Yes. I am.
My job is take care of a man, I will call Charles. Charles is a man I met a few years ago who is age 65, and was homeless in Berkeley, CA - and had been for 40 years on and off. I don't know why, but most people were scared of Charles back then. Probably because he is tall, and he ranted and raved and rhymed. I wasn't.
Maybe it was because he couldn't take being homeless any more and literally there was NO housing. He and I and another homeless guy went over to the Berkeley city's housing assistance place and those people over there told us to go on Craigslist to look for housing. Wow!
That's how bad it was. There is nothing there - just shelters with short-term bed-bug beds - but really no hope for getting any permanent housing.
So Charles, then age 62, who had been homeless on and off since he was 21, was just done with it. Charles had had an accident at age 20 with LSD, which had landed him in Napa State Mental Hospital, and all the other drugs they gave him to bring him out of the trip, really screwed him up bad, and then his extended stay there, made him a "mental patient".
I guess in his eyes, I seemed to him to have some sort of solution to offer, so he lost some of his street bravado with me. I mean, don't get me wrong, Charles was nuts. He was whacked. He had a whole act that he used to keep people away from him, but I don't know - I could see his heart and it did not bother me. I think it was Divine Intervention for both of us. And - I am such a misfit myself that I took him seriously.
After all, I had going "home" to the Bay Area, from Denver, to try to get a "fresh start". I had been couch surfing and hovering just above being homeless for 5 years, after the 2008 crash. I had not been able to get a job, nor did I have unemployment. I had had a job as a professor of graphic design at one of those now-fake "art schools" in Denver - which are really just computer training places where kids end up with an $80k debt, and maybe some get a job. I had been an adjunct, and wasn't very good at it, so after the crash, I was not asked back. I had had a series of very bad experiences after that - first I lost my apartment, and put all my stuff in storage in my friend's basement. Next I had gone to stay at another friend's place, renting a room, and was just so freaked out by the whole situation that I made one misjudgement after another - which landed me leaving that place and sleeping on another friend's floor for 3 months. I had to find a place for my old dog to stay with Craigslist ads, but I was flailing around, not even bothering to listen to my gut, and things were bizarre.
No one was hiring. People were getting laid off left and right. It was a bad time. I took a job working for a crazy person because I had to - which of course, did not last. In the nick of time, when it looked like I was hitting the streets, another friend stepped up and gave me a place to stay - and I got on food stamps to help to contribute that way, and I got my dog back. After a year of living there, he decided to sell the place, and I had not yet gotten a job, so someone else gave me a house-sit for 6 months, and I got a part-time job vending grilled cheese sandwhiches on the 16th street mall in Denver for about 8 months.
Back then, I was still caught up in believing that finding Mr. Right was going to save me...so I had a series of heavy crushes... for which I have a series of paintings...been there done that - got the painting...
Unfortunately, Zen and the Art of Grilled Cheese, did not even break even, so my buddy went bankrupt, and I was again floating...
Then another friend, fearing for me going to the homeless shelter, gave me a house to live in that I was to paint the interior of in 6 months - but I stayed for 2 years. The house had no furniture. It had been his parent's house and had a doorway connecting underground to their house. While staying there I did freelance graphic design and designed alternative currency for another friend in Breckenridge, CO
These are all based on Ithaca Hours Local Currency, of course. My friend was able to convince the locals in Summit County, CO to accept Mountain Hours, but the one in Denver never got off the ground, and I am not sure, long term, what has happened to these other folks.
I limped along. Every Sunday, I went to a small Whole Foods which had at one time been a small local health food store, which still had the same staff, and collected old food for Food Not Bombs. It was me and a bunch of kids from the Mercury Cafe, in Denver - and we each got a box of food, and made boxes for our friends and then brought the rest to the Senior Center.
Finally in January of 2013, I realized I had to get out of there - those people were sick of me - they had only expected me to stay 6 months...and that old joke "How do you know if a deadhead has been staying at your house?" "They are still there" - was proving itself true... so I made one of my last stupid mistakes and moved to Longmont, CO in with my "friend" who said I could stay there for free.
Nothing in life is free - but I did not know what else to do. It did not work out. Again. Duh! And in August of 2013, I left for California...(to be continued)...
