To live without a house...

I watched a video about homelessness and how it is exploited some days ago and I am thinking about it. I am privileged, middle class, with no issues regarding housing or money and I live in a west European country so I am not thinking about myself besides the seemingly distant possibility that someday I could be homeless too. Which is something people forget a lot.

I am thinking about how homelessness happens and how it is a near cycle for many people in it, and then I found myself not knowing exactly how to navigate that line of thought, and I started wondering about a friend of mine, who is now hundreds of kilometers away, who I have no idea where or how he is and who, sadly, (I assume) still doesn’t have a house.

I was a psychology student away from home and I met him in a random December night going back from school. Ironically, that night was also the night I had a terrible kind of experience for the first time. But I didn’t regret meeting him, at all. And it started with me seeing him sitting and asking if he needed something. Then, with time he changed me and he told me I changed him, I didn’t see him everyday or every week at times but we met overall regularly, and we just talked. Not once did he ask me for money, funnily enough, the only thing he ever asked of me was a cigarette. And around half of the times we talked, he was drunk. And at first I judged, deep inside me, I judged why would this man be drunk so often? He was a nice man, very nice, he was knowledgeable, knew several important Brazilian authors, knew some geography, had traveled a bit around the world, he had some opinions I politely disagreed on, and I offer him a hug sometimes. And he was a dad who hadn’t seen his children in 2 years, at least. He was addicted to alcohol and cigarettes (and addiction shut down my judgement, finally). But that isn’t what remains with me after our conversations. 

What remains is the regrets and the hopes he shared with me. The fact that one of the reasons he can’t not drink alcohol during the winter is because he only has some clothing and only some blankets and it is too cold to fall asleep unless he is drunk. The friends of his that he presented to me that sometimes gave him clothing or food. The fact he kept forgetting my name because it’s English and so I told him he could use a certain Portuguese nickname with me. The way he said he told about me to some of his friends, and since he couldn’t recall my name he said I was ‘the girl with glasses’. While I did never explain to him I didn’t see myself as a girl, and couldn’t blame him because my appearance is feminine, it was heartwarming. I have a nickname to call him by too, but he told me it was something he didn’t tell people, so I shall keep it to myself along with some actual life changing stories he presented to me. There’s a lot I can share as we talked throughout the months, but overall…

I still think about him from time to time. I am now far away and can’t offer soup or a blanket or to help him buy something he needs so all I can do is pray. I also gave him a letter before I left the place where we met each other with my contact information and some kind words. For now I also keep the hope he told me about once. How he hoped that when I was successful and talked about how part of my training as a psychologist was dealing with someone like him (which he often joked about when he learned I was studying psychology), that he can be in the crowd listening and say he was that guy and that he pushed through.

And why I mention this friend? Because when I remember him, I also remember, with no way to look away, that every person who is homeless and not working, homeless and working, homeless and addicted, homeless and not addicted, they all have as many stories as him, as many hopes and regrets, varying levels of niceness and politeness, sure, but all those possible ideas that homeless people want to remain addicts or stay homeless or are lazy or deserve to be there just ring so untrue. And while this was one person I met closely who was in a situation like this, and other people in that situation are completely different as each of us is their own complex human being, living in a place where I closely met him and witnessed others who just tried to survive from day to day, I feel like it is time to finally generalize the opposite ideas because they are heard about so little. The ideas that make people who are homeless not be seen as failures of society but more as living in a society that failed them, and above that, especially, as people who make mistakes like everyone else who has a home.

Of course, pretty words and nice experiences don’t solve the problem, so what might actually help is to tell you and to remind myself to research; volunteer; if you are able to, open yourself to help; and indeed remembering, if it is hard to empathize in any other way, at least, remember, soon it could be you and you would want any kind of help, even if it was just a kind word or greeting.

Thank you, be well, kisses. :)