene. Which kept me out weeks at a time. Eventually it turned into months. Then I just finally ended up living on the street. I love crystal meth so much I can never do it again. Because once I have that first shot I'll run away from my awesome life that took 15 months to put together. I'll run away from my daughter and responsibilities.

Terri-Lynn

A job and a kick in the pants

Some people think that all street youth need is a job and a kick in the pants. And sometimes that’s it, but not always. Not most times. That’s a very broad statement to make. Some of them, that’s all that takes but some of them it takes much more. Their problems are seated deeper into who they are. And treating them like that will just push them farther away from society.
I did have a job but I wasn’t fine. I was mentally unstable. I was getting stressed out and depressed and frustrated. I needed to get sober. I needed self confidence. Food. Shelter. But even when I did have food and shelter, I still felt like my job was a dead end job and wasn’t going anywhere. I still couldn’t do it.
Pretty much after doing nothing for so long, doing something is difficult. Going from living under a bridge for 6 years and then getting a place, I couldn’t handle that. I got a place and still slept under a bridge for 4 weeks. Getting a job is like that. You’re not always ready. I spent my formative years on the street.

Adam & Casey

Welfare is great at creating dependence

Welfare in MB just keeps you stuck in poverty. They don’t allow you to make any money at all. You only get a total of $450 per month including rent food and clothing needs and all that. I know I quickly became very dependent on welfare. Because it meant I didn’t have to do anything. If they took away some of the restrictions they have maybe I’d be more independent. Everything’s restricted. You can’t go to school on welfare unless you’re on disability. And if you’re working they take half your pay for rent. I can’t even get back onto EI right now because I quit my job.
How do you get off it? I just got a job and just didn’t collect welfare anymore. They closed my case and I was like “fine, the hell with welfare”. But getting a job was harder than it should have been. I tried multiple times to get jobs and it just didn’t work out until I got my job at the bike shop.
I think the hardest thing about trying to get a job is the fact that you get turned down so many times that I eventually gave up. You do become totally dependent on them.
They have a horrible way of treating you too. They suck. They’re stressful. You can never get a hold of your worker when you need to. They never call you back when you need them to. And then you get in trouble for not telling them something in time. When they don’t call you back it’s really frustrating. They don’t help, they just give you the money. Most of them don’t really listen to what you have to say. And ignoring us, and just leaving us on our own, end up increases our dependence on them.

Casey & Adam