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 3, 2014

What a difference a month makes. Last month, I thought I would have a quick 2 week warehouse assignment and still be stuck in Austin's shelter alley until something else came along or until I got tired enough of Texas to move back to Colorado or the Northeast. Now, the Pearson assignment is still going on, I am now in a house share in East Austin, and literally have 2 jobs. The other job was at first a hobby I volunteered with last year (see my 6th Street video on Youtube for some of the results of that project) that morphed into a multimedia/theater/art project about homeless life in Austin called Am I Invisible. When the director, Roni Chelben, found out I was moving back to Austin, she invited me to join the project even though I was not homeless at the time and had no intention of reliving my shelter alley nightmare from 2013. I ended up writing a monologue about my own views on homelessness in Austin (and how different it is than in New York) and contributing original music compositions to the project. For about a month, I was as much in the homeless shelter nightmare as the other 4 primary participants. But now, I am housed, in better conditions than I had in Rockaway. But that shelter alley/ARCH nightmare still goes on for hundreds of people in Austin- not counting the 1000-2000 who are camping out in vacant lots and park benches because of the extreme lack of shelter space. Most of the ARCH participants in the Am I Invisible project have gone through this nightmare of homelessness and unemployment for years- and were involved when I participated last year. By the grace of God, I was able to get employment and get out of that Hell. But most in shelter alley can't. This in a city with 4.8% unemployment and rising (but nowhere near NYC-level) housing costs.

Got off the train from New York, wonder why I'm back in the place where I was most invisible
where they who pledged to help told me to sleep on the streets
In New York it's illegal to sleep on the streets, and all who need it (by law) can get shelter
In Austin, there is not enough shelter space, and the police chief wants those than can help to move out of town.

Want to hear the rest, go to the Trinity Center gym on Saturday, April 12, at 3PM. This could be a boon for my self confidence and music career as well as helping others who are still in that nightmare get employment and housing.

June 7, 2011

It's like 2008 all over again. A New York politician I personally despise gets caught in an X rated scandal, I am financially forced to move from a cheap residence in Colorado Springs, and as of last night, I am in the shelter system again. Thanks to a couple of social service agencies, I have an address to give potential employers and a place to store my clothes and other items. I even have a free health clinic to go to (which has done more to remedy the skin problems than Peak Vista ever did in the Springs). But the shelters here in Denver are a lot less organized than in New York. There is no city agency monitoring them or putting shelter people in programs. Indeed, due to the lottery system they use by who shows up, there is no guarantee a homeless person will even get a bed. I spent most of last evening shuttling between 2 shelters trying to find out which one I would sleep in. Since I am definitely not the only one in that situation, I would strongly advise Denver drivers to avoid Park Avenue West of Broadway between 5PM and 8PM because of the mass migration of people trying lotteries in both shelters.

At this point, I am stuck in this nightmare until I can earn at least $250 in income (the minimum required for the SROs I've contacted here in Denver, which average $110 a week plus deposit). I am currently enrolled in the Denver Workforce Center, the St. Francis Center employment office, at least 8 temp agencies, and have applied for at least 20 other jobs. But for now, I have an address, 2 phone numbers which for now I can access for free, storage in 2 cities, and enough of a food stamp balance that I could afford a months rent in an SRO were it legal to use them for that purpose.

And if anyone thinks that all this nightmare is due to any chemical problems I have (I don't have any), or due to Bush's handling of the economy, or because I would prefer this over living in an apartment, then they should expect a Howard Newman-esque response in return.