My name’s Douggie. I’ve been homeless, off and on, for 17 years. I was a juvenile run away as a teen trying to escape myself. Mentally ill, c-c-can’t talk r-r-right, big and goofy looking and rejected by peers growing up to now, life handed me apples and forced me to make peanut butter with them. Struggle and survival have been my M.O. for, well, 17 years. My story will take you to hell and back more than once. I not only wrecked my life, I wreaked havoc and hell on my parent’s and brother’s lives as well.
My folks and I talk still and they help me out tremendously to this day. My brother, because of me, has written me off going on 8/9 years now. I’ve made a butt-load of stupid decisions, choices, and actions throughout my life, and being stubborn and bull-headed DOES NOT help–less you consider redundant and repetitiveness of the same b.s. helpful.
Insanity: Repeating same action over and over again and expecting different results.
I’ve been homeless in D.C. during a blizzard with enough layers on to barely block out frost bite.  Sleeping in this condition is impossible; you have to force yourself to keep moving until a fast food joint opens–this means absolutely nothing if the manager sees you, knows what you are and throws you out, regardless if it’s in the low double digits to the single digits. I’ve also been homeless when the nights are 95+ degrees and the night breeze drops the temp to 90, maybe 85–if you’re lucky. Sleeping in this weather ain’t no bed of roses (without their thorns) either. Sleep, a necessity, isn’t only robbed from you by the weather, it’s also robbed from you by cops who, I feel, like kicking you awake and making you move for the fun of it.
Aside from sleepless nights you have humans to deal with during the day. I’m not going to be a complete *ss, but out of every dozen humans you might get eight or nine, sometimes ten or eleven who’ll treat you worse than animal dung and yell bigot stupidity at you for their own childish humor.
However, at least with my “luck,” those one to three out of every twelve who help you you get this overwhelming gratitude and a bad day becomes alright and not a total loss. When you don’t feel like messing with humans and their hierarchy-like attitudes, you have churches who’ll feed, bathe and clothe you; some’ll even give you a few bus tokens, do your laundry and even hang out with you–company from spiritual individuals is comforting and rids you of loneliness for a short time.
I, like any homeless person, can fill dictionaries with stories about street life. This isn’t my last article, but this one is coming to an end. I got more tales to tell and hope to have ‘em read as well. Until next time, remember, the homeless are people too. Help us a little. We need it.