December 30, 2018

What a long strange year it's been. I started the year with a high paying job in a small town in Maine. I had an apartment, a cat named Misty, and a 17 year old Ford Taurus that had handled a cross country move from Texas to Maine with minimal difficulty.

Less than a month later, I was unemployed, the apartment was no longer in my name, Misty was in the Greater Androscoggin Humane Society shelter, and the Taurus had barely survived a move from Maine to Brooklyn after a steering hose burst that wiped out my savings. My remaining possessions were in a storage unit in Long Island City. By the end of March, the Taurus was in the possession of a formerly car-less West Indian couple from Long Island, and I was in a psychosis inducing living environment in the New York City shelter system. By that time, I had resumed regular writing for the first time since March 2016 thanks to the Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen Writers' Workshop.

By the end of April, I had enough. Elmhurst Hospital diagnosed me with a severe case of depression. I had snuck my laptop into the shelter and composed a few songs- one of which mixed EDM and classical. I used what little savings I had from my state tax refunds and public assistance to pay for a one way flight out of NYC and the shelter system to Denver.

I spent a little over a week in Denver before ending up in one of their shelters, which was run by Denver's Catholic Charities. That situation was a lot less chaotic than the CAMBA, Ward's Island, and SCO shelters in New York. I was able to find temp work rather quickly. But the temp assignments were not permanent, and the one permanent job I secured (which lasted 10 days) put me at odds with my body clock and the shelter's meal schedule. During my spare time, I joined a writer's group from Denver called Hard Times. But after 2 months in the shelter and nothing permanent on the horizon, I decided to move back to my hometown of Colorado Springs in mid-July.

I blew most of my savings on a month and a half of a house share rental in the Hillside neighborhood. After numerous job rejections (including one at the Chidlaw Building where my father worked in the 1970s), I was hired by Elwood Staffing (the successor to my former longtime employer of SOS Staffing), and sent to a warehouse on the south side of town. The work was unlike any previous warehouse or assembly work I had done before. My coworkers were very close-knit and social, a major departure in attitude from previous co-workers in Denver, NYC, and Texas. My medical records were transferred to Peak Vista and Aspen Pointe. By the end of my first visit to Aspen Pointe, I found out I was misdiagnosed in NYC and Denver- I have been suffering from (previously undiagnosed) PTSD for years, dating back to when my father was still alive. Numerous events have triggered it, including my mother's sudden death in 1991, the events of 1995 (when I lost my grandparents and father within a 9 month span), my eviction and subsequent blacklisting by the Colorado Springs Salvation Army in January 2015 which led to a Catholic Charities assisted Greyhound ticket back east, and most recently, the violent DeLousio-mandated NYC shelter nightmare.

By late October, I had enough money to buy a car, a Buick Century. Due to an extended Thanksgiving break, I drove the Buick east towards Pennsylvania and NYC. I got to visit my relatives in PA for the first time in over a year. And the Buick was big enough to fit all of my belongings from the storage unit, which I emptied in the Buick's only (day) trip to NYC. The ride back was scary, after running out of money due to an unexpected insurance bill and snow-related road closures in Missouri.

Less than a week after my return from Pennsylvania, the warehouse laid me off. Apparently the decision was made high up in the company because my supervisor and co-workers had no idea until I returned to clean out my locker. Elwood sent me to a lumber company (which resulted in 2 hours of work and a finger injury) and to a moving company that handled events at the Broadmoor. About 10 days after I was laid off, I was called back to my former warehouse site, and I'm still there to this day.

I have been going to Mass at St. Mary's Cathedral since I returned to the Springs. A few people there remember me from the previous times I attended Mass. One family even invited me to their Christmas luncheon, to which I am very thankful.

What a long strange year it's been. I'm not quite up to where I was in early January. But I've discovered a lot about myself. I'm probably more open to different kinds of friends and relationships. I'm probably more Catholic than I was at the start of the year, as various church-run institutions in Denver and Colorado Springs helped me recover from a traumatic and violent situation in New York. I'm a more prolific writer than I have been in years. I have written 2 short stories with characters I haven't written about since 2011. Thanks to Holy Apostles, Hard Times, and Wattpad, anyone can read and comment on these works. I haven't composed as much music as I normally do (although I'm working on a couple of tracks for my annual New Year's Day release on Tuesday). Hopefully in 2019 I can get more settled.

April 24, 2018

As if my life can't get any worse...

I got a rejection e-mail earlier today from the last outstanding job offer I had left in NYC. And to add insult to injury, I got a call this afternoon from the New York City ID program- an ID I applied for in March got sent to the shelter I'm staying at. The shelter refused the mail with the new ID in it (in blatant violation of their own policy), and it got sent back to the city. I was told to pick it up in person no earlier than May 4, but at this point, I have no intention in staying in NYC that long.

Right now the only thing keeping me here is a psychiatric appointment for tomorrow morning (which I probably need to attend now more than ever, even if it is more of a diagnostic appointment for wherever I do move to). I am exploring bus options (supposedly the city provides one way bus tickets out of town), but it looks like any move will probably not change my homeless status.

So much for getting a job that pays $13 and hour or getting the chance to vote Andrew "No Homo" Cuomo out of office this November...

April 22, 2018

Supposedly today is Earth Day. I understand the recycling and trying to protect the environment thing, but I don't understand the extremists who worship the earth as a god and are willing to save the planet at the expense of their own species.

I've been stuck for the last 3 months in the NYC homeless system. My first 3 weeks were at a "Drop-in" center in Brownsville, Brooklyn. Unlike city shelters, drop-in centers refuse to provide beds for their clients. They use chairs. 3 weeks of attempting to sleep in chairs and the back problems as a result of sleeping in chairs led to me entering the city's shelter system. I've spent over 10 weeks in that nightmare, with dozens of rejected job applications, the forced sale of my car, and the HRA/Public Assistance nightmare driving me to the brink of insanity.

I'm supposed to hear from my last outstanding job application tomorrow. The pay is minimum wage (although NYC's new minimum wage of $13 an hour is higher than anything I've ever earned before). But I see no point of staying in NYC and wasting away in the shelter system if I can't find work. I'd argue that unemployment has gone up here precisely because of the new minimum wage. And even that's not enough to keep up with the rents, with SROs now renting for far more than my last apartment in Maine.

I don't know if those fancy resumes, those sessions at the writer's workshop where I managed to start on a decent short story, or all that free medical care that proved that I still have asthma (and managed to prove and disprove that I had serious liver problems), I don't know if any of it was worth it.

July 26, 2017

Life is supposedly a long journey. If so, my journey in the last 6 months has been longer, bumpier, and more painful than most journeys have been. Since I last blogged, I spent a disastrous 3 months in Austin, Texas, working for my old warehouse, getting my old job back- and getting paid less and getting run out of the job after 3 months. I was planning on moving from Texas to either Pennsylvania or New Jersey when the warehouse job ended. Instead, I ended up in Maine with 2 job offers. I ended up working in a warehouse for a well-known Maine company, commuting from my current residence in Lewiston to Freeport.

I also got to visit family I haven't seen in years. I got to see my sister and nephew in Western Tennessee (the first time I've been in that state in over 20 years). I got to see my father's eccentric cousin in Franklin. The only relative in Tennessee I didn't get to see was my niece, who was finishing up her final month teaching in Cheatham County and who will be joining other family in Franklin next month while teaching at a better school. As far as I know, my niece has not experienced the horrors in her profession that most of my teacher friends in New York have (i.e. death threats, abusive students, flying metal trash cans, etc).

I next went to Chambersburg. After my uncle Rodger Barnhart's passing in March and my Godmother/Aunt Sally Bowling's recovery from a life threatening infection in April, I had to visit my surviving relatives. Most of them still remembered who I was. But as I've gotten older, they've gotten much older. It's scary thinking of Aunts and Uncles under the age of 80 needing to be in a retirement community. It's disturbing knowing that several of my relatives are battling dementia. I probably could have gotten a warehouse job in Chambersburg, but I had to at least go to the interviews I had waiting for me in Maine on June 12.

The first interview was a bit of a disaster. The second interview went well. And after spending $200 for 3 nights lodging, I was exploring my only affordable non-shelter option in Lewiston on June 13 when both called me and told me I was hired. One wanted me to start that week, the other started on the 26th. I ended up working for both until the 26th and staying with the warehouse job that was closer to Lewiston. Both paid $12 an hour, a record as far as hourly salary for me.

Now I'm getting used to long rural drives, cheaper car insurance, and wondering how much longer a 2001 Ford Taurus approaching 214000 miles can continue to hold on. It managed to get me from San Antonio to Austin to Tennessee to Chambersburg to New York to Maine over the last 7 months. Now I need the car to get to everywhere except Mass (my current residence is a block from Maine's only Catholic Basilica) and the library.

March 12, 2016

So far, this year has had a lot of unexpected surprises. The first would have been my one day of jury duty in Brooklyn last month. The second would have been letting a few complaints against my supervisor result in the end of my courier job on February 16. Another surprise was being able to attend 2 writer's workshops at Holy Apostles (and having one of my recently submitted works make their live blog). The most recent surprise was not that I had to move out of Rockaway (and New York) after losing my job, but that I was able to relocate back to Austin, Texas, and get a job and a non-shelter residence within 5 days of relocating here. The job and residence are about 2 miles from each other in SE Austin. So for 3 of the last 4 months of March, I am back in Texas. Unlike the previous times, I never had to stay at Shelter Alley, or worry about storage back in New York (all my stuff got shipped to storage here by UPS for less than what it cost me to move stuff from Denver to New York in 2011). I got to go to the Texas Independence Day Parade last Saturday (after schlepping from the drug testing to my new job in North Austin by bus). And now I get to go to South by Southwest- and not have to worry about curfews.

September 25, 2015

20 years ago, I got to see Pope John Paul in his Popemobile when he visited my then-home of Baltimore, MD. I didn't have a camera to document this. A lot has changed since his US visit in October 1995. Less than 10 years later, Pope John Paul II died. About 2 months after that visit, my father (who by that time was my last living ancestor) died. Less than a year later, I nearly got killed by my neighbors in Baltimore and had to move- and ended up in New York.

In 2015, I had to move back to the New York area after a disastrous 7 months in my hometown of Colorado Springs. I spent 2 months at a Catholic shelter in Jersey City before moving back to Rockaway. Since then, I got hired for what is probably the highest paying job of my life. I finally got to visit Ireland 27 years after I found out I had ancestry there (although I never got to meet any Clarke relatives). And earlier this evening (while at work), I finally got to see the current Pope.

I was in the middle of deliveries on the Upper East Side of Manhattan when I got to the intersection of Madison and E 66th and was prevented from going further by the NYPD. I managed to get a prime viewing spot for the Papal motorcade just as Pope Francis was passing from his school visit in East Harlem to Central Park.

Pope Francis has had a lot to say on the environment, the poor, sin, forgiveness, and prayer. Indeed, numerous times today, he asked people (many of whom aren't Catholic) to pray for him. A lot of people seem to have forgotten that one of the key missions of the Church is to help the poor. Here in New York, the Church is at the forefront of helping the needy. In other dioceses, the Church doesn't have enough resources to help the poor. In my hometown, Catholic Charities runs Marian House which feeds the poor and homeless and provides health services and many other resources except shelter. There is not enough shelter services in that town (especially for women, families, and men who are not substance abusers or veterans), and the so-called religious institution that runs the only all-purpose (200 bed) shelter in town is at best using the shelter as a way to extort money from the taxpayers of Colorado Springs. Austin is in even more dire shape, with about 500 shelter beds between 2 shelters and a homeless population between 3000-5000. And in Syria, the homeless population is in the millions and migrating towards Turkey and Europe due to a civil war primarily between the Baath Butchers of the Assad regime and the barbaric terrorists of the so-called Islamic State.

If Pope Francis and the Church can actually come up with concrete solutions to the environmental, social, and homeless/refugee problems that plague this planet, then they need all the prayers they can get. But I do trust the Church a lot more than I trust the Syrian, Russian, Turkish, or American governments at this point. Besides, if the Hildabeest, the Socialist, or Trump win the Presidency next year, I don't see any point of staying in the United States. Too many on the American left and the right fail to see how their policies hurt the poor and harm society.

September 13, 2015

As far as the residence and job, nothing has changed since April. But almost everything else has changed. I now am making enough money to afford such niceties as DNA testing and vacations. The fact that I am getting paid vacations helps too. I found out I probably am a nicer person when I'm not in New York and not around this culture. And after my vacation which ended 10 days ago, I could survive outside the United States (and probably thrive, if not for international immigration requirements).

In May, I took an autosomal DNA test sponsored by Ancestry.com. It showed I was primarily of Western European (i.e. German, Dutch, French) and Irish origin. I had so little British/English DNA in my sample that it made me question whether the woman I knew as my grandmother Hazel (who was born 104 years ago in Toronto to Worcestershire native parents) actually was my biological grandmother. I later found a Worcestershire DNA match on Ancestry that could only have been related to me through my grandmother's family. For most of the matches that showed up on there (and GEDMatch and the free version of FamilyTreeDNA), I have no idea how I'm related to these people. And the autosomal DNA test never showed me where exactly my Clarke ancestors originated. I have since ordered a more expensive Y-DNA test that should reveal where the Clarke family came from and hopefully find other Clarkes. As far as I know, I'm the last one. My parents are long gone, and my estranged sister is technically a Johnson (of the Tennessee Springer-esque branch). In June, after she threatened to have me arrested over calling a welfare check on her (which resulted in her institutionalization for being suicidal), I cut her off completely.

I figured out how to get vacation time from my job, and used the money I was saving for a car towards my first extended international vacation. To Ireland. In a lot of ways, Ireland is similar to the US. They speak English (with accents just as hard to follow as Americans from the rural South or Northern Appalachia). They listen to the same music that Americans do. They have HD and satellite television, internet, wi-fi, malls, buskers, nice cars, western style housing, and a more advanced bus and railway network. But cars are driven on the left side of the road. The currency is in euros, with anything smaller than 5 euros ($5.50 US) in coins instead of paper money. And the locals are super nice and polite- to the point that they would be easy pickings for con artists and evil-doers if they ever stepped foot in New York. I probably felt more at home in 5 days in Ireland (where I had never been before August 29) than I did in the last 10 years in America, even with the bilingual signs and instructions in Irish (a language I am far less familiar with than Spanish, or French, or Creole). But it would take a high paying job offer, a Mega Millions jackpot, or a marriage offer (from an Irish woman who could still tolerate me after several weeks) before I could ever think of renouncing my American citizenship and move there.

And wherever I end up, I can now claim to be a published writer. Not for my musings on the obscene state of New York and Washington politics, but for my songwriting and poetry abilities. Two of the lyrics to my songs (Ask and Piping Plovers) and 8 other original works were added to the Holy Apostles writers' workshop anthology that was published in June. I got to read some of my works at a public reading on June 25.

The workshop is starting up again on the 17th. However, I don't know if I can attend any of the workshops with my current work schedule.

April 19, 2015

Nearly a month has passed since I returned to Rockaway. I am still getting used to not having a kitchen or cooking devices, and paying more than half my income in rent (with the lower rent option in Jersey City negated by the more than doubling of non-car-owning transportation expenses). Somehow this part of Rockaway is still safe. There aren't any large scale shooting incidents or breakdowns here like what is happening in the Bronx and Brooklyn under De Blasio's rule. I have been working on writings for the workshop (which I have to submit via e-mail due to my new job) and for potential musical projects. After all, Rockaway is where my electronic music career began.

And in atypical blog discussion, I am trying to determine which bird flew into Rockaway last week (pictured above). I have seen the various seagulls and related sea birds that are normally found in this area as well as this weird bird that looks somewhat like a seagull but with a longer and more pointed colored beak. I have yet to see any piping plovers since I moved back. Supposedly it will be next year before work starts on the section of the boardwalk that connects Beach 115th Street to Shore Front Parkway due to research on the plovers. But there is the chance that the plovers are still pissed about that song I wrote about them last year...

March 27, 2015

My first new blog of the year was composed in a place I never thought I'd be again. New York, or more specifically, my now seemingly permanent home neighborhood of Rockaway Park, Queens. And for the 4th straight year, I spent a good part of Lent in a homeless shelter. But I ended up in the shelter (in Jersey City, NJ, of all places) after getting into a disagreement with the super/resident manager of my Salvation Army-owned transitional housing in Colorado Springs. That led to me being evicted with 10 minutes warning and being blacklisted from the city's main shelter. After getting thrown out and threatened with arrest if I stepped foot on Salvation Army property without approval, I went to Marian House, the main low-income/homeless information center in Colorado Springs. After rejecting their suggestions of relocating to Portland or Seattle, I took a Greyhound back to New York and ended up in New Jersey when my now seemingly permanent residence didn't have any rooms available. One finally became available on the 25th of March, and I moved back with the unemployment I had accumulated while in the shelter. And after about 20 interviews and 19 rejections, I got hired by Urban Express, which means next week I will be a foot messenger again, albeit one paid slightly above NY's minimum wage and making about twice what I did in my last messenger gig.

So now, it's back to the beach and back to delivering on the streets of Manhattan. And (in a somewhat repeat of Lent 2013 and 2014) back to creative artistic pursuits- namely a writers' workshop run by the Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen. Hopefully some of the pre-work stuff I submitted can get published.

February 22, 2014

A lot has changed since I last posted here. I am now in Austin, Texas- in almost the same place in the same building I was in 51 weeks ago. I now have a Texas Driver's License (which is considerably cheaper than its New York counterpart). Unlike last time, I was not forced to sleep on the street because the shelter was full, and I hadn't finished changing the local address from the hostel I spent a week at (and used as an address for over 20 job applications) to the ARCH (Austin's main homeless shelter) before I got back into the transitional housing program I was in for March, April, and half of May last year. Things have changed in Austin, too. Few of the people I was in contact with last year are around now- possibly due to moving out of the area (or possibly even death). I recognized a few people who didn't remember me. I ran into my primary local job reference (and former case worker) at her new Goodwill assignment. One of my former running partners is well established in his new job, and too busy to meet up with me, yet he still liked some of my Austin and New York photos on Facebook. I also ran into a film/theater instructor from Israel who got me into that 6th Street Video project last year (the results of which are below) and now has me enrolled in a special theatrical project with the ARCH, UT, and a few other organizations called "Am I Invisible". I created a song that could possibly accompany this project, but I have already reached the limit of SoundCloud free space. Now I have a few hobbies to occupy my time between job search, and whenever I get my final paycheck from a certain messenger service in NYC next week, I can finally pay off some bills and maybe see if I still qualify for the discounted membership at the Austin YMCA. And maybe I can qualify for one of those under $600 per month apartments once I start working. But I am enjoying not being in snowstorm after snowstorm, and I am enjoying not have that hypocritical Sandinista De Blasio as my mayor and that intolerant scumbag Cuomo as my governor. Video of De Blasio's latest miscue

January 30, 2014

While I am still unemployed but housed, I have been on a bit of a creative streak. Since the second underpaid stint at Mitchell's ended on January 24, I came up with a song (1099) that blasts their pay structure and other businesses moving to that pay structure to avoid paying the new $8 per hour minimum wage. Over the last couple of days, I went to slightly less incendiary lyrical topics- the piping plovers who are holding the Rockaway Boardwalk hostage (Piping Plovers) and Governor Cuomo, Mayor De Blasio, and other ACORN/Working Families politicians who think pro-life, pro gun Catholics have no business being in New York (Heaven, Hell, and Rockaway- Coda).


And here are the lyrics below to those songs:
1099- by Thomas Clarke

Minimum wage, we've got a way around that... You've heard me talk about the 1099 before but here's why it's such a threat to the poor For 1099, you're supposed to be a subcontractor setting your own pay, setting your own hours Getting commission on something that's supposed to pay a decent wage It was never designed to be a way for employers to enslave and impoverish employees under the guise that they're just independent contractors But that's what it's become in New York City It's not working, get it right and fix it $8 an hour might be too high to be the minimum but for $5 an hour for twice as much work for overtime hours with no overtime pay is too little And it's not just the milkman messengers from Long Island City (Mitchells) that are doing this How about some inedible fruit arrangements from Manhattan with a legal wage the reward after months of 5 an hour? How about the big kahuna of messenger companies (Urban Express) that switched to low commission and no tax help after paying above the old minimum wage last year? Nobody seems to know or care and they think the ones getting paid a legal wage are the only ones getting screwed Some think that more pay with benefits is too little and some think that the taxpayers are their piggy bank Why should they get one penny more when there are people earning far less, working a lot more and not getting a legal wage? Fix the 1099 gap so those trapped in it can get a legal wage fix the healthcare system but not by forcing people to buy insurance and driving those premiums through the roof fix poverty by helping the poor become not poor instead of punishing them by making them or keeping them poor The leftist ideas from before didn't work then and they are making stuff worse now Quit making stuff too expensive Quit overtaxing the rich when their money can alleviate some of the suffering and they can move their money with them Leaving those who cannot afford the bill the only ones who can pay for it. Quit saying life and self defense and religion are part of the problem and not welcome When they may be part of the solution The 1099 perps aren't the only problem the jackasses need to go too get it right before the wrong type of revolution comes and heads start rolling and no one wins it's not working, get it right and fix it

Piping Plovers lyrics (c) 2014 by Thomas Clarke

we fly across the waves without much ease we look cute when we strut and when we feed we look cute, but don't mess with us we're the piping plovers we migrate west, we like the upper crust we trot across the beach so cute and so free we look cute, but don't misjudge us we milk "endangered" for all it's worth we look cute, but don't mess with us we'll get our gull goons after you we look cute, but don't mess with us we're the piping plovers we left our nests on the ghetto beach we claimed it was because of Sandy we look cute, but don't misjudge us Don't think you're getting your new boardwalk anytime soon Not until you pay for our new beachfront property! we look cute, but don't mess with us we're the piping plovers don't mess with us we'll get our EPA lawyers after you we're the piping plovers think we should press FEMA for a new jacuzzi? no, let the pigeons pay for it from their tributes


Heaven, Hell, and Rockaway (Coda) Lyrics- (c) 2014

Trapped somewhere between Heaven, Hell, and Rockaway between what's left of America and Europe somewhere where the poor are getting poorer the Faith is under attack what used to be wrong is now right and what used to be right is now not welcome Somewhere in Rockaway the pigeons, seagulls, and piping plovers are fighting over food at the shore and the plovers are holding up the new Boardwalk until 2017! politicians are fighting over monetary food over how progressive they can be when they're really regressive who says someone being pro-life and wanting to defend oneself has no business being in New York? Maybe Cuomo, DeBlasio, and their ACORN and jackass buddies should leave New York instead! I'm to poor to live here comfortably............ Stuck somewhere between Heaven, Hell, and Rockaway and maybe somewhere between Pennsylvania, Colorado, and Texas if things don't work out here...... Who said I had to stick to one style? who said I had to leave things the way they were? it's a brave but messed up new world and I'm trying to adapt

January 29, 2014

New year, same old problems. I am unemployed again- because 5 months worth of sub-minimum wage commission delivery work did a number on both my wallet and my right knee. I started the new year in Rockaway Park with my sister and nephew visiting from Dyersburg, TN. This was the first time I had seen either since my 30th birthday- in May 2002! Not long after they got here, a major snowstorm socked NYC with 6-12 inches of the white stuff.

My nephew, of course, enjoyed it. I nearly got frostbite taking those pictures.

On the way back to Pennsylvania and Tennessee, my sister got trapped in an ice storm. About 2.5 weeks later, another snow storm of around a foot hit NYC.

Supposedly NYC is not the only place in North America with horrifically-below-average January temps. Austin had temps in the 20s- a good 20-30 below average (and a humanitarian crisis with 4000+ homeless flooding the shelters that were designed for one tenth that number). Colorado Springs had major snowstorms. Minnesota had days in which the high temperature was below 0. And the Southeast got paralyzed this week by snow- albeit far less snow than what NYC has seen this month. Even Florida and Texas can't escape this cold. The Super Bowl will be held across the river from NYC on Sunday. I hope the NFL knows what it's in for- cold (although 30s by then will be a heat wave compared to most of this month), chance of snow, unfilled seats because few sane people want to pay 4 figures to see an outdoor game in the cold. Even the hotels (which unlike Met Life Stadium do have heat) are having trouble filling their rooms. I can see now why Liz Stonehill (an EMT dispatcher whose office is probably warmer than my room in Rockaway) considers snow to be a 4 letter word.

August 18, 2013

Some things about Rockaway haven't changed....

And other things have changed significantly...

There are far fewer services here now there were 10 months ago. Both Key Foods are gone, the burn area at Rockaway Beach Blvd is now a cleared, empty lot, and most of the Boardwalk west of Arverne is no more. The commute is still long, and rents are still cheap by NYC standards (although higher than what I was paying pre-Sandy). But it is weird how in the last 9 months I went from NYC to Colorado Springs to Austin to Eureka Springs to the NYC shelter system and ended up back in Rockaway and back at a low paying delivery job.

August 10, 2013

The nearly 10 month Sandy relocation nightmare that started in late October is finally over. I am now living within 10 feet of where I used to live before that storm changed everything. If I didn't have a doctor's appointment in 1 hour and a lot of stuff left to move from storage and the shelter, I'd be enjoying the backyard beach right now. More to come when I have an extended time to write, since I have lost possessions, clothes, and my mind. The Austin move back in February turned into a 3 month stay at the Salvation Army shelter there. I was lucky- there are maybe 10-15 homeless people in Austin for each availble shelter bed there. I then got a church-sponsored bus ticket to NW Arkansas in late May, where I stayed near my Aunt Debbie who I hadn't seen in 15 years. And then on returning to NYC, I spent 2 months in the shelter system (mostly in Jamaica) and got 2 jobs after being unemployed for 9 months. As of this morning, I moved back to the building that as recently as December was still uninhabitable due to no heat or boiler.

December 14, 2012

Another holiday season, another move. At this point in life, I have done at least 14 interstate moves, with interstate move #15 occurring tomorrow evening. A little over a year ago, I moved back to New York. Within a month of moving back, I ended up in the city's shelter system, and it took over 4 months to get out of that mess. By the end of April, I got a messenger job, and less than a week later, I was back at the rooming house also known as the Oceanview Hotel in Rockaway.

During the time I was a messenger, part of the Northwest section of my hometown burned in something called the Waldo Canyon Fire.

I lost my job after a weeklong stay at Elmhurst Hospital due to a viral skin infection. I had no idea until I after I got out of the hospital that I was unemployed again. While I was recovering from the illness (which took several weeks due to the side effects of the anti-virals), I had to evacuate my home due to a mandatory evacuation order of the Zone A coastal areas of New York City. It was just a precaution, I was told. But most of the people in my neighborhood didn't evacuate. When the storm surge hit Lower Manhattan, it was broadcast live.

It took a few days to discover how badly damaged my neighborhood was. (Check November 5 blog for my photos of the damage.) Thanks to FEMA, I have enough money to resettle. Many who ignored the mandatory evacuation order are now wondering why their aid is delayed if not non-existent. And that's not counting those who didn't live in Zone A and still suffered horrific storm damage. But considering both the city I'm moving to tomorrow and the neighborhood I had to move from both suffered from devastating fires, I wonder if any place is safe. The news this afternoon of what happened outside Danbury in Newtown, CT further questions whether there is such a thing as safety. That situation is still fluid.

And now, people are trying to use this massacre as an excuse to restrict law abiding citizens' rights to own firearms. Do you think a total gun ban would have stopped Adam Lanza from killing people? You think he got his weapons legally? He stole them from his dead mother- whom he killed before the rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary. I guess no place is safe from fires or floods or hurricanes or tornadoes or psychopathic killers- or Obamacare or fiscal insanity or NBC.

November 22, 2012

Today is Thanksgiving Day. This uniquely American holiday is used to celebrate thanks for the gifts God has given us. For some people, those gifts are obvious- a loving family, a good job, a nice home. Some celebrate their many gifts, some are internal, some are spiritual, and many are material. Others are thankful they escaped the recent Hurricane with their lives. I guess I should be thankful that I survived Hurricane Sandy with all the major stuff safe and dry, and with a FEMA grant that will allow me to move to a place that actually has electricity and heat (although I don't currently know whether I will stay in NYC after the hotel voucher expires in 9 days or else move to Colorado Springs, Texas, or Nebraska). I guess I should be thankful that I'm spending Thanksgiving with relatives in Chambersburg that I haven't seen in years. But it still doesn't mean there is a lot to not be thankful for, indeed to be irate at.

There is still poverty. Jesus said "The poor will always be with you" (Matthew 26:11). But then that passage does not denigrate the poor, it is meant to show compassion and the Christian need to care for those who cannot help themselves. Too many people cannot help themselves anymore. They need help, but the type of help they need is subject to debate. As someone who spent 8 of the last 19 months in homeless shelters, I can argue that you don't help the homeless by building cardboard boxes to "show solidarity" with them (as a report this morning on WHP-TV suggested), but by getting them off the cold streets, getting them into indoor shelter, and helping them find meaningful work so they can afford real housing.

There is still injustice disguised as "help"- Obamacare being a prime example. This program that was intended to get more people to get health insurance does nothing to control health care costs. Indeed, it shifts some of those costs to the lower middle class who cannot afford health insurance and make too much for Medicaid through the insurance penalty tax. It is driving up operating costs for small businesses and franchises (who now are forced to pay for costly insurance) (see: Denny's, Papa John's). To avoid those costs, businesses are reducing hours for employees and hiring fewer employees. It doesn't take an economist to know what that will do to the unemployment and underemployment rates. And by re-electing President Obama, the American public has approved of his undeclared wars on the unborn (by increasing aid to the eugenics loving, abortion profiting Planned Parenthood) and the Catholic Church (by the Obamacare/HHS mandates that force the Church to pay for anti-Catholic health care practices).

For many, the solution to poverty seems to be by throwing money at those who have none. Yes, part of the problem of being poor is lack of money. Just giving a block grant to someone who has no idea on how to spend that money for needs is like burning that money in a fire pit. A block grant that qualifies as poverty in New York would be a middle class grant in Middle America. Many doesn't even know how to budget- something that should be taught in schools. Too many teachers are focused not on educating their pupils, but on their pay. There is so much bureaucracy and waste in some school districts that taxpayers are paying near 5 figure property taxes for schools that pay their administrators and janitors more than their teachers and the students who do graduate know more about President Obama's personal life and Spongebob than about Algebra and Science.

There is still general insanity- the sausage making nature of American politics, the left wing activism creeping into the American education system, the various wars throughout the world, the Satanism that pervades Al Qaeda and radical Islam, disease, hate crimes, NBC News, materialism, and the worship of money which is in full bloom this time of year. But I'll leave those discussions for other blogs at another time.

November 5, 2012

Today is the 21st anniversary of my mother's death. I wonder how she would have reacted to horrors such as the Clinton Presidency, 9/11, her daughter living through Hurricane Katrina, and her son living through Hurricane Sandy.

I have spent over a week in evacuation shelters. A mandatory evacuation order was issued for my neighborhood of  Rockaway Park on October 28. Yesterday (November 4) was the first time I've been in the area since then, because I had to meet with a FEMA employee who inspected my residence in accordance with a disaster claim. Below is the front of my residence:

 

Afterwards, I walked toward the boardwalk, and saw:

The boardwalk was even worse:

There were several aid stations on my block, offering food, water, batteries, clothing, and even cellphone charging:

But the worst damage was on Rockaway Beach Blvd due to a fire that started October 29 and didn't end until November 1:

Due to no power and no heat (and the fact that the evacuation order has not been lifted yet), I am still in the OEM shelter system. It could be weeks or months before my building is safe to move into again, and even longer before the business district on Rockaway Beach Blvd is rebuilt.

Election endorsements won't be posted today, but it should surprise no one that I'm endorsing Romney for President in tomorrow's election. At least the NYC Board of Elections came to its senses and allowed early absentee voting for evacuated residents at each borough's board of elections office until 5PM today.