I had noticed I have not been talking about my personal journey and since I have gotten some new readers who may not know, I wanted to share.

It is difficult for me to reflect on this part of my life because a lot of shame, regret and guilt comes with it. I feel stupid and I am quick to blame my self so others don’t get a chance to do so and make me feel bad. I find I tend to do that a lot.

This is my experience of the first few days and weeks of being homeless.

I was homeless from May 2007 to March 2010.

May 18th 2007, I woke up at 7 am because I had barely a few hours of sleep, I had spent the previous night praying for God to perform a miracle and send some help, I believed the help was coming but couldn’t shake the little bit of fear in me.

At 8 am the door knocked and I opened the door, the bailiff was at the door, a large man in height and width and he told me he had court papers to seize the house. Two estate agents entered the house and the baliff began to change the locks on the front door.I was told me I had one hour to pack all I had. I did not even have time to take a shower. As I packed the estate agents went through the house, calculating how much profit they would make.

My Old House

I packed one bag, enough clothes for a week and books to read. This was my survival pack, because I truly believed I would be homeless for two weeks, tops!

It was a really sunny day. I walked out into the heat with my mother by my side, and left the life I knew behind me.

We walked towards the town centre, I was crying but my mum was encouraging me. She told me it would be okay. God was on OUR side.

There was a hotel called the Bella Vita, that I had passed so many times before, it was cheap enough and it was near.

We paid for two days .

After two days we extended to three extra days.

I had a laptop with me that my father gave me for Christmas, when I wasn’t on that I would go out for a walk. One day I decided to go to the house. The books I had were too heavy and I did not want to read them, so I wanted to return them back to the house. I decided on this because I knew the house was still mine, I had a belief and a faith that it would be okay.

I walked to the house and it still looked the same, just a different door handle. In the window, there was a poster. It said we had 60 days to remove our belongings and to call a number. I never called that number. I never removed my belongings.

Secretly, I was hoping that I could sneak in through the kitchen door and take some important documents, like my passport that my mum left behind, some letters and more clothes and to return those books.

I didn’t get into the house, I expected as much so left the books in the recycling bin outside and hoped somebody would find a use for it.

We stayed there seven days. When we tried to extend the hotel informed us that they were fully booked. It was too expensive to stay there and we did not want to stay so near to our house any more.

So we decided to go to London.

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This is part one, stay tuned for more

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I was hearing about this story recently but hadn’t really paid much attention to it, something I would look up later I thought.

I just finished watching the brutal assault video of Kelly Thomas.

A man who is only remembered because he was homeless and treated like an animal.
A man with a family, a story and hopes and dreams.
I watched the video and I shivered every time I heard him scream. A man lying on the floor begging for his life, being tortured by men who were meant to protect and serve him.

This story and the video is important and it’s so much more than the problem of homelessness.

It is first important for homelessness because those cops by their action saw this man as a crazy dirty hobo, a man committing a petty crime and not worthy to be treated like a decent human being.

This story is also more than homelessness because it shows what those in power are capable of doing and the scary aspects of human nature.

I have added the video in full, I’m sure most have watched it, it’s horrible and shocking and I hope to never see anything like this again

There isn’t a day that doesn’t go by where I do not complain about something in the world.

I complain about homophobia, about racism , about homelessness, women’s rights I have imaginary arguments in my head about what I would say in a given situation.

My boyfriend gets annoyed with me when we are watching the news and I point out the prejudice nobody notices.

This got me thinking, the people who change the world are those who are unsatisfied with it.

People who are frustrated about the way things are and why nothing eve gets done are those who are willing to make a difference. I think that is something me and all of you who read this blog have in common. We are annoyed by things.

Why should people have to live on the streets?

Why are people around the world dying of hunger?

Why doesn’t everyone see things the way I do?

Ladies and gentlemen, annoyance and lack of satisfaction is what makes the world better, men and women who dared to question what was wrong and who didn’t stop until they found a solution.

I believe we can really change the world, one grumble and moan at a time.

Do you agree? And what makes you really frustrated about the world in general

When I was 15 years old I was at a parent teacher evening at my school, I was talking to some other adults and parents and asking them if they could support my friends and I with donations for the campaign Make Poverty History (which like Kony2012  is in the graveyard of short lived social campaigns)

That was the first time I ever got involved with helping others, I had been going through serious emotional and financial problems at the time and I wanted to distract myself from that, helping those who were worse off than me.

At the coffee and biscuits table I began my pitch to a middle aged man, a parent. I told him about the campaign and how he could easily buy an armband and that would help benefit those in Africa who were in need. He interrupted me and said that he did not really believe in charity because some people needed to be poor, it is the way things are supposed to work, and people in Africa had to be poor. Even with all the aid that has been given they still haven’t done much.

Though I am disgusted and horrified by what that man said and it still shakes me today, in a twisted way he ended up inspiring me. To prove him wrong.

It is not okay or normal to be poor.

It is not normal for children to starve or die of unclean water. It is not okay for families to not be able to afford to educate their kids.

It is not okay for people to sleep on the streets because they cannot afford to live in a house.

I am so tired of this rhetoric because it is so dangerous, because then we can justify all kinds of atrocities.

I think this is perfectly played out in the recent elections in America, candidates who claim to be god fearing people  believe that if you don’t have a job it is your fault!

When we blame anyone who is poor for being in their position we can wash our hands and refuse to help because then it is not our problem any more.

Your political leaning, conservative or liberal left or right should have no bearing on helping those less fortunate than you, it is the basic human thing to do. When others are hurting we all hurt.

I don’t believe for one second everyone will be equal or rich in the future  Greed is in the human personality, rather what I want is for everyone to get a basic starting chance.

Where we can help others and not expect anything in return.

Note: I know this may be a bit of a disjointed post in flow and content but I feel it is so important to say, I recently had a rant about how no one cares and the truth is I still stand by that because it is true. Talking about poverty, homelessness is depressing its boring and its dull. We want to switch off from it because if we don’t we realise how unfair things are. What I seek to do is change thinking, there is power in ideas, in thoughts. I believe what I believe because different opinions have influenced me. Those books and blogs I read, they speak out into the world not knowing what effect their work has. I hope the same for me, that I influence people, my thoughts and opinions will make others think and they would take action. That is all I hope for and if it is just one person. I’m glad I got to speak to you.

When discussions are had about people who experience homelessness we tend to lump together everyone as one homogeneous group: homeless.

The stereotype and the pictures we have in our mind of anyone homeless is of a vagrant, pushing a shopping cart, yelling in the streets or begging for money.

What we forget, (and I am guilty of this too) is that they are not “homeless” but have or are experiencing homelessness.

By Yuliya Bahr

It is a state. Not an identity

When you live in a house, you do not become defined by the fact you own a house. The label of home owner or tenant is not placed on your forehead for all to see, and having a place to live does not open you to abuse or special treatment.

So why do we treat those who are in a state of homelessness as a special identity social group? Like Black, Hispanic, Gay, Rich, Poor.

The stories of how someone ends up experiencing homeless are so varied, so complex, that placing all these experiences and identities in one category means we treat them all the same, and so the solutions are all the same.

The way we deal with homelessness has not changed in decades.
We need a change.

I am not smart enough to come up with that change, but we need to treat homelessness and those who do experience homelessness as the individuals that they are.

This is a Guest Post by Matthew Melao who writes about homelessness and other issues at: I have a voice too

By Mark L Edwards

Homeless. What do you think of when you hear that word? What images come to your mind? An old man on a street corner pan handling? People in dirty, ragged clothing? When employers came in to speak to our clients in the homeless shelter about employment and job hunting, the company representatives were amazed. Here were people in suits and ties! Although I have never been homeless, I have come to hate that word because it is an overarching umbrella used to lump together a wide variety of people. With this one label, we quit seeing the people behind it. They become invisible and easy to ignore.

My real introduction to the homeless was in December of 2007, when I was hired as an instructor at a large homeless shelter in Southern California. At the time I had no idea that it would be the job that would open my eyes, and not just to the plight of the residents of the shelter, but also to my own. You see, in December of that year I was still living in a halfway house, a warehouse really, fresh out of serving two and a half years in prison. Not a great length of time, but long enough to come out hurting, burdened by a sense of utter failure, angry, and now labeled and stigmatized. Just like the people I was about to be working with.

A couple of facts were obvious and humbling from the very beginning. One, I could have been in the exact position my students were if it wasn’t for my family and the risk the shelter took when they hired me. I could have been homeless. I could have been among the many sitting in the classroom listening to an instructor drone on about resumes and the importance of a positive attitude. Where would I have gone upon release? The streets? A shelter? Back to the halfway house? I knew guys who did.

They say homelessness can happen to anyone, and its true, but how many of us realize this?

Secondly, it was obvious that the variety of people that fit under the category of homeless was extreme. I mean, there wasn’t even only one type of homelessness. There were those cycling in and out of homelessness, and there were those that it was a one time thing. The shelter, most of my clients agreed, was a microcosm of all the people in the “real” world.

You could find every type here from most parts of the world. Every colour, age group, sexual orientation, religion, political affiliation, was represented here in one amalgamation, which made it a fascinating, extraordinary place. If you came in to work and found a Muslim performing his call of prayer next to your time clock, well, it was just another day at the shelter. If the next day during lunch you found a Christian up on a podium exhorting and preaching to the long line of homeless waiting for the noontime meal, it was just another day at the office.

Many clients had mental illnesses, others didn’t. Many had addictions, many didn’t. Many had lived on the streets, but many had never been there. Some had felonies, others did not. Many were uneducated, some had high school diplomas, and a few had college degrees. Some of them were lazy, others were the hardest workers I have ever met. Some were dull, but many had quick, sharp minds. Some were dishonest, others spoke the truth even if it was disliked. A few were full of pride and bombast, but many, many were humbled by their experience.

The vast majority, though, like birds with clipped wings, felt broken and wanted to fly. To turn your back on them, to not listen to them, to speed past them in oblivion on your way to work, to do nothing, is to turn your back on yourself.

These people that are so full of pain and anguish might be the ones that open your heart wider. They may be the ones to teach you about your own suffering. I know they did for me.

By Ian Freimuth

I have been writing this blog since 2008, I have told my personal story from top to bottom, I have theorised on the human condition and I have explored the issue of homelessness from every possible angle. What I have come to realise is that no one really cares about homelessness.

It is not sexy and it is not popular.

If I wrote a blog about politics or fashion or anything that is “in” there would be interest.

It leaves me to say that most people in real life simply do not care, sure they can be sad for a while or feel bad or angry towards a person that is homeless but it honestly does not dwell in the minds of people for very long.

Which makes me question why I even do this in the first place? I am a ripple in the ocean, preaching to those that already converted.

The reason I keep this blog is not because I want to be featured on top 10 lists of blogs or get a book deal ( though I’m sure it would be nice). It’s because it pisses me off that people can be homeless.

It pisses me off that the world, when you really look at it sucks.

It infuriates me that every person I have met who is my age does not give a crap about anything in the world apart from celebrities and makeup.

That’s why I yell in an empty room.

Average people on the street simply have no interest, and that says more to me about human beings than anything else.

This is my blog and I am free to discuss what I want, this will be my first and last post on my personal religious beliefs. Recent events have pushed me to write about this.

When I began this blog in 2008, I was a committed Christian. A charismatic/ Pentecostal believer who had a relationship with God.

I loved God. I KNEW God.

I read my bible everyday, prayed morning and evening and even through what I experienced I still believed he had a plan for me.

I believed in spooky supernatural things, that the reason I was homeless was because god had a specific plan for my family and the hardships was because the devil was trying to prevent that plan.

I started to question what I believed in around October 2009. It was my birthday and I was living in a hotel room, on one meal a day and with no purpose in life.

I asked god why is it that I have prayed to you every single day, cried out and nothing is happening. Am I doing something wrong?

When I finally found somewhere more permanent to live I realised something, I am 20 years old with no job, no qualifications, homeless and living in a hotel room with my mother.

I decided to take control of my life  and seize the opportunity because there was still a possibility I would  be homeless again.

I wanted to find out if I what  truly believed and so I started to read books I would not have touched when I was a believer. There was a book I always wanted to read , “Smile or Die” By Barbara Ehrenreich

This book has had the largest impact on my life and started off a quest for knowledge of the truth that I still hunger for today.

When I read, for the first time I did not feel guilty that I had failed.

I still believed in God at this point but I was also angry because I felt I had wasted my life, angry at god that he allowed so much to happen and how did he expect me to cope and prevent it?

I kept looking for answers and read books by Christians and Atheists alike. I researched the televangelists I had looked up to, everything I was afraid to do as a Christian, I did. I also read atheist blogs like “The Friendly Atheist” . I was too scared to do all these things because I thought they would take me away from Jesus.

At this point I wasn’t sure what I believed or what I was. I did not want to label myself.

Youtube became my university, I watched hours upon hours of videos until I stumbled upon a talk by Bart Ehrman a highly acclaimed new testament scholar. I bought his book because I wanted to learn everything about the bible from a historical perspective.

It opened my eyes, I saw the contradictions that years before I tried to argue away. I learned to read the same gospel stories side by side and notice that they could not be reconciled, I saw the bible for what it was, a book, not inerrant not infallible but a book that is both atrocious and beautiful and written by man.

That didn’t make me lose my faith though, it was suffering. I wrote about homelessness and I couldn’t understand why a loving god could allow people to be homeless.

Why does a person in America think god gave them a parking space and children around the world die of hunger?

How can there be good or a plan from cancer?

And the problem of free will, I hear people say that god does not intervene or reveal himself because he can not interfere with the free will of his creation. So when a woman is raped or someone murdered  God is more concerned with the rapist’s free will to rape than the woman’s free will to not be raped and whether he intervenes or not someone gets hurt, and he does nothing. That horrified me.

Murder, War, Terrorism can all be justified.

How could God allow all this to happen to m y mother and I?

So I started to be more open with my beliefs on twitter and other forums including this blog. Since then I have received nothing but crap.

I will say this one time and one time only to anyone who reads this:

STOP TRYING TO CONVERT ME.

I have received emails, tweets and comments telling me I did not have the right faith so what happened to me can’t be god’s fault and that soon enough I will come back to him.

I told a friend about what happened to me and her response was to invite me to her church because she knew I needed god.

I now write for the Huffington post and my first article mentioned in passing my  lack of faith, the comments were not about what I wrote: how I ended up homeless but to convince me to come back to god.

2 weeks ago the person who had been hosting my blog as a kind favour to me asked me to leave because they could not support my mission anymore and I did not glorify god.

So this is why I wanted to write this, for this to end once and for all. My life is not up for a bidding between good and evil, I am happy the way I am.

I am not against religion or believing in something, we are evolved to do so, religion will never go away.  But I do object to religious people who think it is their right to tell people they are going to hell, or prevent gay people from marrying or hating on others. You don’t get to do that. Anymore than I get to ban you or prevent you from practicing  your faith

A few weeks ago at SXSW, a marketing agency decided to use homeless individuals from the local area as wireless hotspots or “homeless hotspots” the story blew up all over the world and arguments broke out over twitter, message boards, news networks and even The Daily Show had something to say about it.

Mark Horvath also wrote something about it.

The agency that started it wanted to create a modern version of the street paper, they had biographies of the “hotspots” and ways you could donate directly through their PayPal.

I’m not going to get into an argument about whether it is right or wrong, too many column inches have been dedicated to that. I will though tell you why I think such a huge debate happened.

Homelessness and homeless people are an unspoken reality. We know they exist, we pass them everyday on the streets, we ignore them and get angry when they ask for money. In this western society we live in, ignoring homelessness is the only way we know how to deal with it. Because when you walk down the street and ignore the guy laying there on the floor, you may feel uncomfortable for a minute but soon enough it goes out of your mind. Forgotten. Something we don’t have to deal with everyday. That is how we treat the homeless.

So when BBH, came up with an idea to bring those homeless people we typically ignore, right front and centre, it made people uncomfortable. It made people angry.

Bloggers have argued that it is inhumane, it is degrading and so forth, they were angry because on the guy’s T-shirt it said I am a homeless hotspot and it didn’t say I am a person.

Those arguments are weak. I believe the anger can be broken down into two camps.

1. Those who say “go and get a job”

Many, many people including some who read this blog (thank you for your comments) believe that people become homeless because of failure in themselves. They are lazy. It’s all a matter of pulling up those bootstraps, they theorize that because life went so swimmingly and they may have suffered some hardship it all works out in the end. It doesn’t. If it did we would have no social problems.

These people think that, those homeless guys, since they are capable of standing there for hours being a “hotspot” they are perfectly capable of working. So why should they be there offering a service I don’t really want and then be asking me for a donation.

To them it is black and white.

2. Those who think helping the homeless should be a formula.

Most of the anger from this camp are people who feel they know better, they know how to deal with the homeless.

If someone is sleeping on the street you get them into emergency shelter, give them a suit, get them a job, get them a place to live. Done.

That is the formula we have for helping the homeless, it’s the quickest, it’s the easiest and if it fails do it again. So when that agency, tried to promote a product and help the homeless at the same time, people freaked.

“You can’t just do that with the homeless that’s exploitation, leave the man to rot in his piss or dumpster dive.” They are not infrastructure!

You need to do it the way we do it now in society. Where we ignore them on the streets, turn up our noses and leave the charities to take care of it. That way WE don’t have to deal with it.

Some of the reactions have been unbelievable, people saying that why don’t we pay them to be footstools then, as if that is the same thing.

If the “homeless hotspots” were sexy young women and they called them “Hottie Hotspots” would anyone be upset?

How is this any different?

And of course the whole idea was scrapped as I expected it would be, before we allowed an idea with problems, and it did have problems to grow, we killed it. We killed it will poisonous words, misplaced conviction and woeful misunderstanding.

I don’t think the idea was perfect but its a lot better than nothing. We go on about being innovative, so why not allow people to be just that.

By Margaret Bellinger

The response from “Sexual Exploitation of Homeless Girls” have helped bring a lot of attention to those who are vulnerable, the more people are aware the more we can do. Since putting up that post, TOPIX.com has deleted that forum post in the hope it will be hidden forever.

Writing to the companies who enable this and expressing our concern, boycotting them or signing petitions these are just some of the ways we can actively do something to help those who have no one to help them.

I wanted to explore further on this issue and see if it really was a trend, and I will give you a warning this is NSFW.

The website In Mala Fide is a horrible site, from the get go. This is on their about page:

In Mala Fide is an online magazine dedicated to publishing heretical and unpopular ideas. Ideas that polite society considers “racist,” “misogynistic,” “homophobic,” “bigoted” or other slurs used to shut down critical thinking and maintain the web of delusions that keep our world broken and dying. We’re here to put their myths to rest by educating and entertaining you with such crimethink nuggets as these:

• Multiculturalism and globalization are shams that are replacing authentic culture and community with lowest-common-denominator consumerism.
• Women don’t want nice guys, they want dominant, assertive men, and you can become one.
• Virtually all major economists, businessmen and scientists are sociopaths and liars.
• Feminism is a hate movement designed to disenfranchise and dehumanize men.
• The traditional left-wing/right-wing political dichotomies (liberalism vs. conservatism, socialism vs. capitalism etc.) are quickly becoming obsolete.

In short, we’re the scary people your parents, friends and college professors warned you about.

 

So, not particularly nice stuff.

On December 7th 2011, Advocatus Diaboli wrote a post titled ” Pooning on a tight budget”

This is what he wrote:

My experience in the 2000-2002 (my early-to-mid 20′s) timespan might be of some use to you. At that time, I was in the process of switching my area of work, and had a job that paid about $2,000/month after taxes. It was a good stable job and I was expected to work only three days a week and it allowed to me enter a new field. At that time I had NO debt or similar obligations. While I did buy some sex from pros, most of my action in that timespan came from semipros.

My budget was: rent (shared house = $350/month), cell phone ($50/month), cable + internet + utilities (included in rent), and public transit ($60/month). I chose to forego a car because paying for insurance, gas, parking, tickets, repairs and the like was just not worth it at that time and I could always rent a car. The house I lived in was near a number of major bus routes allowing me to take public transit to work and major entertainment districts in that city. Moreover, a cab ride from those areas to my home was less than $20.

My food + booze budget was just under $600, giving me almost $900 to spend as I pleased. By that time, I had realized that bar pickups were not my strength as it took me about 4-5 nights out to get one mediocre girl (over $300 per mediocre girl). However, my hit rate with the women I had gone drinking out with had been reasonably good. So I started thinking about ways to recruit more women to go out drinking with. It was then that my thoughts turned to a path which I had previously considered but not yet implemented:

Getting poor, but good-looking, young girls (18-23) to have sex with me in return for some timely financial help.

I should be upfront that getting amateur women to have sex for money can be tricky as most of them believe that they are not whores. Moreover, poor young women often have “boyfriends” and white knight orbiters. So I created a set of filters and rules to screen out the most problematic types.

 

Filter 1: Avoid all girls who have obvious and serious drug and mental health issues or have lived on the street for over 6 weeks at a stretch.

The following categories of girls are acceptable, however.

1.Freshly homeless young girls, especially those who hangout in mixed groups.

The safest ones are those who are into pot, drumming, dreadlocks et cetera. You can find them in many larger cities in the spring and summer. While I would never trust them with any significant amount of money, many are reasonably decent human beings.

Strike up a conversation with them, engage them and see where it leads. But you must make it plainly obvious that you are interested in them sexually, but that all favors require reciprocation. Once you get to know them, a decent round of drinks, snacks, money for pot, a small necessary item of clothing, decent dinner with booze will almost guarantee you a good lay (or at least a couple of BJs).

Your initial financial hit for hanging out with them is very small, and once they are sleeping with you.. it will often work to about $30-60 (cash equivalent or cash) per session. You may also get freebies..

2. Girls who are not homeless, but are just hanging on.

Once again, a group who could use some help. Typically found in smaller retail stores or businesses that pay minimum wage with no tips. Build a rapport and be fairly upfront about your interest, but do not come across as desperate. Go to her workplace and talk to her when you are in that area, but do not stalk her.

Such women often have “boyfriends,” however, they are often just as poor or poorer than her. You can get p***y as long as you are firm about the need for reciprocation. This category of girls might be more willing to give BJs than having ‘real sex.’ But do you really care?

Restrict your help to less than $200 at any one time AND only after she has put out a couple of times.

 

They will play by your rules as long as they are not too dehumanizing, and they are often cheaper than professional whores.

There are not enough words to express how much my heart breaks for this. This is beyond horrible, this is wickedness.

I have not told many people this but throughout my life I have been sexually assaulted various times by different people, and I felt so helpless so used and that no one would believe me.

These girls, have no one. They have already been abandoned by their families, the system that was supposed to help, and now we have men from all walks of life who feel it is their goal in life to be gratified and they actually believe they are helping or doing these women a favour. It’s a sad world we live in.

Note: As the website seems to be still up, I will link to the screen shots on my flickr.