“I’ve been homeless since for the last six months after I got evicted after the medical bills piled up too high. After my mother died I found myself depressed. She had heart disease and died from an infection in the hospital. I was devastated. I wasn’t eating, drinking, or really moving at all. I let myself get sick and ended up in the hospital. My muscles had gone, I couldn’t even walk because I had been so immobile. I went to therapy for a month to gain back my strength. I didn’t qualify for assistance so the therapy and hospital stay ended up costing me a lot of money I didn’t have. Between paying for my mother’s medical bills and my own, I just couldn’t make rent and ended up on the streets.”
“I never gave homelessness much thought, and certainly never thought it would happen to me. I thought people were homeless from drugs, drinking, or abuse- but I was wrong. I’ve met a lot of people who have never been homeless in their life and just couldn’t afford housing after dealing with the unexpected. But I’ve also encountered a lot of situations where homeless steal from the homeless. My purse was stolen one night, it had all my papers: my ID, my birth certificate, my social security card. I felt hopeless at first but eventually found it in a nearby trash can. I pulled out the whole bag- something I never would have found myself doing a year ago- and at least found some of my paperwork. A lot of it had been damaged by the rain, but at this point, most of my things have been damaged by the rain. Not everyone is like that you just need to get yourself around the right crowd so you aren’t taken advantage of. “
