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.

February 15, 2013

Another day, another job rejection in Colorado Springs. But the over-the-phone interview I had on Monday with a Randstad recruiter in Missouri has led to another appointment in Austin, TX next Wednesday. At this point I have to move- even if the Texas offer wasn't valid, I don't have enough money or unemployment to keep residing in that motel on the west side of Colorado Springs. So much for attempt #4 to live here. I should know by the middle of next week where I might be working or living. When I do figure out when the Sandy evacuation odyssey from Rockaway ends, I'll resume posting here.

And it's Lent now, which means I had no food on Wednesday and must abstain from meat every Friday until after Easter. I wonder if giving up life in your hometown qualifies as giving up something for Lent? But then 2000 years ago, people were giving up their livelihoods, their families, their homes for something greater- and got ridiculed, arrested, tortured, beheaded, and crucified for it.

February 12, 2013

I'm still not used to writing 2013 yet, even though it's been more than 6 weeks since the year started. I am still in Colorado Springs (for now), and since the start of the year I have moved twice. At this point, I don't know if I could ever live in a place with roommates again- my last encounter with that resulted in me going back to a FEMA hotel in Briargate on January 4. When the hotel voucher expired on January 12, I moved back to my previous (from 2010) temporary motel lodging on the West Side. Due to financial considerations, I have to move out of there on Sunday the 17th. I could barely afford Rockaway which was costing me $150 a week pre-Sandy. Where I'm staying now is costing me $160 a week, plus tax. I have no more FEMA funding and get $176 every 2 weeks in unemployment.

So much for 3 job interviews that were arranged before I moved back to the Springs, as well as 2 warehouse position offers, 1 call center job offer, 1 stock clerk job offer, 2 applications at 2 different Lowe's, 1 sales job offer from an insurance company (still not sure how they found me, as I didn't inherit the Clarke sales gene), and at least 30 other applications and job contacts since Christmas 2012..

I don't know if I should stay in the Springs after this weekend or go with an offer from my old employer Randstad to work out in Texas.

About the only things I did accomplish since I moved back to the Springs were my first dental visit/work since the 1980s, getting unemployment (although it was based on my last Colorado job because my last job in NYC never bothered to pay taxes or unemployment), and climbing to the top of the Manitou Incline on February 8, 2013.

The above picture were taken from the top of the Incline. I was too busy struggling and praying to remember to photograph my journey to the top, but the first (unsuccessful) time I tried to climb the Incline, I took the following (dated January 31, 2013)..

And something I never thought could happen happened yesterday. Pope Benedict XVI announced he will resign the Papacy on February 28. This is the first time since 1415 that a Pope has resigned. As far as I know, Benedict XVI and Celestine V are the only ones to resign for health reasons. The last Pope to resign (Gregory XII) did so to end the Avignon/Rome schism that threatened to destroy the Catholic Church. Benedict IX resigned twice (one of those times, he was paid to resign), and lived a life so dissolute that it was almost certainly a factor in the Church later mandating celibacy for priests.

So in the next few weeks, I should have a new residence (maybe in Texas) and hopefully a new job, and the Church will have a new Pope, and hopefully Benedict XVI can retire in peace.

December 15, 2012

Only 2 more hours until I resettle in Colorado Springs. I guess it's going to be a nice respite from the last 3 months of insanity in New York. But in 12 months and 3 weeks there, I maybe saw any local friends there once. I heard from them much more frequently on Facebook. I reconnected with some people, and survived some pretty horrific stuff (homelessness due to lack of money and to storm damage, and the longest stay I've had at a hospital since I was born).

And with the Newtown school shootings dominating the news, I was shocked to find something else that (assuming 20 children and 6 educators hadn't gotten killed in their school) should have made the news. It seems "Banana Boat Song" singer Harry Belafonte has gone off the deep end. Under the encouragement of self-proclaimed civil rights activist Al Charlatan, Belafonte suggested that President Obama should "work like a 3rd World dictator" and jail Republicans. Not surprisingly, this load of aural crap aired on the cable channel version of NBC News, MSNBC. I have argued for nearly 20 years that NBC and its news division should be put out of business. They have staged news. They have ignored news. They have slanted news much further to the left than Fox News has to the right. They gave a racial huckster a nightly cable show. (But then, Al Charlatan was previously employed by Fox News before he got paychecks from journalism's Evil Empire.) And now they aid and abet in treason by suggesting that the President destroy the Constitution and jail (if not kill) the opposition. Shut NBC and their corporate enablers (Comcast) down now. And while Harry Belafonte may have every right under the Constitution to spout such violent speech, I have every right to state that he should have been at the barrel end of Adam Lanza's stolen guns yesterday instead of those 20 innocent schoolchildren.

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.

August 26, 2012

Today would have been my grandmother Hazel Clarke's 101st birthday. She was a very eccentric woman who probably had more influence on my life than my mother did. Grandma Hazel was very active until her final few months. She was extremely outspoken. She liked being around children- children at the mall, her 2 grandchildren, and her great-granddaughter Allie. I'm pretty certain she was the reason my parents had me so soon after they married- at the time, Grandma Hazel was 60 and had no grandchildren to brag about. She died 3 days after her 84th birthday, much younger than her older sister Doris (who died 4 years later at age 98) and her youngest sister Mollie (who died last November at age 92).

My father, her only biological child, died 4 months after she did, at age 60. Neither of them lived to see the 21st Century. My father thought it would be all computers and spaceships by now. He may have gotten the computer part right. There aren't as many room-size or desktop computers as there were in the late 1990s, but there are far more laptop computers- and smaller notebook computers- and even smaller tablet computers, which are used for reading as well as internet stuff. And now most cellphones could qualify as computers- especially I-phones and Android phones (whose Google-created OS uses the same basic premise as the Ubuntu Linux OS on which this blog is being written).

About 8 days ago, I found a dead shark near my residence (echoes of what my father caught while fishing at Jacksonville Beach some 65-70 years ago). Thankfully I didn't find any of that shark's relatives swimming near the beach yesterday. The waves were rough enough to knock me down a few times.

Last weekend, I ended my 9 month computer drought by purchasing a used laptop. I get free wi-fi in my building, and now I have time and means to put photos, blogs, updated family trees, and stuff online without being at the mercy of the local libraries. Now hopefully, I can start searching for better paying employment, less expensive housing (after beach season is over), and maybe find that special someone or reconnect with old friends. But I don't want to spend too much time online- like certain relatives who were completely computer illiterate when my grandmother and father were still alive.

June 17, 2012

Today is Father's Day. I haven't celebrated this event in a long time, as my father died in 1995. At this point, I don't know that he would be speaking to me were he still alive. When my father was my age (40), he was married for 4 years, had a toddler (me) and a newborn (my sister).  My mother stayed at home, and it would be 5 more years until her alcoholism got out of control. At 40, my father had a well paying job with computers at the Chidlaw Building (then an annex of Ent AFB), and was 3 years away from retiring from the Air Force. The family had a nice house on Russell Circle in the Rustic Hills neighborhood of Colorado Springs. But 37 years later, Mom and Dad are long gone. My sister is about to be divorced for the second time. Her college age daughter is not on speaking terms with her. Her soon-to-be-ex-husband is a raging pill addict who stole her medicine and the medicine of their special needs son. And at 40, I have no family, no house, no decent paying job, no car, no computer even. It's debatable whether Colorado Springs or New York is a better place to live. But both have unemployment well above the national average. Due to student loan bills from the 1990s, I have no chance of ever finishing college, much less earning the $30-40K per year (unadjusted for inflation) that  my father was earning in 1975. But I never survived a Viet Cong attack. And my father never had to deal with homelessness, 15 plus years of poverty, or an ongoing war that started with an attack 6 miles from his residence.

But I've been out of the shelter for 6 weeks now, and I get to enjoy seeing the ocean, beach, and a wildlife refuge on the hour-plus commute from a SRO that takes over half my income.

April 1, 2012

Today is Passion Sunday (also known as Palm Sunday, because of those palm leaves handed out after Mass today). The palms represent the greetings for Jesus as He entered Jerusalem, in a triumphant celebration. The Passion recalls how He was escorted out of Jerusalem (in far less repute than when He entered), scourged, rejected in favor of a terrorist, humiliated, and executed. For those who don't know how the story ends, google "Easter" (which is next Sunday).

Today (as is every April 1) is also April Fools Day, although I quit celebrating that after I left Brooklyn College. The Brooklyn College Excelsior newspaper that I wrote for between 1997-99 used to have a special April Fools issue in which the paper called itself the "Excalibur" and posted such stuff as free tuition, the scumbag Scott Kuperberg taking over the world (to which I snuck in a retraction in 1999), and parrots from the athletic field swooping into nearby Midwood High School and attacking students there.

April 2012 also marks some grim milestones for me- 5 months unemployed, nearly 4 months in the NYC shelter system, 1 year without my own working car, 5 months without my own computer, 5 months since I lived in a place with a kitchen, 10 months since I had my own apartment, and 1 month left of my 30s since I turn 40 next month. I've given up a lot more than just Facebook this Lent.

March 17, 2012

Today is St. Patrick's Day, the feast day for the patron saint of Ireland. Since 1762, New Yorkers have been using this day as an excuse to throw a parade and party.

I attended 2 parades in honor of this saint- the one that is currently being marched about 8 blocks NE of this library (pics above), and the one that was held 2 weeks ago in my old hood of Rockaway (pics below).

It's amazing how some can justify drinking, carousing, wearing green, and all forms of sinful and non-sinful fun in the name of St. Patrick. I'm still trying to figure out some of the customs of my (partial) ancestral homeland. 

I don't care for corned beef and cabbage. I still go to Mass each weekend (even though most of the Irish branches of my family tree were Protestant when they arrived on this continent). I gave up drinking 13 years ago. And in some ways, going to these parades is depressing, since none of my friends in this area are of Irish ancestry (or willing to be anywhere near one of these things). At 40 (in 2 months), I may be too old to do the partying. Indeed, most of the parade goers I saw at today's parade are young enough to be my children. After about 2 hours at the parade (plus an hour getting lost in Central Park trying to avoid the crowds), I headed back towards the western side of Midtown. Eirinn go brach, indeed, when I'm not slainte, or not having go n-eiri an t-adh leat.

Maybe I should brush up more on my gaelic if my sister really does get tickets to go to Ireland later this year. 

February 20, 2012

So much to cover- and only 20 minutes to kvetch...

The Republicans still can't make up their minds. At this point, any of them will be a better choice than Obama.

To my neighbors who threatened my life over reporting a marijuana smell from the next unit over: Marijuana possession and usage is mucho illegal here in New York City. And I'm allergic to that crap. Anyone who threatens me over that reporting is facing full charges and a police visit. Personally I think marijuana and other drugs should warrant permanent prison time, but unfortunately that opinion is in the minority. But that crap is still legal in Denver.

And 12 days ago, Whitney Houston died under mysterious circumstances in Beverly Hills, CA.The first CD I ever purchased was 1987's "Whitney" (which was on sale for $10). The first 45 single I purchased (as opposed to inherited or got from school) was "I Wanna Dance With Somebody", on sale at K-mart for $1.51. I'm not as familiar with the stuff she released after 2004 (when she supposedly lost her voice due to her drug abuse). In some ways, the way she died isn't a shock at all. But Whitney and her music, which crossed boundaries of Pop, R&B, and Dance, will be missed. Below is the video to one of her best songs, which hit top-5 at the dawn of 2000.

February 9, 2012

It has been a long time since I posted here. My residence situation has not improved. I have traded uncertain quarters in Denver for the same thing in Queens. I supposedly have a job with the Parks Department, but I have no idea when I will start collecting that $9.20 an hour. My family situation is still uncertain, with my sister and her daughter not on speaking terms, and being forced to confront the demons on the Stokes side of the family after my grandmother's last surviving sister (Mollie Bayliss) died in November 2011. Uncertainty also reigns in the Republican race to see who can defeat President Obama in November. Mitt Romney has the most money, but he has fewer state wins than Rick Santorum, and spent way too much time attacking Newt Gingrich. And the current President is doing everything he can to lose this fall, especially his cancellation of the Keystone pipeline and the Obamacare mandate on contraception which has outraged the US Catholic Church.

And until further notice, this blog will be composed via library computer. In today's case, look for the lions on 5th Avenue on Google street view.

September 25, 2011

It's still September, and I still live in Cap Hill, Denver. Yesterday (for about $100), I got to escape Denver in a rented 2010 Chevy Impala and return to my hometown of Colorado Springs. Rents are still cheap there, but the job market is still worse than Denver's. Due to the abnormally warm weather since the first day of Autumn, most of the local attractions that close for the summer are still open. The Manitou spring water is still available for free. But my trip to the Springs was mainly a business trip- as in rescuing personal items from the storage site I've had there since May 31. Most of my valuable items (computers, genealogy stuff, old photos, diaries, and winter gear) are now in my suddenly undersized room in Cap Hill. Noticeably absent is my wi-fi receiver (which may have never left 618 N Weber Street back in May), which is why I'm posting this blog from the main library Downtown. Normally, I might be inclined to call Century Link and get their $29.95 no-phone internet, but I'm not sure if I want to stay in my current residence after the beginning of next month (when the month-to-month lease rent is due again). Parking in near that building is as bad as it is in New York, as I found out last night. The 2 legged neighbors are fine, but I have a major problem with the 6 legged neighbors freeloading at my place (the bedbugs and roaches) and about 2 hours ago caught a four legged unwanted freeloader- a mouse, who was probably escaping from my neighbors' cats. But I would need a car to move all my stuff out of the Cap Hill rooming house- and it could be months before I could afford to buy another car.

September 11, 2011

I didn't have internet access or a digital camera (or any camera) on this date 10 years ago, which is why I'm using alternative video/photo sources on this blog. And for the most part I would love to never remember again the horrors of what happened 5 miles from my residence on that date. I would love never to remember watching that horrible sight of the North Tower collapse live on WCBS-TV (which was the only commercial English language station not knocked off the air when that happened). I would love to forget the smells of death and the debris that came across the harbor. I would love to forget the endless funeral coverage and the media taunting by Osama Bin Laden, Al Qaeda, Hamas and their ilk. I would love to forget that one of the priests at the church I was a member of  in 2001 (St. Francis of Assisi in Midtown) died for the sole crime of administering last rites to an injured fireman.



Ten years later, I would love to ignore the event happening just outside the library where I'm writing this blog- a tribute and Beach Boys concert, in a city of 600000 that was never on Al Qaeda's radar. Sure, Najibullah Zazi lived in nearby Aurora, but instead of crossing Yosemite Street, he had to go back to New York to implement his terror scheme.

It's hard to believe that just over 10 years ago, I was an NYPD candidate (until some health problems and an ugly firing got in the way) who should have been there that day. Before September of 2001, no one ever thought the US would be involved in a deadly, undermanned Vietnam-type war in Afghanistan, or in another war in Iraq.

But all of that stuff did happen, and 10 years later, there is no waking up from this nightmare, not for the city of New York, not for those who died in the planes and at the Pentagon, and for the thousands of those whose loved ones died on that day.

Most of the readings for today's Mass (which I'm sure were the same at St. Francis as they were at Holy Ghost) had to do with forgiveness and healing. But if I can't forgive a scumbag politician who bribed my co-workers (and sent R-rated texts to a teenager), if I can't forgive another scumbag politician who fucked up the job market as well as some hookers, if I can't forgive various family members who ignored and virtually disowned me in my greatest time of need earlier this summer, and if I can't forgive my possibly dying sister who has just gone on another psychotic ego trip, how the Hell am I supposed to forgive a bunch of Satan worshiping terrorists who want to turn my longtime home into a nuclear wasteland and who succeeded in killing thousands of my neighbors 10 years ago?

August 21, 2011

My long nightmare is over. After 2 lengthy stints of homelessness, I am now employed and housed. The 2 week break between the shelters was spent at a rooming house in the Cap Hill section of Denver. I moved back there this afternoon, with slightly cheaper rent and a much bigger 3rd floor unit with great digital reception. As my main computer is still in storage in the Springs, I don't know how good any wi-fi reception is yet- or whether I will end up going with the new phone company Century Link for service whenever my computer gets to Denver.

It took a very long time, but I now have a permanent job with a certain automotive warehouse north of Denver. My temp job with Randstad's Denver office lasted 2 weeks, and I've already exceeded the number of hours and days worked with the new job. The supervisor was nice enough to let me store my bags in the office when I was staying at the Denver Rescue Mission. Interestingly enough, that warehouse is the first non-temp job I've ever held in Colorado. Randstad and all my Springs jobs were temporary, and technically I don't know if I was ever considered an employee of GCA. I never got paid for their orientation last month.

While as far as amenities, the Denver shelters are much nicer than their New York counterparts, the admission and bed policies would probably be illegal in New York. Just because one signs up to stay at a shelter like Denver Rescue Mission, there is no guarantee that person will even get a bed. A shelter forcing people out on the streets because there are no alternative beds would be mucho illegal in NYC. Indeed, the New York ACLU would howl about it and the city would end up housing people in an overpriced hotel or in Rikers (if they did something illegal to get kicked out of the shelter). And someone has not been checking who has been getting to the Denver shelters. There was a joint Denver PD/FBI/ICE raid on the Denver Rescue Mission last Tuesday (August 16). The local media ignored this 3+ hour raid, with the probable exception of KCNC, because I spent over an hour that night trying to e-mail them camera phone photos (below) of the raid taken from the 2nd floor of the Mission. After I posted about it on Facebook, my former roommate (from 1993) Vince Shovlin loaned me money to get out of the shelter, and I haven't been back since Wednesday morning. (Between Wednesday night and this morning, I was staying at the Denver hostel I first stayed at when I arrived in Denver nearly 3 months ago.) Several others never returned to the Mission, but that's because they are in jail- or in one case, a mental institution in Pueblo.

I guess the last 3 months have shown me who my real friends are. I didn't expect any help from my New York friends on this, but I did get support messages from them on my voice mail and on Facebook. I sure as hell didn't solicit Vince for money (I haven't heard from him in years until Wednesday), but I was offered the money and now have housing because of it, in addition to my first paycheck, which probably won't clear my account until next week. I definitely wasn't expecting moral support from other homeless people when I was kicked out of Samaritan House and when the Denver Rescue Mission was full, but I managed to get it. Apparently some people are praying for this semi-broken 39 year old former Brooklynite. And I don't know how or if I could ever thank them.

July 27, 2011

I have been out of the Samaritan House shelter for a week now- but given my employment status, I don't know if that will last past next week. On July 19, I got a text from a driving job I applied for 2 weeks ago, inviting me to their new hire orientation. I attended the event, which was held Friday the 22nd at the Hampton Inn near DIA. I was told I was hired and that I would get my new work schedule within 2 days. I even listed this employer on my lease. Monday- no call from the company, so I called the emergency number in the employee handbook. They refer me to one of the recruiters, who said she doesn't handle scheduling, and that someone would get back to me. That was over 48 hours ago. Assuming I am still employed (which is highly unlikely considering that this company has ignored my calls), I will not get my first paycheck until August 12- 9 days after my next rent due date. So I can look forward to the lottery line at Denver Rescue Mission again in a week, or else pay the $11 for the FREX bus back to Colorado Springs (where most of my belongings are still in storage) and invest in one of those tents along Fountain Creek.

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.

June 3, 2011

I am temporarily settled in Downtown Denver. I don't know where I will be living next week yet. I have sporadic access to the internet (although unlike last week, I'm not paying $62 a month for it anymore). Otherwise, I would spend time commenting on the death of Dr. Death (Jack Kevorkian) and the ongoing internet scandal involving the Weiner's weiner.