It was from a young documentarian who gave a homeless man
$100 and then followed him. The filmmaker and his crew watched the man go into
a liquor store, walk out and head to a local park where he started handing out
food he had purchased with the money.
“You thought I was going to get all smacked up drunk?” the
man said to the filmmaker who confronted him. The young man apologized and admitted
he really did believe he was going to buy alcohol or drugs. But what he found
was that the less fortunate man was one of many families who fall into
homelessness despite their best efforts.
In reality, before becoming homeless the man had quit his
job to take care of his ill elderly parents. They would eventually die and
creditors took the home he had shared with them.
Ours is a story of a profession amid tumult. We’re starting
over. And that has left us in total limbo and facing homelessness. Today especially
has hastened our slide toward homelessness. What has been happening to us seems
almost impossible, perhaps implausible.
This year family gave us money as
a Christmas gift specifically for the purchase of clothes. With a rare sense
of calm, we climbed into our small compact car to head to after Christmas sales
to find much needed pants. As we pulled onto the main street, a light signaling
low tire pressure signaled a problem with a tire. But the pressure it was
signaling was a normal low for a cold, brisk morning.
So head headed toward a gas station to find an air pump. By
the time we got to the pump, the pressure had gone down significantly much to
our surprise. At the gas station, he checked the tires and found one completely
flat.
We were stunned. We became confused after finding a
finger-sized hole in one of the tires.
You can guess by now that our hearts sank. I wanted to cry
but could not. I’m out of tears. We slowly moved the vehicle a short distance
to a Costco tire center. We still have a membership there that our family also
paid for.
My husband paid just over $200 for two new front tires. And
with that, we lost the Christmas clothes money and then some. We walked around
Costco snacking of samples while waiting for the tire center to let us know the
job was done.
When they called, it was with more bad news. Workers said they
could not replace the tire because the rim had somehow been bent severely
enough that the tire itself was not holding air. I felt a deep sadness
overwhelm me.
My husband again called family who fortunately have a
background in mechanics to relay the news.
The tone of voice from our relative, he would tell me later,
sounded like they could not believe what they were being told.
“It wasn’t said, but I think (the family member) was close
to saying that if it wasn’t for bad luck, we wouldn’t have any luck at all,” my
husband told me later.
We gave out a few precious gifts for Christmas this year. It
was a careful balance to give those out as it was. We survived thanks to the
generous nature of family and friends. My son received gifts thanks to family,
Santa Claus Inc. and an incredibly kind gift from a close friend who wanted to
make sure he had a good Christmas.
With this car problem, the rent money we had struggled to
gather may not be complete anymore. How much will it cost us to get a new rim?
I don’t know. It could be $40 or $200. We don’t know. But this could be the
last hurrah.
Before today, my husband and I had held on the hope that we
would make it at least through January. Now we’re not sure what’s going to
happen.
I often replay in my head is what a small business owner once
said to me when I asked him if he had any job openings. He told me he had once
had financial difficulties and had to briefly move into his parent’s home. “It
was the best thing that happened to me,” he said.
Here’s the problem with that. My parents are both dead. Most
of my extended family lives in another country. My younger siblings are
struggling financially. One rents a room from a family. Another is married and
the couple is raising three children in a two-bedroom apartment. They are
packed tightly.
My in-laws are older and unable house us in their home.
Another set of in-laws have a nice home but have cats which my son and I are
seriously allergic to.
A fourth family member has a home we might be able to move
into. But she lives so far away from where we currently live, that I would be
forced to give up the 15 hours of work I was finally able to get. It would
leave us without a single bit of income. In reality, all of our relatives live
far from where we live. We ended up moving far from them in an effort to follow where the
work was.
Of course there is a deeper truth at play here. Every single
one of the households I mentioned is financially strained right now without exceptions.
Taking in another entire family is a large commitment that my husband and I
don’t want to heap on anyone.
Dear reader, imagine having to take in a full family
yourself. What kind of adjustments would you have to make? Imagine that you
were doing it while someone else in your immediate family was already in poor
health, facing surgery, difficulties at work or unemployment.
Each one of those households I mentioned is facing one of
those scenarios. Moving back with parents is not an option. While there is an
option of living with siblings, it certainly would be an added strain for them.
But there is one other choice, which is the most viable, our
car. Hopefully it will be in running condition of course.
Even then, I doubt I will panhandle the way the man in the
documentary did. I’ve been told it’s a good way to make money. But it’s hard to
think that I worked so hard to complete all my college course work so I would
end up begging for change anyway.
More importantly, who is going to believe that I am in need?
Who’s going to believe that it was a set of circumstances beyond my control
that landed me smack in the middle of homelessness? I doubt I’m going to have a
filmmaker follow me around. I wouldn’t be that lucky.
Honestly, if it weren’t for bad luck, we wouldn’t have any
luck at all.
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