In my last post Bryan and I had just walked out of the Salvation Army after breakfast. Today we decided we were going to walk around to a couple of places. We are going to have lunch at the "Stew Pot" which is a soup kitchen that I had heard about and then we were going to walk over to the Arkansas Dream Center and see if there was anything we could help them with, but first things first. Our phones needed to be charged! Our first stop, the River Market to charge our phones.
One thing people assume is that homeless people would not have cell phones. The vast majority of them (at least in Little Rock) do in fact have cell phones, so us wanting to charge our phones was not too out of the ordinary. Bryan told me that the day before he had been kicked out of the River Market because he didn't buy anything and they wanted the seats for "paying customers." Now since we had just eaten a big breakfast at the Salvation Army and the River Market is not much more than a mile away we were still full after the walk over. Bryan didn't bring any money with him for his week on the street...I brought a few dollars with me. I bought us coffee and we sat in the middle of the River Market and charged our phones. Security started to walk over to talk to us and then he saw our coffee and literally turned around and walked away. I didn't feel welcome and none of the customers would make eye contact with us (except the homeless people who were all sitting next to each other about ten feet away from us).
Our phones were now charged and it was now time to start walking again. The Stew Pot was not really that close to the River Market so we started walking. As we walked we talked about the buildings and abandoned run-down houses that would be awesome to turn into transitional housing or a shelter. I was surprised at the amount of abandoned buildings...I'm not sure why I was surprised. I guess there were just parts of Little Rock I had never been to before or at least never noticed when I was driving. A city is different on foot.
We got to the Stew Pot and I found out it is inside an First Presbyterian Church. There were a handful of people sitting on the steps waiting for lunchtime to arrive. Bryan and I went and sat on a small ledge and watched as more and more homeless people arrived. While we were sitting there Bryan pulled his phone out and sent a text to someone. A gentleman saw his phone and walked up to us. He asked if Bryan had his charger with him. Bryan said yes as the man pulled his phone out of his pocket. He told us a story about how his phone is a "government" phone (there is some sort of plan that supplies the homeless with free phones, they are pay by the minute phones) and his charger had fallen apart as he was plugging it in while he was at work. He asked Bryan if he would charge it for him and Bryan agreed. He then handed the phone to Bryan and walked away. That struck me as odd...that he would just give a stranger his phone and walk away. There is an interesting community view that the homeless seem to share that I don't really understand yet.
As we were sitting there waiting to go in I saw some dirty looks and heard a couple people make comments about us being cops. Also there was some sort of gang dynamic that I didn't understand (Bryan was a gang member when he was younger...and I guess that is something that is always with you to some extent. I don't know.) So needless to say it was fairly uncomfortable for both of us so I was thankful when they opened the door to let us inside. We walked up two stories to where the lunch was served.
I got into a conversation with the guy that was in line in front of me about how cold it was outside. He was wearing a cammo army uniform all the way down to the boots. He had a metal cane and gloves that had the fingers cut off. I never asked him if he was actually a veteran (he was younger than me...but that doesn't mean anything) or if he just had the clothes. He told me he was warm except for his nose, which he explained had been broken recently. He then pulled it totally over to the side giving himself a small nose bleed and he said he got nose bleeds all the time. He explained that he would have to have surgery and that the cold bothered his nose but the rest of his body was fine. He told me about the 5 or 6 layers of clothes he had on at that very moment. Then we were next to get our food.
I thanked the ladies who were serving us lunch and they seemed to be shocked that I would thank them! One of them said, "You're VERY welcome and have a merry Christmas!" I guess they don't get a lot of thank you's because it is a daily service that they perform. I don't know, I just found it odd. Bryan and I finished our breakfast and the guy came back to see if Bryan was charging his phone. Bryan told him he couldn't find an outlet and the guy said he didn't see one either. He gave the phone back and and the guy walked away.
The lunch they served was again a really large lunch which included salad, chicken noodle soup, bread, coffee, pudding and dessert which was our choice of assorted donuts, bread-pudding or cake. After lunch we walked outside and started to head to the Arkansas Dream Center (which was several miles away). Before we got off the church's property I saw two drug deals. I will talk about the drug deals and other things in a later post, but for now I am going to go on with our day.
We walked across town to the Arkansas Dream Center. We got only to find it empty. Apparently we were too early. It is staffed by volunteers who are college students and they were not back yet, so we turned around and walked away. Bryan wanted to show me the tent city that he had found up in the woods by the capital so we started walking.
We got there and he showed me Billy's tent. Billy is an alcoholic that used to have his tent in the woods in a different location but people kept stealing his stuff when he would leave. He is on 12 medications (which is not a good mix with the booze) and recently had his pills stolen. Two days before Bryan had walked 20+ blocks to the pharmacy to fill his prescription for him after his pills were taken. The day before I arrived Bryan moved Billy to a new location where no one would know where he was. That way his stuff would at least be safer...for now.
We followed a path down the side of a hill behind Billy's tent and came into what used to be a tent city! It was about 25 campsites that were now almost all empty. Homeless people had made a community here at one time and then they had moved on. Bryan told me a story he had heard about that tent city. During the summer most of the empty spots were full. One gentleman would go down to the river and fish all day. At night he would come up and cook fish on an open fire for everyone who was staying in their tent city. Now I know he was homeless and without a job...so he didn't have a lot of other things to do, but that is still pretty impressive. He was doing things for those around him knowing that all he would get back was a thank you. That is not something that you see a lot out of people. Just think about the last time you spent 8 hours of your time doing something for someone who you are not related to that could do nothing for you in return. Just a side thought...but think about it...and now back to the story.
When we made it through the abandoned tent city we walked down to the train tracks. We followed the tracks up to the train station and Bryan told me another story. There is an events center that you can rent for receptions, parties...etc. on the bottom floor of the train station that I had never seen. Bryan told me that the guy who manages it gave him a free soda and also free drinks for his homeless friends that were with him. They started talking and Bryan explained that he was on the street for a week raising funds for outreach ministry and the guy donated some money on the spot!
The train station is couple blocks from the Salvation Army and so we walked up there and I got to meet the homeless friends that also go free drinks before. They were three people I had never met (remember I go to pass out water, food and clothes twice a week down by the Salvation Army). I found out that why I hadn't met them was because by the time I get downtown they are already inside the Salvation Army for the night. There was a taller gentleman who had a on a black stocking hat, a trench coat and dark sunglasses. His beard was trimmed short and his voice was strong and confident. Bryan said he looks like a movie star but he can't remember which one...so I know him as Hollywood (I think Bryan calls him Movie Star, his actual name is Dirk Buck who was a steel worker that lost his job up in Clinton, AR). The second guy was a special forces veteran who was also very clean, he wore a bright red stocking hat and a teal jacket. Bryan calls him Army Guy (his name is actually Jadon Langston and he is a certified welder). With them was a woman named Tracy who I found out was several months pregnant. They asked if we wanted to go get some coffee and just talk.
That sounded like a good idea so we started to walk towards the River Market, by now it was around 3pm and this will end part 2 of my story. I have been homeless for about 15 hours and it has been a new experience filled with a lot of eating, a lot of walking, a lot of drug deals and a few new friends. I will write the next piece soon.
Friday, December 17, 2010
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Life...The Way It Is (pt. 1)
This is the first part of at least a three part series of posts I will be writing over the next week or so.
As many of you know I was "homeless" for 48 hours. Bryan Walker is the outreach minister for Benton 1st Assembly. He stayed on the street for a week as a fundraiser for the outreach ministry there and I stayed with him for two days.
Channel 11 came down and did a report on what Bryan was doing.
This first post is going to be about my time down on the street. It all started with a text message on Wednesday night. I closing up the coffee shop at my church after service. It was from Bryan and he said that he was not downtown, he was in Benton at 1st Assembly. He said he had a 19 year old girl that he rescued from the street and that he wanted me to come over to 1st Assembly while they figured out what to do in regards to this girl.
When I got over there he explained the situation. This girl had shown up and no one knew her. She said she lived on the streets and she was from Little Rock. She said her parents had died and now the street was her home. One of the homeless men had given her most of a bottle of vodka and she was REALLY drunk. Bryan called his mother (who had come down to visit him earlier) and she came and picked them up. The young lady threw up before she left the street and then she threw up again in the car on the way back to the church.
Something was not adding up with this girl. She wouldn't tell anyone exactly where she grew up or exactly where she lived. We asked for her birthday and she wouldn't say, but she kept saying she was 19...even when we didn't ask her how old she was. After some discussion we decided to call the cops. I called a friend of mine who is a state trooper and he called the Benton PD and had them send an officer over. The officer talked to Tara (that is the name of the young lady) and she told him her birthday. It ended up she was only 16, she was autistic and she was a runaway. The officer took her into custody and delivered her to juvenile services. That is how my time as a homeless man started...from there Bryan and I drove down to 3rd and Markham to stay the night.
When we got there it was already cold and dark. The police had kicked the homeless people off of the sidewalk where we were going to sleep and they had to move to a vacant parking lot behind a building. There isn't a huge difference between sleeping on a concrete sidewalk or an asphalt parking lot, so we got our "beds" ready and laid down. I had a sleeping bag (I forgot a pillow) and Bryan had a large comforter that would go over both of our sleeping bags to keep the wind out. So I was next to Bryan and about 5 feet away there was a stack of blankets and sleeping bags at least as high as a normal mattress would have been. On this mound of bedding were three homeless people. One older gentleman (we call him Pops), a woman (who I found out is a crack addict prostitute) and a middle aged gentleman (who was also a crack addict).
As we started to settle in for the night and the conversation started to slow down they started singing. Yes, I was serenaded by three homeless people. They sang a wide range of country music, old gospel and some blues. The only problem was that they didn't know any of the songs all the way through. You would get about one verse and maybe the chorus and then it would be time for another song. That went on until about 2:30am or so and I started to fade in and out of sleep. I found out in the morning that part of the discomfort I felt while laying there was because I had a tennis ball sized piece of asphalt under my back! I didn't see it when I laid my sleeping bag down because it was already dark when I got there. I also couldn't move to one side or the other due to the comforter situation (if I moved away I would be out from under it and and closer and I would be cuddled with Bryan...which neither of us wanted.)
Around 5am I was jolted awake by a man shaking both Bryan and myself. He was asking to use one of our phones. He said he needed to let someone know where to bring his truck. Bryan let him use his phone and the guy told someone to come down to the "Sally" which is what they call the Salvation Army. He thanked Bryan and walked away. Later Bryan told me that he was actually setting up a drug deal.
After the rude awakening I didn't sleep very well, which was probably for the best. I needed to be up around 6:30am to go get in line for breakfast at the Salvation Army.
The sun wasn't up yet and it was really cold when I got out of my sleeping bag. Bryan got up too and he folded up his sleeping bag and the comforter. I took the sleeping bag my roommate had loaned me and put it in the trunk of my car and Bryan left his bedding in a stack with all of the bedding of the homeless people who had sang us to sleep the night before. Now it was time for breakfast!
We got in line at the side door of the Salvation Army. The door opened just after 7am and we walked in. You have to sign in as you enter and the line goes two different directions. One line for coffee and then you turn around and go find the end of the other line for the food. I got coffee out of the big cooler and got in the food line. I looked at the breakfast (the people who were in the front of the line were already sitting down and eating). It was a donut, scrambled eggs with sausage mixed in, a hard boiled egg, rice a banana and a cup of apple juice. Since I don't eat eggs I was a bit nervous about the whole thing. I didn't want to waste any food...but no one was customizing their orders in the food line. You picked up your tray and you sat down.
There were not two empty seats next to each other so Bryan sat at one table and I sat at another table. I offered my eggs to a woman next to me when I had eaten everything else and she gladly accepted. Just before I got up to go a woman walked in the door. She had a clip-board in her hand and she started talking over the crowd noise. She said that once again this year they were going to rent hotel rooms for anyone who was NOT getting a check for Christmas so that they wouldn't have to sleep on the street. She said if you were getting a check she would find out about it and take you off the list! Also she said that you couldn't bring your girlfriend into your hotel room to stay the night! She said it was a Christian company that was based on Christian values and if you wanted to "shack up" with your girl you could rent your own room!
At that it was time for us to go, so Bryan and I walked outside.
That was my first 8 hours as a homeless man...I will pick up the story in part two.
As many of you know I was "homeless" for 48 hours. Bryan Walker is the outreach minister for Benton 1st Assembly. He stayed on the street for a week as a fundraiser for the outreach ministry there and I stayed with him for two days.
Channel 11 came down and did a report on what Bryan was doing.
This first post is going to be about my time down on the street. It all started with a text message on Wednesday night. I closing up the coffee shop at my church after service. It was from Bryan and he said that he was not downtown, he was in Benton at 1st Assembly. He said he had a 19 year old girl that he rescued from the street and that he wanted me to come over to 1st Assembly while they figured out what to do in regards to this girl.
When I got over there he explained the situation. This girl had shown up and no one knew her. She said she lived on the streets and she was from Little Rock. She said her parents had died and now the street was her home. One of the homeless men had given her most of a bottle of vodka and she was REALLY drunk. Bryan called his mother (who had come down to visit him earlier) and she came and picked them up. The young lady threw up before she left the street and then she threw up again in the car on the way back to the church.
Something was not adding up with this girl. She wouldn't tell anyone exactly where she grew up or exactly where she lived. We asked for her birthday and she wouldn't say, but she kept saying she was 19...even when we didn't ask her how old she was. After some discussion we decided to call the cops. I called a friend of mine who is a state trooper and he called the Benton PD and had them send an officer over. The officer talked to Tara (that is the name of the young lady) and she told him her birthday. It ended up she was only 16, she was autistic and she was a runaway. The officer took her into custody and delivered her to juvenile services. That is how my time as a homeless man started...from there Bryan and I drove down to 3rd and Markham to stay the night.
When we got there it was already cold and dark. The police had kicked the homeless people off of the sidewalk where we were going to sleep and they had to move to a vacant parking lot behind a building. There isn't a huge difference between sleeping on a concrete sidewalk or an asphalt parking lot, so we got our "beds" ready and laid down. I had a sleeping bag (I forgot a pillow) and Bryan had a large comforter that would go over both of our sleeping bags to keep the wind out. So I was next to Bryan and about 5 feet away there was a stack of blankets and sleeping bags at least as high as a normal mattress would have been. On this mound of bedding were three homeless people. One older gentleman (we call him Pops), a woman (who I found out is a crack addict prostitute) and a middle aged gentleman (who was also a crack addict).
As we started to settle in for the night and the conversation started to slow down they started singing. Yes, I was serenaded by three homeless people. They sang a wide range of country music, old gospel and some blues. The only problem was that they didn't know any of the songs all the way through. You would get about one verse and maybe the chorus and then it would be time for another song. That went on until about 2:30am or so and I started to fade in and out of sleep. I found out in the morning that part of the discomfort I felt while laying there was because I had a tennis ball sized piece of asphalt under my back! I didn't see it when I laid my sleeping bag down because it was already dark when I got there. I also couldn't move to one side or the other due to the comforter situation (if I moved away I would be out from under it and and closer and I would be cuddled with Bryan...which neither of us wanted.)
Around 5am I was jolted awake by a man shaking both Bryan and myself. He was asking to use one of our phones. He said he needed to let someone know where to bring his truck. Bryan let him use his phone and the guy told someone to come down to the "Sally" which is what they call the Salvation Army. He thanked Bryan and walked away. Later Bryan told me that he was actually setting up a drug deal.
After the rude awakening I didn't sleep very well, which was probably for the best. I needed to be up around 6:30am to go get in line for breakfast at the Salvation Army.
The sun wasn't up yet and it was really cold when I got out of my sleeping bag. Bryan got up too and he folded up his sleeping bag and the comforter. I took the sleeping bag my roommate had loaned me and put it in the trunk of my car and Bryan left his bedding in a stack with all of the bedding of the homeless people who had sang us to sleep the night before. Now it was time for breakfast!
We got in line at the side door of the Salvation Army. The door opened just after 7am and we walked in. You have to sign in as you enter and the line goes two different directions. One line for coffee and then you turn around and go find the end of the other line for the food. I got coffee out of the big cooler and got in the food line. I looked at the breakfast (the people who were in the front of the line were already sitting down and eating). It was a donut, scrambled eggs with sausage mixed in, a hard boiled egg, rice a banana and a cup of apple juice. Since I don't eat eggs I was a bit nervous about the whole thing. I didn't want to waste any food...but no one was customizing their orders in the food line. You picked up your tray and you sat down.
There were not two empty seats next to each other so Bryan sat at one table and I sat at another table. I offered my eggs to a woman next to me when I had eaten everything else and she gladly accepted. Just before I got up to go a woman walked in the door. She had a clip-board in her hand and she started talking over the crowd noise. She said that once again this year they were going to rent hotel rooms for anyone who was NOT getting a check for Christmas so that they wouldn't have to sleep on the street. She said if you were getting a check she would find out about it and take you off the list! Also she said that you couldn't bring your girlfriend into your hotel room to stay the night! She said it was a Christian company that was based on Christian values and if you wanted to "shack up" with your girl you could rent your own room!
At that it was time for us to go, so Bryan and I walked outside.
That was my first 8 hours as a homeless man...I will pick up the story in part two.
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