Victory, Tragedy, Life

Chapter 5

When We Get There

By Steven Walks On The Grass

August 19, 2023

Just so we’re on the same page, I want to tell you about some things that have gone on that I haven’t spoken on yet; I’ve been processing them within my own mind and emotions.

You know I work as an overflow shelter aid for The Salvation Army and deal with the homeless every day. I know most of the people by name and have a personal relationship with each one of them, both professional and human. While all the time I speak about my thoughts and feelings and beliefs on things that happen in and around me, there are aspects of my life and things I don’t comment on that might just be important too. So today we’re going to talk about some of these.

Knowing these homeless people on a first name basis as human beings, we laugh, we joke, I get on their butts when they break the rules, and they generally fall right back in line. I’ve been in this job for almost 3 months now. This is the field I chose to begin with – giving back, helping others, making a difference in the world – something more than just being a crime statistic.

Of the people that I deal with every day at work, Steve was the nicest guy you would ever meet.  Always up early, he was ready and willing to work and help clean up. Every morning at 5 AM he would come and say, “You got any garbage bags?” Then he would proceed to empty the trash and replace the liners. After placing all the bags by the door, he would ask me to unlock the door so he could take the garbage out to the dumpsters. Doing this task every morning was his way of giving back and helping.

Since I’ve been working as a shelter aid my schedule has been all over the place. At first they had me working both evenings and overnights. Then, of course, my disabilities forced me to cut my hours. Social security said if I worked more than a certain amount, I would automatically be disqualified for my social security disability claim. Everything is a catch-22! One would think that after working for the federal government for more than 25 years in prison for pennies on the hour, I would at least have social security, but that’s not how it works. All those years, not one penny was paid toward my future Social Security benefits. So here I am, 63 years old with physical and emotional disabilities, and I must work to live until I qualify for disability benefits.

I truly need my job but I also have valuable knowledge and skills and I want to work and give back too. Fact is though, I’m not getting any younger and I don’t know how much longer I can continue working and functioning this way. Since I’ve been working at the shelter, I’ve had to administer Narcan on two separate occasions. From my past experience as an addict, I know what it takes to keep someone alive during an overdose scenario, so my quick response before the ambulance arrived possibly saved the lives of 2 overdose patients, but this isn’t about that.

Drug addicts will be drug addicts; overdosing happens every day, that’s just the continuum of life. If that’s what you are, that’s what you’ll be, and only you can change that. Recovery takes strength and courage, but most of all, a deep sense of desperation – the same kind of desperation that would lead a good man who always had a good smile and a good attitude to climb a stairwell to the 10th floor in a building, open a window and leap through the window to certain death – just to put an end to this desperation.

Ten stories below lies a 31-year-old life extinguished because people couldn’t reach the depth of his despair and pull him out. Either they couldn’t or they wouldn’t; doesn’t matter either way. Steve’s gone and he’s never going to have the chance to redeem himself in his own eyes or in the eyes of a world that made him an outcast, a pariah. it’s just pitiful, it’s so sad. 

No one saw this coming; no one had a clue. But when that man walked over to that building and asked someone outside for a cigarette and they told him, “No, you don’t belong here! Get out of here! Get out of here! Get out of here!” Just maybe that was the act that finally sent him through that window. I don’t know.

All I do know is now I’m being confronted with yet another change in my job that’s probably going to force me to have to leave it. I will seek further employment in this field – there are other facilities here in town – and I’m not ready to give up on people that need me. They need what I have even if it’s only a sympathetic ear, and I still need what they need – for someone to care. Even if it’s only by listening to their words, try in the back of your mind to feel the pain of knowing you’ve lost EVERYTHING!

Chronic homelessness is not a choice people make. It’s an affliction placed on them due to circumstances, sometimes beyond their control. On most issues, you can say what you want: “Oh, they like it. Oh, they could get a job. Oh, they could do this or that.”  You’re wrong, they can’t, or they would. I’m not going to act like I’m sitting here in an ivory tower preaching to anybody. I’m not. I’m just telling you how it is from where I stand next to the people that I’m talking about. Helping is not only about smiling and handing them plates of food and giving them blankets. It’s also helping them set up doctor’s appointments, helping them try to get identifications and social security cards. If you don’t have a social security card, you can’t get an identification. If you don’t have an identification, you can’t get a job. If you can’t get a job, you certainly can’t get out of homelessness. 

There is a major transition going on with my job. The Salvation Army homeless shelter has been taken over by an organization called Helping Hands Ministries. Sure, they want to take as many experienced people on board as they can get from the current staff, but the new management seems to want to treat them all like low-skilled beginners, giving them the crappiest scheduled times. I’ve always been honest with you. I’m just relating what it is, but I say exactly what I think, and I tell you exactly how I feel. Otherwise, what’s the point anyway? I just can’t work overnight shifts anymore. I can’t get my days to change to nights and my nights back to days within a matter of hours; this kind of stress just doesn’t work for me anymore. Then there’s the fact that they asked, and I told them what schedule I could work and how many hours Social Security would allow me to work. Apparently they ignored all this for now the new schedule has me working all overnights and far fewer hours than I need and am allowed to work. Well, I’m not doing that, so it looks like I’ll be going to other missions and shelters in this area trying to find a new job.

His name was Steven, the same name as mine. He was a good man and he was trying to come out of his nasty situation, but the world proved too nasty to allow it. I miss seeing this guy. I miss his smile and that look that said, “Hey how are you? I’m fine, everything’s gonna be okay…until it’s not.” I’m going to leave you with this. There are thousands of homeless people in this country that want a good life. They are not all bums on skid row and they’re not all bad. Mostly, they’re just people who hit a bad patch in their life.

What the hell is wrong with us?  Why do we allow this? We would rather spend billions in some banana republic than help the people we live with here in our own country. My thoughts are, if they’re here, we help; everyone else we help after we help our own, and we are sorely in need of help. I don’t understand it, can somebody help me with this? I can’t see this as humane or right or kind or godly in any way. What I can see is, it’s going to take people, lots of people, stepping out there saying, “I want to help. I want to give back. I want the world to be a better place – not just for me but for those I share the world with.”

As for me, I’m going to do it. I’m going to keep fighting, I’m going to keep advocating…and I’m going to keep remembering my friend, Steve, the one who smiled and gave of himself as best he could, the one the world just discarded as though his life had no meaning.