be homeless for a week

I want to go homeless for a week. Like really homeless, not like living in a car or anything. One week is nothing compared to what actual homeless people go through. I just feel like it would be a good and humbling experience.

I want to do this but Im to young. Oh well.

Well, I didn’t exactly do it by choice. It was over holiday breaks in college when I had nowhere else to go. I couldn’t stay in my dorm, I didn’t have anywhere to stay back home, and I couldn’t afford a motel/hotel. So I slept in my car in the parking lots by our athletic center. I bought a black sleeping bag and just stretched out in the backseat. One time it snowed like crazy and while I wasn’t very cold, it was strange waking up the next morning looking at a snowy windshield.

The scariest part was wondering if the police or anyone would catch me sleeping in my car. Every time I saw headlights flashing, I thought for sure I was toast. Would I be arrested? Would they try to send me to a shelter or something? Would the newspapers then find out?! How would I come up with a reasonable explanation for my actions? I had a few close calls, but fortunately I never got caught.

At least I had a car to sleep in… I can’t imagine being homeless for real and having to sleep on a sidewalk or somewhere. This definitely teaches you to be thankful for any warm place and roof you have over your head!

Don’t need to do THAT ever again! But it did teach me compasion and we did survive OK. So, I guess there was a reason for it… but I don’t think I’d want to do this again if at all possible!

Started thinking about how to make this one happen without being too selective and it being a sham. Made some decisions about how I will make it happen and still survive intact. This one is a work in progress

Yet thank G-d, the extraction was successful. I managed to use a few minutes left on my calling card, and thanks to the kind folks at Hardees on the Ogeechee Road outside of Rte. 516, and inside the Chatham Parkway, I used the minutes on their phone to call my wife, who with the children came and got me.

I will draft a report tonight, to send to the Mayor’s office, to the County Health Department, to the state department of Children’s and Family Services, and to the state senator and representatives for Chatham County to Atlanta.

We need to develop and enforce existing or new health standards for shelters. We need more shelters. We need a day shelter somewhere in downtown Savannah. We need programs to transition the homeless to permanent housing, and to monitor their progress one they have moved to this more permanent housing.

We need immunization and disease reduction programs. We need nutrition standards when feeding them.

And perhaps more simply, shelters need towels, clean socks and underwear, washcloths, sun block, and more.