Being Homeless in Baltimore

Dead man on the floor of the old city shelter. People laughing, joking, poking him with their feet.

It wasn’t me, yet it was. Flooded with feelings of depression, anger, mania,and fear. i don’t want to die alone on a concrete floor in a shitty shelter . We are disposable people in a disposable society.

Homelessness dehumanizes and isolates a person from society. We have the same needs, wants and dreams of a better future as anyone else.

We have parents, siblings, children and lovers, past or present.

We are human and deserve to be treated as such. When I was homeless the most important action a person could take was to simply talk to me. A person asking how I was doing humanized me and could pull me out of a depression.

Love is the most powerful emotion in my life. I may not like a person but I love them as a fellow human being.

The man on the floor has changed my life forever. I went to my first advocacy meeting the day he died and have dedicated my life to trying to help others for the last 3 years. I will continue this work  as long as I am able.

Homelessness has never defined me as a person, Instead it has given me a purpose in life and a passion for helping others.

I am human.

I have spent a lot of time trying to figure out what I have to be thankful for during the holiday season. I know that my depression gets worse during this time of year and that this is not something that I alone struggle with. There are a number of reasons that people suffer from sadness and depression during the holidays. This includes less daylight hours, colder temperatures, and the sorrow and loneliness of lost love ones above all.

I carry a lot of guilt and shame that I wasn’t there when my mom and dad ( The Schumanns) died. I didn’t even know that they had died until well over a decade after the fact. I do not know why I abandoned them and the rest of my family. Between therapy and reconnection with the rest of the family I will hopefully come to terms with this.

In 1985 I met a woman who taught me how to appreciate what I had instead of whining about what I didn’t have. Her name is Cathy and we had very similar histories of severe sexual and physical abuse as children. I learned that I had truly been “rescued” by the Schumanns and that she didn’t even have the” luxury” of getting a chance at having a loving family as a juvenile.

Cathy and I had a very intense love for each other; we could talk about thoughts and feelings  in a way that I had never experienced before. She wrote beautiful poetry and went out of her way to be thankful and giving to everyone she touched. She showed me what unconditional  love was and that it was something that everyone deserved and was  to be shared with others regardless of their “status” or circumstance.

After she was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 1995 we spent many days and nights talking about life and death. We laughed and cried while watching the”Lion King”. Instead of worrying about her impending death she worried about my life after her death.

When she died in December of 1996, we spread her ashes in a beautiful meadow in the mountains of Wyoming. After the spring thaw I went to the meadow and there was a very beautiful cluster of wildflowers in the pattern where her ashes had been spread.

In her death Cathy showed me “The circle of life”.

The meeting for the streetpaper is on Thursday at 12 noon I apologize to anyone who went today

Finding housing can be a challenge to lower middle-income people. For people in the poverty range it can seem insurmountable.When Istarted learning from people about how they ended up homeless  I was astounded at the myriad of barriers people were faced with trying to get housed again.

Serious illness: I have personally met three people who had worked all there lives and became seriously ill, two had cancers and one had surgery with complications involving MERSA. They all ended up losing their houses, life savings, and all other items of value. The devastation of their illnesses, and the pain of the material losses that they lived  through are heartbreaking. Two of the men are housed now and I can’t find any information about the third.

Natural Disasters: Hurricane Katrina, House fires, tornado’s etc

Foreclosure/Evictions: The massive number of  foreclosures caused by poor banking practices has caused a wave of homelessness. It not only affects the owner of the property, it also has displaced a large number of renters.People who have paid rent for years are finding themselves scrambling for a place to stay.When a family has been living paycheck to paycheck and they are evicted,the moving costs, higher,and first and last rental costs are giving people few options.Some move in with friends or family, some end up  in shelters, and some end up on the streets. these are all forms of Homelessness.

Demolition of public housing with inadequate replacement units. this is a serious problem in Baltimore.

Domestic violence: Although there are resources in place to help battered women get into safe houses I have seen women that for some reason don’t want to report the abuse and end up on the street or end up in the city shelter. When I was 14 years old I was in an adoptive family that was extremely abusive. I ended up on the streets until I was locked up and finally ended up with a safe and loving family.

Bad credit report: Often illness, divorce, layoffs,and business failures cause bad credit reports. This is also a racial issue as a disproportionate percentage of African-Americans and Hispanics have lower credit scores than whites. The practice of using credit scores to determine if a person deserves a job keeps people from having a fair chance of working their way out of poverty. This system really sucks. PLEASE check your own credit report and see if it is accurate, you might be surprised. The discrepancies that I have heard of are amazing.

Not earning a living wage: A person working at minimum wage would have to work 3 full-time jobs in order to rent an apartment at the prevailing rate. 17 dollars an hour would be required for a single person to afford to  support themselves in a one bedroom apartment. 7.25$ an hour is a travesty. To rent a room in another’s house with shared bathroom, kitchen, and other facilities runs from 400 a month and up often with additional charge for utilities.

Loss of a job: With the unemployment rate as high as it is and wages low most workers don’t even realize how close they are to being homeless. Within 2 months of being unable to work I was on the street. Saving are at a record low because of the continuing rise in price of basic commodities. With the continuing rise in cost of fuel everyone is taking a hit. Everything we use is transported to us so the increased cost of fuel hurts us across the board. I see more people using public transportation, (which I believe is one positive effect of increased gas prices) yet a lot of commuters and workers don’t have this option. A lot of people are eating less healthy diets because healthy foods cost more. When you are jobless and homeless you can get food from soup kitchens and churches but in order to feed more people they give and feed people they use a lot of starches but without this assistance people would be starving. The people providing food to the needy are being forced to try to feed more people with donations dropping. Any help  they can get, whether donating time or donating food is greatly appreciated.Well I’m  tired and getting of track. I will continue with barriers to housing soon. good night.

When I became homeless the feeling of loneliness and self loathing was so overwhelming that I felt that death  was the only option left. I took around 200 pills and went into the  woods and drank a bottle of vodka. I have no idea how the EMS squad found me. When I came to the nurse told me that they had actually lost me for a minute. I was actually angry that I had failed again. After several days in the hospital I was transferred to a psych hospital. I spent a week there and was returned to the street. I was in trouble because I didn’t have a legal ID. My birth certificate and my social security card were under different names. I couldn’t even get into a shelter because you need an official ID. I pestered Legal Aid  until they finally set it up to where I could legally change my last name from Zelinski to Schumann.

My building of a support network was started by quietly watching the other residents in the shelter.I soon was able to notice the residents who maintained a sense of dignity and serenity in a very dehumanizing situation.We built a network of mutual support and I learned a lot of survival technics and conflict  resolution methods that I still use today. Most of the people I bonded with have disappeared but some of the group and I are in contact and stay in communication in support of each other. It is a very powerful feeling that I dont think very many people who havent been through homelessness can understand. The trust and deep friendship is truly amazing.

When I started going to Health Care For The Homeless, I expected to find a group of disillusioned people who couldn’t find a better job. I couldn’t have been more off base. I found a team of very caring, dedicated, professional people working on a very tight budget. I received the most comprehensive  psychiatric,therapeutic,medical,and substance abuse treatment in one location. They have never given up on me in my many crises and have been a very powerful support network. I have learned that the only way to maintain a solid support network is to be as honest as possible and above all to ask for help when I need it. I am working on this .There are times whenI get depressed and isolate. Isolation is my worst enemy. I am trying to learn to call my support networks when I am at the begining.of an episode.

I added an additional layer of support recently by joining a group called Partnership Developement group [PDG] I go there 2 times a week.It is a day program  for people struggling with mental health issues.

I also go to aa meetings and am very active in the area of advocacy for the homeless.

The key to maintaining my support network is to get back up when I fall and realize that with help from my network I can get back on track. I maintain multiple layers of support and keep in contact with them when times are good or bad.  Peace and I love you all!