White Flag nights, or The Difference Between the Homeless and Bums

From November through March, inclement weather is marked with the phrase “White Flag.” White Flag is declared on any night (during winter months) when the temperature drops below 32 degrees. When temps are that low, anyone seeking shelter will be allowed in, no matter what. If all the bunks are taken, the tv room is re-purposed as a sleeping area and the mats are brought in. Sometimes as many as 65 mats will cover almost every spare inch of floor, leaving only enough room to walk between the mats without stepping on a sleeping resident.

I always thought the concept of White Flag was a little arbitrary. If 32 degrees is cold enough to kill a man in his sleep, is 33 really any warmer? Doesn’t 34 feel just as cold as 32? But at the same time, I understood the need to set some limits. In a place like the South Wilmington Street Center, maintaining rules was the only way to prevent absolute chaos.

Aside from disrupting the tv schedule, White Flag nights served as great people-watching and inspiration for social commentary for me. I would walk past the open doors to the tv room, look inside at the sea of humanity and just think, “There but for the grace of God…” White Flag nights also illustrated something that people who’ve never been homeless may not realize: there are classifications to homelessness. There are the newly/temporarily homeless. They’re the ones newscasters are talking about when they utter scary statistics like “X percentage of all Americans are one missed paycheck away from homelessness!” I counted myself among that number. When the temporarily homeless talk about moving out of the shelter, they use the word “when,” not “if.”

Another classification of homelessness is the bum. Bums are the ones people are thinking of when they deride panhandlers. They’re the ones who “sleep rough” under overpasses and in campsites in the woods. The general consensus is that bums have basically given up on doing any better for themselves. They are “about that life” and can’t imagine anything better. In the shelter, the worst thing you could be called was a bum. It was a way of referring to another as subhuman, savage, dirty. Most of the guys who came into the shelter on White Flag nights were described as bums by the rest of us. They were the guys who’d been barred (sometimes permanently) from the shelter for previous bad behavior, or for an inability to comply with the rules of The Program. Luckily for them, White Flag nights trumped being banned from the shelter.

The other notable characteristic of White Flag nights was the smell. That many unwashed guys in one poorly ventilated room can produce a stench of ungodly proportions. Other than the sight of that much humanity crammed into one room, it was the smell that took my breath away more than once. Some nights, the tv room smelled like a combination of feet, beer-sweat, and “sadness.” It’s the smell of the bums that will always stick with me. I learned the hard way to hold my breath when walking behind certain people. Once when Kindred and I were sitting in the tv room eating dinner, a bum walked past us and sat down about a foot away from us, on Kindred’s side of the table. Suddenly, Kindred swore and stood up abruptly. Continuing to curse, he stormed over to the trash can and dumped his (almost full) tray in the trashcan. When I asked him what was wrong, he glared at the newcomer and said he’d lost his appetite. Before I could ask what he meant, the smell hit me. If I’d had to wager a guess, I’d have said that the time since the bum’s last shower could be measured in weeks, not days.

The smell notwithstanding, White Flag nights always served as a stark reminder that it could always be worse. I got a glimpse of how the homeless sometimes live, and I knew for a fact that it wasn’t for me.

Allen likes to drink

By the time Kindred made his return from Holly Hill, I had become friends with Allen. Allen was a creative-minded chef with a quick wit and sarcasm that mirrored my own. And in that grand tradition of food service professionals, Allen loved to drink. A few nights before Christmas, he and I met after work for drinks, and Allen dropped $150 on food and drinks. By himself. Which presented a problem since we were in "The Program" (Progressive Housing Program), and were barred from drinking. By the time he finished his second "last" gin & tonic, he was swaying like an antenna in high wind.

We chain-smoked cigarettes the whole walk back, hoping to mask the smell of liquor and bad decisions. Having bluffed my way through roadblocks and cop stops before, I knew how to carry myself as we checked in at the front desk of the shelter. Allen, on the other hand, was a mess: sweating heavily, he was having a hard time regulating his footsteps. He vacillated between mumbled apologies and fits of giggles, when he managed to tear himself from the task of watching his feet as he walked. Apparently he didn't trust them to follow the given commands, with good reason.

Every person entering the shelter is subject to being searched. That meant that getting Allen back inside the shelter for the night would take some luck. One whiff of the fumes he was breathing would lead to a closer examination, which would have been disastrous. But fortune was on our side: the deputy who was working the door gave us a perfunctory swipe with the metal-detecting wand, and the front desk staff barely tore themselves from their conversation to get our bunk numbers.

I left Allen in the hall, stumbling back toward his dorm. Residents weren't allowed in dorms to which they weren't assigned, so I was prevented from actually tucking Allen into bed to make sure he was down for the night. Twenty minutes later as I heated up some canned goods I'd stashed in my book bag, Kindred approached me with wide eyes, asking, "Hey man, what the hell is that white boy on? He is gone." Dread tickled at the base of my neck as Kindred filled me in on the twenty minutes that had just passed.

Instead of making his way to bed, Allen had staggered outside to the smoke area, where he managed to impress everyone with his lack of coherent speech. Not one to let that stop him from attempting to speak, he finally nodded off in mid word. The quiet was so sudden that someone was scared he'd died and went to get help. He'd been awakened by the looming presence of the front desk staff with an assist from the deputy on duty. In what can only be described as The Miracle Before Christmas, they believed his assurances that he was just tired and would go to bed once he'd smoked his (unlit) cigarette.

My friendship with Allen presented something of a challenge to me. On one hand, the last thing I needed in my life at that point was an excuse to drink. Allen was as predisposed as I was to engage in Inappropriately-Early Drinking. I can't, in all fairness, call Allen a bad influence though. He never dragged me into any trouble. It was more like we were holding hands and skipping drunkenly down the road to ruin, side by side.

In Allen's favor was a simple fact: he was undeniably cool. We got each other's random pop culture references; we understood each other's devotion to a sometimes harsh industry; we both enjoyed toasting that industry with the free drinks we boasted we could talk out of the bartenders of the bars in downtown Raleigh. Whereas Kindred was like a younger version of me, Allen felt more like a peer. His mistakes mirrored mine, and his bad decisions had ended with results similar to my own.

The night before New Years Eve, Allen fell apart. I was walking home from work when I spotted a figure walking towards me through the cold drizzle. From as close as a block, I could tell that the hunched, stumbling person was Allen, and he was drunk. The fact that he was already drunk at 5:30 in the evening, plus the fact that he was walking away from the shelter in that condition, didn't bode well. Though he looked right at me, his eyes were glazed and bloodshot, and didn't recognize me. I spoke his name, startling him into recognition. Relieved to see a friendly face, he hugged me and launched into a rambling story about how he'd "lost it...just lost it."

I knew he'd gotten some new responsibility at the restaurant where he was cooking. In fact, that very morning he'd been given the keys to open the place and take a large food delivery. At first I thought he meant he'd lost the key, but that would hardly have explained his appearance: wet, disheveled, with spots of blood on his shirt and face. Turns out that the food shipment was much more complicated than he'd anticipated, and he panicked. He was smart enough not to raid the bar, which was monitored by a security camera. But when he stumbled onto a few bottles of white wine in the cooler, his fate was sealed. He was found later, passed out in one of the booths, his half-empty to-go cup of wine still at the table in front of him. He was, of course, fired.

He managed to talk his way into enough alcohol to keep him pickled until it was time to return to the shelter, where he promptly got into a fight with another resident. He got briefly tossed around before being tossed out of the shelter. By the time he encountered me, he'd stashed his things under the bridge where some homeless choose to make their homes. He was planning on sleeping under said bridge, but I wasn't having it. By Providence, before I got off work, my boss had given me my tipshares for the week, so I had enough for a single in the cheap motel across the street from the shelter. Allen nearly convinced me not to, but as it began to rain harder, I redoubled my arguments and convinced him to accept my gesture. I tried to soothe his wounded ego with humor, "Hey man if you're worried about paying me back, you can just take your top off and dance for a few minutes, and we'll be square." His laugh was deep and genuine, and it was the first one I'd heard since running into him that evening.

I hugged him in the parking lot, making him promise to get in touch with me and let me know his plans. I crossed the street, wondering what would become of Allen. When I next heard from him, he was still homeless, only this time it was in Hawaii. After getting fired from the restaurant, he'd collected his final paycheck and bought a ticket to the land where palm trees sway, intent on an adventure. He knew neither a soul in Hawaii nor where he was going to stay, but the same could have been said of his arrival in North Carolina.

He spent a week catching waves and chasing a constant buzz, then returned to the mainland, broke. Deciding he needed a major course correction, he went into a year-long rehab program and that was the last I heard of him.

I only knew Allen a short time, but we'd become close friends in that time. It was the kind of intense friendship borne of shared suffering and struggle, and it had changed me. Allen had served as a live-action Afterschool Special: "I'm Besties With an Alcoholic!" As I watched his life fall apart one drink at a time, I'd begun cutting back on my own drinking. Long after Allen left for Hawaii, I'd find myself remembering his decline as I turned down a drink with lunch.

Kindred takes a vacation from homelessness

After I got the job at the cafe I had less time to spend with Kindred. We'd still go to the library to collaborate on our graphic novel, but work took first priority for me. Even though Kindred wasn't employed, he treated getting a job like a job. He'd catch the bus or walk to temp agencies, or he'd go to the library to fill out online applications. When we weren't working or looking for work, we'd watch TV together or just sit around talking about our lives. In a way Kindred was my best friend. I didn't want to share my circumstances with even my closest friends, and I didn't feel comfortable coming out to most of the guys in the shelter, so nobody really knew all sides of my life. Except for Kindred. He was one of the few people who knew my sexuality and my residential challenges and accepted me anyway.

About a week after I got the job, I had my first late shift. I was assigned to work the bar at a reception at the museum and didn't get back to the shelter until 11 that night. I made it into the cafeteria to eat before lights-out (I used my food stamps to buy some food at the store on my way back), so there were still some people watching TV with me. One of them was a young guy named Jimmy who was obsessed with Japanese animé and spent all his free time watching movies and playing video games on his laptop. Turning to me he asked, "Hey man, where's your boy Kindred? He wasn't in the mandatory meeting tonight and I haven't seen him." I was so tired that I didn't think much of it. I assumed Kindred had already gone to bed, and said as much to Jimmy.

After I finished eating, I was heading back to my dorm when I heard two staff members talking about a light-skinned guy who left after some heated words with one of them. Immediately my stomach began to sink and I checked Kindred's bunk as I walked past it in the darkened room. It was still made up from that morning, and clearly hadn't been slept in. I stuck my head in the bathroom to see if maybe he was in there--no Kindred. Hoping against hope, I went out to the smoking area outside to see if he'd bummed a cigarette off someone--no Kindred. As I slowly walked back to my bunk I started considering where else he might be. His relationship with his family seemed strained at best--he hadn't reached out to any of them Thanksgiving day and seemed opposed to even trying to do so. He intentionally kept his circle of friends small, and none of them seemed to be in a position to help him. I could only hope he had found a place to stay and wasn't "sleeping rough" under the stars.

From a purely selfish point of view I hated to see him gone because of the loneliness that now loomed large. I knew I'd miss our effortless friendship and the feeling that I wasn't alone in my struggles. As I laid down in my bunk, I said a quiet prayer for him. I prayed that wherever he was, he was safe and warm and confortable; I prayed that he knew how much his friendship meant to me; I prayed that, whatever path he was on, it would lead him to the happiness and peace he deserved.

A few days later the mystery was solved when I got an instant message from a woman on Facebook. Without any preamble, she told me Kindred was in Holly Hill, a local mental hospital. She told me he wanted my number so he could call me directly. When I got him on the phone he explained that his recent efforts to secure disability (on the basis of mental illness) had backfired and he'd been involuntarily committed. Turns out he was a more convincing actor than he'd anticipated and was "diagnosed" as bipolar. His reaction to this diagnosis was the basis for his involuntary committal. He spent two weeks going to counseling sessions and trying to convince them that he was okay to cut loose before they finally agreed. Kindred never again mentioned the possibility of getting disability on the grounds of mental illness. I guess he figured he'd lived enough of the real thing and didn't want to play that game anymore.

In the shadows of giants, pt. 2

Everywhere I turn, there are people resting in the shadows of giants. In some parts of Raleigh, those giants are the looming crystal towers and condominiums. Not far away, the giants are those guardians of legislature in the Capital Building. Built in Greek Revival style, it sits surrounded by lawns dotted with memorial statues to the dead of several wars.

Also peppering the pristine lawns are a few homeless figures. The paradox is amazing to me: society's most powerless separated from its most powerful by an expanse of lawn.

Penthouse suites, Joel Osteen, and a fresh pair of kicks.

I went back to the spot under the overpass where people apparently find lodging against inclement weather. Kindred and I dubbed it The Homeless Penthouse Suite. You have to duck precariously low to get under the first beam, but it's remarkably peaceful under there...once you learn to tune out the cars hurtling down South Wilmington Street a few feet above your head.

One of my finds was a fairly pristine copy of a Joel Osteen book, Become a Better You. The irony was not lost on me. It occurred to me that if the book was any good, it wouldn't be in the "front room" of an overpass penthouse suite. But then, neither would its reader.

Back at the shelter, I watched a new guy lovingly cleaning his Chuck Taylors. They clearly weren't new, but he wiped them with affection and care. Noticing the attention of another resident, he shrugged, almost to himself. "I got to take care of them. These shits the only I really got." To me they were just a fresh pair of kicks. To him, they were a reason to take pride in his appearance.

Joan and The Captain

My pride made it hard for me to reach out for help. In no aspect of my life was this as pronounced as in my dealings with my parents. As far as I knew, Joan and The Captain (as I affectionately called them when they were out of earshot) were completely unaware of my residential challenges. When I spoke with Joan on the phone, I made it a point to emphasize the positive points: I've got a job! My boss says I'm great! Things are really coming together!, I trilled. I tried my best to distract her from the train wreck my life had become.

My parents were high school sweethearts, raised in a time when marriage was forever. They've been through a laundry list of problems: The Captain's frequent and long deployments when he was in the Army; financial struggles as they tried to make it on my mom's career as an English teacher and my dad's military career; all the miscarriages.

Both before and after my birth, they experienced several miscarriages. I recall once coming home from an outing with The Captain, only to have Joan meet us at the door with the statement, "The doctor said it's like I was never even pregnant." It didn't occur to me until much later how devastating that moment, like the others, must have been.

When I did grasp the full extent of their losses, I felt a tremendous amount of guilt. Of all the pregnancies, I'm the one who came to term? I imagined them cursing their luck. It didn't help that my life seemed to consist of a series of false starts and screwups. I went to college and dropped out my sophomore year. I joined the military, only to get kicked out to for being gay after two years. They stuck with me through repeated incarcerations, employment terminations, even a couple of boyfriends. Never once did they express what I'm sure was their profound disappointment in me.

Even knowing how much they loved and supported me, I still couldn't bring myself to tell them their only child was living in a shelter. I couldn't bear to be their screwup kid one more time. I decided early in my homeless adventures that I wouldn't tell Joan and The Captain about my circumstances until I'd improved them. The only thing they could do for me was worry, and they'd done enough of that on my behalf already. So I decided to do it on my own. You got yourself into this on your own, I thought, you can get yourself out of it alone.

A return to the land of the employed

For the first three weeks I was at the shelter, I didn’t have a job. The feeling that I would never again be gainfully employed consumed my thoughts. Every day it ate away at my natural optimism like a cancer. And then, in one week, it was like the dam broke and everything started to change at once. I had three interviews scheduled at the end of the week: two on a Thursday, and another on Saturday. The interview Saturday was at News of the World Café, a restaurant located inside the NC Museum of Natural Sciences downtown. After responding to a Craigslist ad with my cover letter and resume, I got a call back from one of the managers, Sam, asking to schedule an interview on Saturday at four.

The day of the interview, I dressed carefully in khaki pants, a pale pink long-sleeved button down shirt, and navy blue sweater vest. I looked like “prep” personified, but I hoped to also look highly employable. I found out later that Sam had scheduled the interview so late because Saturdays are the busiest in the museum, and therefore in the café. By the time I got there, the craziness had died down, but I could still sense the dissipating energy all restaurants have immediately following a rush of business.

Sam was an enthusiastic white man with bright blue eyes, brownish-red hair, and a friendly smile. He was a few years younger than me, and slight in frame.  I would soon find out, however, that what he lacked in physical stature, he more than made up for in sheer enthusiasm. He greeted me like an old friend with a knuckle-crushing handshake and the interview began.  We sat at one of the silver tables in the café and went over my work history, my strengths, and my personal goals. He seemed genuinely interested in hearing about my background, and we chatted easily for twenty minutes. Finally, he gathered the pages of my resume together with my application and promised to pass along my name to the general manager for a follow-up interview.

Walking out of the café into the fading sunlight of the evening, I couldn’t help but think I’d rather nailed the interview. I was left with a positive impression of the staff working there, and thought that Sam had been left with a similar impression of me. The only thing left to do was wait and hope that the general manager, Lily, would call me back soon for the follow-up interview.

Two days later, while walking back to the shelter with Kindred, I noticed a voicemail notification on my cell phone. I hadn’t heard the phone actually ring, but that wasn’t uncommon. It was a low-tech “Obama Phone” and I wasn’t yet used to its synthesizer-style ringtone or gentle vibration. I was used to my old smartphone that was loud enough to wake the dead and vibrated like it was trying to chew its way out of my back pocket.

Listening to the message, I came to a complete stop in the middle of the sidewalk. I stopped so suddenly, that Kindred didn’t notice right away and took three or four steps without me before glancing back quizzically.

“Hey buddy! This is Sam Howard from News of the World Café. I spoke to my manager, Lily about you and she’s excited about sitting down with you. I was hoping you could come by sometime tomorrow afternoon, just give me a call back when you get this so we can set something up. My cell number is 919….”

When I got through to Sam, we agreed that I’d come by the next afternoon for a sit-down with Lily. Oddly, I wasn’t as nervous for this interview as I’d been for the first one. I figured if all she had to go on was what Sam had told her, he must have told her some pretty nice things about me. Plenty of people in Raleigh had relevant experience, but she was making time to talk to me. Realizing that boosted my self-esteem, and by the next day I felt ready.

This time I wore khakis and a blue and white gingham long-sleeved button down. Once again I looked like I’d crawled out of a J. Crew catalogue, but after having seen the denim-clad, heavily tattooed barista working at the café, I felt like my fashion sense was the least of my concerns.  My interview with Lily, a perky 30-something with sunny blonde hair, was remarkably like my interview with Sam. We chatted like friends, and I tried to let my personality shine without rambling on. After only ten minutes she nodded silently to herself, as if meeting me had confirmed something she’d suspected from her conversations with Sam. She concluded the interview by saying, “Well, I have three more interviews to go, but I’d call you a strong candidate for the position. I like how you express yourself, and I like the idea of you interacting with guests on our behalf. You should be hearing from us by the end of the week.”

After feeling so down about myself for so long, I was scared to be optimistic but I couldn’t help myself. As I strutted past the giant globe outside the museum, I sang to myself, “They liiike me…they liiike me….they really really liiiiike me!” Two days later, I got the call from another manager, Jeff, inviting me to join the staff of News of the World Café as an attendant/cashier.

To say that I was happy about the job offer would be a massive understatement. It was like a weight had been lifted not only from my shoulders, but from my spirit as well. Not only did I have the opportunity to make money again, I had taken the first step toward getting out of the shelter. No longer was my departure an “if”; it was a “when.” I was on my way, and my heart was glad about it indeed. 

"My pride fell with my fortunes" - Shakespeare

One day at work I was talking to a coworker when he mentioned having seen me walking with two friends downtown. I didn't have a car, and I lived and worked downtown, so seeing me walking downtown wasn't all that extraordinary. But when he mentioned we were walking past Oak City Outreach, I understood what he meant and got a little nervous. The day before, Kindred and I had run into Calm Down Phil, and together  we'd walked to OCO to see about getting some free toiletries and snacks. Apparently we were deep in conversation and I didn't see my coworker when we passed him.

Being spotted like that made me nervous because I was trying to keep my residential status as low key as possible. While there's no particular shame in being "residentially challenged," there's no pride in it either. I've noticed that people tend to identify new members of a social group by the most easily identifiable trait. It was bad enough that half my friends knew me as "the gay one," I didn't want to be known among my new work friends as "the gay homeless one." I don't think I'd have been able to bear it.

Throughout my journeys in homelessness, I struggled mightily with my pride. When a photographer from the local paper appeared at the shelter to take pictures of the volunteers serving the homeless, I kept my head so low that I nearly got gravy on my nose. I once declined to join Kindred in line at the soup kitchen because my best friend was in town for the weekend, and I knew she was staying at a hotel a few blocks away. The thought of her driving past and seeing me in line robbed me of my appetite and produced a fit of anxiety that sent me scurrying back to the shelter for a lunch of peanut butter crackers and soda from the vending machine.

Deep down, I knew I'd have to set aside my pride in order to ask for the help I needed. Metaphors about squeaky wheels being greased reminded me that if I didn't share my misery with those closest to me, I'd be doomed to spend the rest of my life mired in it. But I just couldn't bear to admit to the people I loved how much of a trainwreck my life had become.

A little motivation

First night in the shelter

For about six months, I’d been living with my friend Charlene, but the property manager at her apartment complex found out I was there and threatened to evict her for breaking her lease if I didn’t leave within 24 hours. With nowhere else to go, I made my way to the men’s shelter on South Wilmington Street in downtown Raleigh. My first night there was kind of a blur. I was pretty relieved to have a roof over my head at all, but eventually the reality of my situation began to sink in and I found myself becoming overwhelmed.

Even though I’d only packed a fraction of my actual possessions, I still had a duffel bag full to overflowing with clothes, and three plastic supermarket grocery bags full of shit (for lack of a better term). Surveying my pile of belongings, the caseworker doing my intake paperwork murmured “I don’t think you’re going to have enough space for all that. I’d advise you to lock up the important or valuable things and keep a close eye on the rest—things can get stolen pretty easily around here.” I’d been lucky enough to get a bed, which meant I got a medium sized drawer under my bunk and a small wall locker. In my haste to vacate Charlene’s apartment, I’d never considered that I might have more items than the storage space allotted to me could accommodate.

The caseworker, a diminutive New York Jew named David, promised to keep an eye on my things while I walked the two miles to the closest store that sold locks. When I returned, I was afraid that someone would have sold them for crack but they were still there, meagre and pitiful looking, but untouched. I crammed what clothes and shoes I could into the lockable spaces and put my tablet and loose papers in my bookbag, which I vowed to keep within arm’s reach at all times. Somehow I knew that the tablet would be a connection to the life I’d known and was determined to never be without it.

I’d arrived at the shelter just in time for dinner. My first meal as a homeless man consisted of baked chicken coated in greasy ketchupy barbecue sauce, soggy boiled potatoes, limp green beans and a square of yellow cake that had clearly seen fresher days. The shock over my sudden change in circumstances had dimmed my appetite, but I knew I should eat all I could. The only thing worse than going to bed as a homeless man would be going to bed as a hungry homeless man.

After dinner the TV room was cleared so the Chore Team could come in and clean up after us. They swept, mopped and made room for the overflow guys who didn't have an actual bunk and would be sleeping on mats on the floor. On White Flag nights when the temperature dropped below 32, the entire cafeteria would be filled with mats, as many as 70 men sleeping on thin green mats. But when temps were "warm" enough, we'd be allowed back into the cafeteria to watch TV until lights-out at 11.

I've always had a hard time going straight to sleep when I lay down, so lights-out in the shelter meant laying in the dark listening to the other guys in the dorm snoring and farting. Hardly lullaby material. But that first night, I didn't heard them at all. My mind was reeling from the new reality I was facing: homelessness. I couldnt even bear to think the word, yet I could scarcely think of anything else. Eventually I drifted off, and (as these things tend to go) I felt better in the morning. Having survived my first night in the shelter, I awoke more determined than ever to find employment and get my life back on track.

Lunch at the soup kitchen

The first few days I spent in the shelter, I still had a few dollars on me. Since breakfast and dinner are provided daily by the shelter (with volunteers doing the serving), my only real expense was lunch every day. For a while, I had enough to indulge in McDonald’s value menu, but eventually my money ran out. For two days, I’d leave the shelter after breakfast, not knowing how I was going to feed myself until dinner that night. Those were two long, hungry days. One day on the bus I overheard two fellow residents talking about a church downtown that provided hot lunches for the down-and-out. I discreetly followed them off the bus and up the block towards the Church of the Good Shepherd.

I got in line as they queued up along the sidewalk, listening to the mingled voices of the crowd. There were a few familiar faces—guys from the shelter or people I’d previously seen around the downtown area. As the line grew longer, I battled with the feelings swirling inside me. “I don’t belong here” I kept thinking; “This place isn’t for people like me.” …”I’m not like these people.” The reality of my situation directly contradicted those ideas.  If I didn’t eat there, I didn’t have any reasonable way to feed myself for lunch. I did belong there; this place was for people just like me; I was just like everyone else in line: hungry, and struggling to make it.

The line snaked down the block, into a small fenced-in alley that led into the fellowship hall of the church. Eventually the line led into a hallway, then into the hall itself. It was a smallish room, with about 15 round tables positioned tightly around the room. Each table was ringed with seven folding metal chairs. As we entered the room we were greeted by a volunteer at the door handing out wet naps. My first thought was that the wet naps wouldn’t make a dent in the filth some of the diners bore. But I guess that was a more practical nod to hygiene than expecting all those people to troop off to an unseen bathroom and wash up. It was evident that many of them were accustomed to eating with dirty hands anyway, so maybe the wet naps were more of a token gesture than anything else.

After being welcomed, we inched along the edge of the room until we reached the serving line. A smiling volunteer welcomed us again and handed each diner a tray and a single plastic fork wrapped in a napkin. The serving line was staffed by more smiling volunteers, each scooping a portion of their designated food onto a Styrofoam tray. The volunteers rarely asked if the diner wanted the food, they simply ladled it onto the tray and passed it along to the next volunteer. That makes sense, since there were signs by the door saying the staff wasn’t in a position to accommodate dietary requests. Religious, cultural, and medical diets weren’t observed. I guess the thinking was that there were too many people coming through the line to make each tray especially for each person, and if they were hungry enough they’d eat what was given to them. It didn’t matter to me—I was grateful to have something to eat and someplace to sit down and eat it.

The menu varied depending on the day and the group doing the cooking and serving. Sometimes it was chicken, other times hamburger patties, sometimes more than one meat. Sometimes the food would change over the course of the hour-long lunch, as they ran out of items and had to substitute with something else. Again, I was completely unbothered. I was more concerned with keeping the walls of my stomach from clapping with hunger.

One thing that surprised me was how good the food was. I don’t really know what I was expecting. I guess the phrase “soup kitchen” left me with images of Oliver Twist begging for another bowl of congealed slop. In reality, the food was damned tasty. Savory casseroles, hearty portions of beef, steaming pans of green beans—it was amazing to me. Though they couldn’t be concerned with dietary requests, they clearly took great pride in cooking delicious, filling food for us, and I was grateful.

After collecting our trays, we would pick a seat somewhere in the room and sit down to eat. Often, the pace of people coming into the hall exceeded the pace of the people getting up to leave. For the first thirty minutes or so, there would be adequate seating for everyone. After that, more and more people would be forced to wander around holding their trays, looking for an empty seat. It was a bit like the holding pattern of a busy airport, with planes circling the runway looking for a place to land.

The tables were decorated with vases of (relatively) fresh flowers, salt and pepper shakers, and napkin holders. The napkin holders were the kind that have plastic covers on the sides, meant to be used for advertising. Instead of ads for, say, Earl’s Auto Body Shop, there were hand-drawn signs on each of the holders. They varied from table to table, but each was a life-affirming message reminding us that we were loved. One of my favorites read, “You are precious in His sight.”

After eating our fill (I’m ashamed to say I could rarely finish all the food given to me), we dumped our trash and empty plates into a trashcan and handed the dirty trays through a window to a volunteer who loaded them into the dishwasher. Then we’d walk out of the fellowship hall, back out the hallway, through the alley and back into the sunlight of the street. There’s a certain comforting feeling when you’ve eaten your fill and have one less thing to worry about. I’d often find myself smiling and quietly thanking God for the good people at The Church of the Good Shepherd. As filling as the food was, it was the smiles and kind words that felt more nurturing. There was never a turned-up nose—even the teenagers that sometimes manned the drink table or circulated the room offering cookies looked like they wanted to be there. I don’t think I’ll ever be grateful to be homeless, but I’ll always be grateful for places and people like that—ready to make me feel welcome and remind me that there’s always room in God’s heart for all His children.

This is what "homeless" looks like

According to statistics from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), there are as many as 49,000 homeless veterans on the streets of America. As of November 8, 2015, that number included me.

To be honest, there’s no one reason that I’m now living in a men’s shelter. Bad decisions, brushes with the law, alcohol, and just plain bad luck have all contributed to my current circumstances. But more important than how I got here is how I’m going to turn things around. Faith in God, faith in myself, and a little help from my friends will all be crucial as I plan my ascent from homelessness. 

By sharing my story, I hope to accomplish two things. I want people to look past the “typical” story of the homeless and see the humanity that lies beneath it. Just as important, I want to be an example. I still have a long way to go, but I want to prove to others (and myself) that it’s never too late for redemption.