[SPEAKER_00]: X homeless.
[SPEAKER_00]: What was the scariest thing that you ever saw on the streets?
[SPEAKER_00]: Story one, I was homeless back when I was 19.
[SPEAKER_00]: After a few weeks of sleeping rough, I was approached one evening by a man dressed as a priest.
[SPEAKER_00]: At that point I had no idea if he was actually a priest or someone out to deceive me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Being wary of the priest outfit, I straight away told him I had no interest in talking about God.
[SPEAKER_00]: What he said next has stuck with me ever since.
[SPEAKER_00]: He told me he was not there to talk about God.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was there to make sure I was safe.
[SPEAKER_00]: We talked for quite a while until it was dark, and that is when he offered me a bed for the night.
[SPEAKER_00]: Alarm bells were going off in my head, but he had seemed genuine, so I went with him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He drove me to a house in the suburbs and asked me to wait in his car while he spoke to someone.
[SPEAKER_00]: A few minutes later, he returned with another man who offered to let me sleep in his garage for the night.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everything inside me was saying this was a bad idea.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I accepted, as I had nothing left to lose.
[SPEAKER_00]: The garage was pretty standard, with tools, a workbench, and so on.
[SPEAKER_00]: Except in the corner, there was a box spring in some blankets.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was a connecting door to the main house that the man told me he would have to keep locked during the night.
[SPEAKER_00]: He apologized, but said he had kids in the house and could not take the risk.
[SPEAKER_00]: The priest asked if he could come by in the morning and speak to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then went into the house with the man.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do not think I slept at all that night.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was terrified.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had no real reason to be afraid of either man as they had been nothing but kind to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: However, after living on the streets for a while, you learn that nothing comes for free and that you should not trust anyone.
[SPEAKER_00]: Morning rolled around, and the most amazing thing happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: The man knocked on his own garage door to ask me if he could come in.
[SPEAKER_00]: This might not sound amazing, but when you have been living rough with zero privacy, someone asking if they can enter your space.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even when it is actually their space, gives you a sense of being human again.
[SPEAKER_00]: Someone actually respected me enough to ask.
[SPEAKER_00]: I spoke with both him and the priest every day for the seven weeks I slept in his garage.
[SPEAKER_00]: Between them, they managed to get me into a subsidized efficiency apartment.
[SPEAKER_00]: Think of a studio apartment, but much smaller got me a job and helped me get my life back on track.
[SPEAKER_00]: That was over 20 years ago, and I will always be indebted to both of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: I still send Christmas cards to the man whose garage was my home, and I visited him two years ago for Thanksgiving, sadly the priest passed away a few years back, but I truly believe that if there is a heaven, he was fast track straight in.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story 2 I had been homeless for a couple of weeks and had made friends with this couple.
[SPEAKER_00]: They seemed pretty relaxed but had a serious drinking problem.
[SPEAKER_00]: One night while I was sleeping, I could hear some commotion going on.
[SPEAKER_00]: I could not make out who it was or what was happening until my buddy came over and sat on my sleeping bag.
[SPEAKER_00]: Blood was pumping out of his neck, and every time his heartbeat it would spurred out.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was not under mass of pressure, but it was still very bad.
[SPEAKER_00]: I asked him what happened, and he said he thought his partner had cut his throat with a utility blade.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was so drunk that he was not aware of how serious his injury was, and insisted that I did not call an ambulance.
[SPEAKER_00]: I called the police anyway, and they called the ambulance.
[SPEAKER_00]: I saw the guy a couple of days later, still homeless, with a scar on his neck.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was extremely grateful, and the nurse had told him how lucky he was, as he had
[SPEAKER_00]: Story three, I am a woman in my early 20s.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was not my brightest decision, but I slept in my car for several weeks when I was completely out of money.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every night I parked in a small, cool-to-sac.
[SPEAKER_00]: As far as I knew the area was off a Sunday, so I was not taking anyone's parking spot and in the morning I would leave.
[SPEAKER_00]: I worked a lot, so usually I slept very deeply.
[SPEAKER_00]: One night though, I woke up feeling anxious for no clear reason.
[SPEAKER_00]: I looked up and saw softly illuminated window right above me, a nice warm light, like something from a grandmother's bedside lamp.
[SPEAKER_00]: I panicked a little and fumbled for my keys, thinking I should spend the rest of the night at a fast food place or something similar.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then I noticed a silhouette not far away.
[SPEAKER_00]: A man was standing still watching me.
[SPEAKER_00]: He did not knock on my window, did not try to talk, or do anything else.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was just watching.
[SPEAKER_00]: I got out of that cold assac very quickly.
[SPEAKER_00]: What scares me the most is not even the thought that he could have assaulted or robbed me.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the realization that he may have watched me on many other nights before, and I was simply too exhausted to notice.
[SPEAKER_00]: story 4.
[SPEAKER_00]: Funny in a dark way, a guy at the shelter I stayed at got stabbed in the ribs by another guy.
[SPEAKER_00]: The person who stabbed him just walked inside and tried to go to sleep.
[SPEAKER_00]: While the man who had been stabbed set on a bench, literally bleeding from his side and calmly lit a cigarette.
[SPEAKER_00]: When the staff called emergency services and tried to help him, he pushed them away, saying he was fine.
[SPEAKER_00]: Horrible.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was a gas station down the street where a man paid for fuel.
[SPEAKER_00]: Took the hose and poured gasoline all over himself.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was smoking outside at the time, and I remember him walking past the yard area with a lighter in his hand.
[SPEAKER_00]: His arm fully extended.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was clearly very mentally ill, so I did not think much of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I could not smell gasoline or anything like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I continued smoking, and even lit another cigarette.
[SPEAKER_00]: About 10 minutes later I was inside talking at the front desk, when someone ran through the front door and shouted that a man had set himself on fire across the street and asked for wet towels.
[SPEAKER_00]: Homeless shelters are rarely in good areas, so I walked outside casually, assuming someone in the apartments across the street had done something stupid.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I walked out the front door, I saw flames on one of the stairwells.
[SPEAKER_00]: At first I thought someone had set an object on fire, and then I realized it was a person, me and three other guys ended up putting him out.
[SPEAKER_00]: He would not stop burning at first, and I do not remember much about the acted self,
[SPEAKER_00]: The most disturbing thing I remember is that once he was out, he kept shouting that his groin was on fire and begging us to help.
[SPEAKER_00]: He died three days later.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was told it was not the first time he had done something like this.
[SPEAKER_00]: The shelters sent me to therapy afterward.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the woman I worked with was the best therapist I have ever had.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even now, I sometimes struggle and cannot really watch scenes involving fire and movies anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story 5.
[SPEAKER_00]: After a meal at a local shelter one night, I fell asleep in a park.
[SPEAKER_00]: I hated being there at night because some of the other homeless people would rob you.
[SPEAKER_00]: One guy had been stabbed a week earlier, and I needed to get out of there.
[SPEAKER_00]: I started making my way out of the area, taking alleyways so I would not attract drunk people who would throw things at, beat up, or harass those who had nothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I heard a commotion and decided to investigate.
[SPEAKER_00]: I saw a while-looking man naked from the waist down on top of someone I assume was a woman forcing himself on her.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every few seconds he would stop and punch her.
[SPEAKER_00]: The woman was unconscious, completely limp, and covered him blood.
[SPEAKER_00]: I yelled at him and he turned to look at me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have seen many terrible things in my life, but the look in his eyes was beyond anything human.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was filthy, and in the weak light from the street lamps, his eyes seemed to glow with rage and insanity.
[SPEAKER_00]: It terrified me so badly that I ran.
[SPEAKER_00]: I went to the nearest payphone, this was 1993, and called emergency services.
[SPEAKER_00]: I did not go back.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have felt like a coward ever since, and have no idea what happened to either of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: I truly hope she survived, and that he was stopped.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story six, the scariest thing I ever saw was a man named Tony T. Apparently he had been addicted to cocaine for years, but managed to keep a job to support his habit.
[SPEAKER_00]: He received a huge settlement over $500,000, and decided he never had to work again.
[SPEAKER_00]: He lived on the streets and used substances all day.
[SPEAKER_00]: The best way to describe him is that he was like a character from the television series breaking bad.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was generous with his substances, so people naturally wanted to be around him, but he was unpredictable and dangerous.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have many stories about him being violently aggressive, but the last time I saw him, he'd be to man with a pipe for dropping a tiny piece of substances into the dirt.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are talking about maybe $20 worth and he likely either killed the man or injured him for life.
[SPEAKER_00]: I tried to stop him and he threatened to turn on me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I walked away, found a phone, and called my sister to come get me.
[SPEAKER_00]: She helped me get my life together, and I never went back.
[SPEAKER_00]: That was 30 years ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story 7, I was homeless with warning, with jobs, knowing it was coming and preparing for it, along with my husband.
[SPEAKER_00]: We had a many van we modified for survival, put our belongings into storage, drove to his new job, and then lived rough in the van while I ran my small telecomute business, not a multi-level marketing scheme, and picked up a part-time night shift job in retail to help guarantee a safe parking spot.
[SPEAKER_00]: Six months of no rent and no utilities later, we had enough for a decent-down payment on a house, so it was basically the most millennial thing ever, being secretly homeless more or less on purpose.
[SPEAKER_00]: We still saw some awful things.
[SPEAKER_00]: We were what I would call upper-class homeless.
[SPEAKER_00]: My husband and I both had white collar jobs, and then I also had a blue collar retail one.
[SPEAKER_00]: Eventually he picked up a retail job as well, and simply did not mention his other qualifications.
[SPEAKER_00]: Taking the same weekend overnight shifts I was working, and we would stock shelves together just to be indoors somewhere with lighting and the ability to talk.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not changing our last names to match turned out to be a smart move, because one manager suspected we might be involved with each other, and was extremely startled later when we bought a house together, and it turned out we had already been married for five years.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jim Memberships covered showering in exercise.
[SPEAKER_00]: Study rooms at libraries were great quiet places to sleep if you knew how to use them.
[SPEAKER_00]: State parks were excellent for truly restful sleep, on nights when the store parking lot would not work.
[SPEAKER_00]: Food options were rough, but we eventually learned to eat mostly from the produce section, or buy things like trail mixes that did not need refrigeration, but still had protein and kept you full.
[SPEAKER_00]: Excessive sodium was the enemy, because it made you unbearably thirsty and led to bathroom problems.
[SPEAKER_00]: I quickly learned that I was far from the only employee at that retail store, who technically lived in the parking lot at least part of the time, and I was not the only regular customer
[SPEAKER_00]: The homeless population itself was not the problem.
[SPEAKER_00]: The real problem was general poverty.
[SPEAKER_00]: The lack of help for people who were trying and the lack of comfort for people who were suffering, other than the most toxic kinds.
[SPEAKER_00]: I once called an ambulance for a small child whose mother was not moving in the bathroom.
[SPEAKER_00]: The child was eerily calm and said she probably just needed an eloxone again.
[SPEAKER_00]: explaining it like having to plug in a phone sometimes.
[SPEAKER_00]: The mother's purse, and it was an expensive one, cost more than a month in the house we had left behind for this strange homeless chapter, while her shoes were among the cheapest our store sold.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I often wondered what her story was.
[SPEAKER_00]: A substance dealer once caught a kid's shoplifting and marched them right back inside to return the stolen items to me, slapped them upside the head, then offered me marijuana
[SPEAKER_00]: I declined tapping my chest and saying asthma.
[SPEAKER_00]: But thanked him politely, and he was as courteous to me as any neighbor afterward.
[SPEAKER_00]: I noticed there was often a car with extremely flashy wheels parked not far from our van.
[SPEAKER_00]: And once when I was walking back late at night and heard footsteps matching mine, I glanced back and saw a middle-aged white man suddenly distracted by the occupants of that car.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of whom was the same dealer.
[SPEAKER_00]: I got into the van, told my husband to move to the front and buckle up, and we drove to a different overnight spot.
[SPEAKER_00]: Substance dealers in my experience were not bad sorts.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes we heard screams and would carefully look.
[SPEAKER_00]: We learned quickly never to move the car if something shady happened in the parking lot, while we were inside.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because police would be looking for witnesses, and if they thought you saw something and were leaving.
[SPEAKER_00]: You could be detained, which would expose us.
[SPEAKER_00]: On nights with crashes, screaming, or fights, we would quietly aim the dashboard camera, turn on the auxiliary battery, go back to sleep, and then rotate the memory cards in the morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: If asked, we could say the car had been parked there, and we could check the footage, which gave us plausible deniability.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our store jobs were our alibi.
[SPEAKER_00]: I always carried both real schedules and fake ones I made on my laptop and printed at the library with a tiny folded corner code to tell them apart.
[SPEAKER_00]: Saying they kept changing the schedule was believable.
[SPEAKER_00]: As was disorganized paperwork and claiming the commute was long,
[SPEAKER_00]: One officer probably knew exactly what we were doing, but upper-class homeless people are not usually a problem for police as long as they stay invisible.
[SPEAKER_00]: We did have a stalker for a while toward the end, an older white man with a cane.
[SPEAKER_00]: He saw me at the checkout, then at the library where I used the internet, then with my husband and eventually started following us.
[SPEAKER_00]: It led to a big, awful, awkward confrontation until we learned that workers' compensation hires private detectives to follow older people with bad backs and hip replacements to confirm they are truly disabled.
[SPEAKER_00]: My husband laughed, explained what we really were, showed proof that we were not investigators, just homeless, and it ended with us having our first beer in six months at a Veterans of Foreign Wars Hall with the nicest older man imaginable.
[SPEAKER_00]: Who told his friends and somehow helped us find our house?
[SPEAKER_00]: I sometimes tell my students that my neighbor used to be my stalker, and they never believe me.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was also a young couple with baby twins living in a 1994 Toyota Station wagon because the husband's mother had thrown them out for refusing to let her into the delivery room.
[SPEAKER_00]: The babies were born by a cesarean section, and the mother was only allowed one person with her.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were nearly six years younger than us, juggling retail jobs and community college.
[SPEAKER_00]: Somehow missed entirely by social services.
[SPEAKER_00]: They never missed nutrition assistance appointments or medical visits and had the sense to rent a post office box at a shipping store with a real address because the mother-in-law had been stealing their mail before everything fell apart.
[SPEAKER_00]: When their Toyota broke down and the husband debated calling that woman, my husband almost broke the first rule of homelessness, never admit you are homeless to help them.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said truthfully that we used to own a 1994 model and took a look.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said he could get the part from a junkyard and return surprisingly fast, and later I noticed the auto parts store charge on our card.
[SPEAKER_00]: We could spare it.
[SPEAKER_00]: They could not.
[SPEAKER_00]: The twins are now a year ahead of our daughter in school and by coincidence, attend the same one.
[SPEAKER_00]: I ran into their mother a little over a month ago in February in the school parking lot, while working on another parent's broken mercury.
[SPEAKER_00]: We recognize each other instantly.
[SPEAKER_00]: Her children are tall now and she no longer looks worn down.
[SPEAKER_00]: The old Toyota is gone, sold to a relative for $100 in somehow still running.
[SPEAKER_00]: She and her husband are doing well, he works in systems administration, she is a licensed practical nurse, and they were about to close on a house near ours.
[SPEAKER_00]: We brought a gift to their housewarming.
[SPEAKER_00]: They always knew the part was not from a junkyard.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our kids play together like family.
[SPEAKER_00]: We do not talk about the past, only the present.
[SPEAKER_00]: I now bring groceries to our former stalker during quarantine.
[SPEAKER_00]: The substance dealers' cousin sold me my last set of tires, and my nurse friend and her husband are essential workers.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I often watch her twins along with my own child, while I handle teaching remotely.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do not know what happened to the child whose mother needed in a lock zone so often, or to the people involved in late night parking lot fights.
[SPEAKER_00]: The worst thing I saw while homeless was realizing that terrible things can happen to perfectly decent people, and the belief that good things automatically happen to good people.
[SPEAKER_00]: or that poor people are poor only because they make bad choices was the very first thing the street destroyed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story eight, I was sleeping in the hills at our local park.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone called it Hobo Hill.
[SPEAKER_00]: We used to sit down in the creek because it was not really visible from the road and the cops mostly left you alone.
[SPEAKER_00]: A group of us were sitting there, a mix of 18, 20, 25, and 30-year-olds smoking
[SPEAKER_00]: One guy got mad because a teenager would not pass the bottle.
[SPEAKER_00]: They argued back and forth for a minute, and I did not think much of it, no big deal.
[SPEAKER_00]: People fight over bottles all the time on the street.
[SPEAKER_00]: I went back to smoking and joking around with a guy next to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: The next thing we knew, the kid was yelling and screaming.
[SPEAKER_00]: The older guy had picked up a fairly large rock and slammed it into the teenager's head to force him to hand over the bottle.
[SPEAKER_00]: The kid was bleeding really badly
[SPEAKER_00]: The guy grabbed the bottle and kept drinking from it like nothing had happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: Someone called the police and told them where we were, so the kid could get medical help.
[SPEAKER_00]: But almost everyone scattered and disappeared.
[SPEAKER_00]: I never really saw the kid again.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm pretty sure he ended up being okay, but he never really came back to the streets.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was young, so I hope he went back to his parents' house.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was not the worst thing I ever saw, but it is one of the moments that stuck with me the most.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story nine, one night I was kidnapped.
[SPEAKER_00]: A man would not let me leave his house.
[SPEAKER_00]: He had picked me up for S-work, and once we got to his place, he said he just wanted to hold me.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I tried to leave, he tied me down and assaulted me.
[SPEAKER_00]: No matter what I did, I could not get away.
[SPEAKER_00]: hours later, he finally passed out and I ran.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was terrified.
[SPEAKER_00]: It took two hours for me to get back to where my boyfriend was.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I told him what had happened, he took his broken substance pipe and cut me with it because I did not bring any money back.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was covered in blood, and when a passerby saw me, they called the police.
[SPEAKER_00]: The worst part came when the police arrived.
[SPEAKER_00]: I told them exactly what had happened and gave them the address of the man who assaulted me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they told me that just because he did not pay, did not mean it was assault.
[SPEAKER_00]: That was not the first time I had problems with police not caring about the safety of homeless people.
[SPEAKER_00]: Another time, another woman broke my nose and I passed out for several hours.
[SPEAKER_00]: Someone called the police, and when they arrived, they said not to bother because I was just a prostitute and not worth their time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story 10
[SPEAKER_00]: I used to wander around a neighborhood with a lot of homeless people, with a group of maybe eight or 10 boys and girls between the ages of 9 and 15.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was in my early 20s at the time.
[SPEAKER_00]: I shared some marijuana with them occasionally, but I never stayed long or made real conversation because the younger ones were sniffing glue and the older ones were into heavier substances.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was just adrifting hippie making bad-life choices.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do not know the exact technical term, but there were valves and pipes down there, and they used it as a place to hide and do what they usually did.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some of them even slept there at night.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do not remember an exact date, only that autumn was approaching, and the days were getting rainy.
[SPEAKER_00]: One night the rain turned into a storm very quickly.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do not know exactly what happened because I was not there, but four of the kids drowned inside.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe they were rescued, maybe they moved on.
[SPEAKER_00]: The place was sealed not long after and eventually forgotten.
[SPEAKER_00]: The neighborhood was gentrified soon afterward, and I do not think anyone remembers what happened there anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story 11, I had been homeless and couch surfing for about a year when I managed to spend a few weeks at my friend Josh's house.
[SPEAKER_00]: He has since passed away and I still miss him.
[SPEAKER_00]: We pulled our resources and went on a heavy binge.
[SPEAKER_00]: I smoke some tar, he smokes some weed, and honestly I think I did too.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then we both took triple stack pills and decided to wander through the night in Oakland.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some police cars passed us and slowed down, so we slipped away from around Jack London Square, and ended up near a grocery store.
[SPEAKER_00]: We both heard screaming, not normal screaming, but the kind that makes your hair stand up.
[SPEAKER_00]: Josh had been a trained mixed martial artist before his downward spiral, and at that time
[SPEAKER_00]: I started running toward the screams and he was right beside me.
[SPEAKER_00]: We ran behind the store to a loading dock and could see shadows moving and hear screaming.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a fight.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then we noticed a woman.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was the one screaming, and there was a man trying to pull her pants off.
[SPEAKER_00]: Through the haze I instantly understood what was happening.
[SPEAKER_00]: The man and I locked eyes just as I hid him.
[SPEAKER_00]: I felt something sharp and thought I had been stabbed, and that only made me angrier.
[SPEAKER_00]: adrenaline kicked in, and I remember rolling him over several times so I could keep hitting his face.
[SPEAKER_00]: Josh was kicking him relentlessly as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: We stopped when the man was on the ground choking and bleeding.
[SPEAKER_00]: The woman who appeared to be high started yelling at his unconscious body kicked him and went through his pockets.
[SPEAKER_00]: I asked her if she was okay and she told me to
[SPEAKER_00]: We jumped offence and followed train tracks into Berkeley, I think, and eventually had a brutal come down on the first southbound rapid transit train back toward Freemun.
[SPEAKER_00]: Her screams still haunt me when I hear similar sounds.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was incredibly tough, though.
[SPEAKER_00]: Those were raw, primal screams, and part of me wonders if she might have survived on her own, even if we had not shown up.
[SPEAKER_00]: After that, I spent another ten years caught up in crime and substances.
[SPEAKER_00]: It feels like another life now that so much time has passed.
[SPEAKER_00]: I miss the sense of adventure and not caring about anything except each other.
[SPEAKER_00]: We were young addicts with huge dreams and absolutely no idea what we were doing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story Twelve, I was homeless and Los Angeles in my early 20s due to untreated mental health issues, chasing substances, and a long series of burned bridges.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was staying in a parking lot at an abandoned department complex about a block north of Hollywood Boulevard.
[SPEAKER_00]: It had turned into a spot where a few of my street friends and I would inject substances, take makeshift baths, and crash when we needed to.
[SPEAKER_00]: One night, I was trying to sleep off a bad case of cotton fever, which happens when you inject some of the cotton used to filter heroin, and a friend who was also staying there asked if I could watch a backpack for him.
[SPEAKER_00]: I agreed, since I was not planning on going anywhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: I fell asleep, and the next thing I knew I was jolted away by someone standing right over me, screaming in my face.
[SPEAKER_00]: This random guy I had never seen before had a knife inches from my eye, and was screaming so loudly that he was going to stab me, that he was spitting all over my face.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was absolutely terrified, especially on top of already being sick.
[SPEAKER_00]: This went on for at least five minutes, and I have never been more scared for my life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Apparently he was furious because I had not opened the fire door to let him in, and he thought I was trying to steal his things.
[SPEAKER_00]: I managed to talk him down eventually, but that moment was one of the experiences that pushed me toward getting my life together.
[SPEAKER_00]: A lot of awful things happened to me while I lived on the streets, and every day I'm grateful to be in a better place, both physically and mentally.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story 13, this still hurts me deeply, but here it goes.
[SPEAKER_00]: I ended up homeless again back in 2014 in Lancaster, a place filled with meth and addiction.
[SPEAKER_00]: My mother kicked me out of the house for using substances, and at the time I was with my unstable girlfriend who was heavily addicted to meth.
[SPEAKER_00]: I never thought of her as someone who would sell herself, and it still hurts me to this day.
[SPEAKER_00]: When we became homeless, I got arrested on an old warrant and spent two weeks in jail.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I got out, I ended up in downtown Lancaster looking for my girlfriend, and neighbors told me where she could be found.
[SPEAKER_00]: I should never have gone looking for her, because when I found her at a ten-site and showed up, I could hear people having S. And I knew it was her.
[SPEAKER_00]: I angrily opened the tent and found her with three other men, all naked, in the middle of a group-est situation.
[SPEAKER_00]: She looked at me with a cold, twisted expression, and asked what I wanted.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just stood there in shock, unable to speak.
[SPEAKER_00]: Later, the men confronted me and told me she had been doing this for years and did not care at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: I broke down crying, realizing how foolish I had been and how badly it messed with my head.
[SPEAKER_00]: A few months later, I found out she was dead, killed after trying to rob a client.
[SPEAKER_00]: Her body discovered deep in the desert with her head missing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I cried uncontrollably when I learned that, and have been traumatized ever since.
[SPEAKER_00]: I will never again be with someone addicted to meth, because it is terrifying how deeply it can destroy people and pull others down with them.
[SPEAKER_00]: story 14.
[SPEAKER_00]: One night after being discharged from the psychiatric ward of a hospital, I walked to a bar to try to get free drinks and maybe a little cash.
[SPEAKER_00]: I stayed there until closing time and managed to get some beer and soda, which felt like a small victory.
[SPEAKER_00]: After I left around two in the morning, I went looking for a place to sleep.
[SPEAKER_00]: I chose a spot next to a laundromat
[SPEAKER_00]: There was already another man there, but he was asleep in his sleeping bag, so I settled about four feet away from his belongings and tried to sleep.
[SPEAKER_00]: Around seven in the morning, my iliostomy bag ruptured and started leaking all over my pants and shirt.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had to strip naked in public, remove the bag filled with waste, clean myself, and attach a new one right there in the open.
[SPEAKER_00]: I did not have any extra clothes, so I had to put my soap clothes back on and try to sleep again.
[SPEAKER_00]: After about two days, I finally broke down and went to the local Salvation Army Men's Center to Beg for Clothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: While staying there, I developed pneumonia because my iliostomy stoma was producing too much fluid, about two liters a day, which left me dehydrated very easily.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was cold and rainy at the time, winter and Houston, and my health quickly declined.
[SPEAKER_00]: I ended up back in the hospital for four months, where I was fortunate enough to find a compassionate surgeon who agreed to perform a reversal surgery for my LA ostomy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because it was a teaching hospital, once I admitted I was suicidal and struggling with substance addiction, they transferred me to another psychiatric hospital where I stayed for an additional 30 days to detox and begin recovering from depression.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story 15.
[SPEAKER_00]: While I was not homeless myself, my hometown had a large homeless population.
[SPEAKER_00]: I worked at an electronics retailer that no longer exists, and was an assistant manager in the car audio department.
[SPEAKER_00]: Employees parked out back and one morning while opening the store, I noticed a man sleeping in the bushes, which was unusual for that area.
[SPEAKER_00]: I went over to check on him to make sure he was alive.
[SPEAKER_00]: He told me he was traveling through town and had chosen to sleep there.
[SPEAKER_00]: I told him it was fine and that if he needed to use the restroom to clean up, he could.
[SPEAKER_00]: He left shortly after.
[SPEAKER_00]: The next morning he came back and asked if there was any work he could do to earn some cash.
[SPEAKER_00]: We had a corporate visit coming later that week, so I gave him a list of outdoor chores to complete, and told him I would pay him with food and clothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: He did a great job, so I went to the fast food place next door, and bought him lunch along with a decent-sized gift card.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was a discount clothing store in the same complex, and we went there to get him some fresh clothes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Over time, he came and went.
[SPEAKER_00]: Always kept a clean camp and never bothered anyone.
[SPEAKER_00]: I told him he could stay there as long as he kept the area clean and did not harass customers.
[SPEAKER_00]: He always did the outdoor work for the same payment, lunch and a gift card, and we occasionally helped him with more clothes.
[SPEAKER_00]: When the store started closing for good, I talked to him about having to leave.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was very worried about losing his camp and food source.
[SPEAKER_00]: I spoke with management and a few co-workers who had gotten to know him, and we bought him a bunch of gift cards and donated a large amount of store clothing,
[SPEAKER_00]: He was genuinely a very kind person, and I would see him from time to time over the years, always seeming to be in good spirits.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have since moved away and still wonder what ever happened to him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story 16
[SPEAKER_00]: When I was staying in Minneapolis, the area was a predominantly black neighborhood.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was a very drunk white guy with blonde hair who I think had been robbed, because all anyone knew was that someone had taken his phone.
[SPEAKER_00]: He walked up to the shelter line I was waiting in and started screaming at the top of his lungs, using racist slurs and shouting that someone had stolen his phone.
[SPEAKER_00]: He kept repeating it over and over.
[SPEAKER_00]: I immediately yelled at him to shut his mouth not to be cruel, but because I knew a lot of people there had nothing left to lose.
[SPEAKER_00]: And insulting the last thing they had, their dignity was a fast way to get seriously hurt.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is exactly what happened within about a minute.
[SPEAKER_00]: Three guys walked up and knocked him to the ground.
[SPEAKER_00]: People have asked me why I did not help him, but there was no helping him at that point.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was surrounded and alone.
[SPEAKER_00]: I started yelling for them to stop once he was unconscious, but they kept kicking him in the head.
[SPEAKER_00]: An older man grabbed me by the shoulder, shook his head, and told me not to get hurt, saying I seemed like a good kid.
[SPEAKER_00]: I backed off when inside the shelter and told them to call an ambulance.
[SPEAKER_00]: Shockingly, they did not even want to do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: They tried to drag him inside to sleep it off, even though he had been unconscious for about five minutes.
[SPEAKER_00]: He did not even look homeless.
[SPEAKER_00]: Eventually the police showed up, called an ambulance and took him away.
[SPEAKER_00]: The officers did not ask what happened because they knew no one would talk.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was not going to either because I still had to stay at that shelter.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if it got around that I talked to police, I could have been next.
[SPEAKER_00]: That might be why about two hours later, for the first and only time in my life, I was almost mugged.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was under a bridge on the phone trying to find somewhere to stay because the shelter filled up while all of this happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was raining, and I was talking to a social worker when a man walked by and stared straight at me.
[SPEAKER_00]: He did not say a word, but something felt off.
[SPEAKER_00]: About 10 feet away, he turned around and started walking back toward me, still silent.
[SPEAKER_00]: I walked away into the rain, and he followed me, speeding up.
[SPEAKER_00]: I told the woman on the phone that I was going to put my phone in my pocket and run if something happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: I ran but I had a big backpack on and it was Sunday with no bars or places open.
[SPEAKER_00]: It took about two city blocks before I even saw traffic and that is when it hit me that I had no easy way out.
[SPEAKER_00]: I ran toward two cars coming out from an underground parking garage, screaming that I did not know the man chasing me and begging them to let me in.
[SPEAKER_00]: The first driver shook his head and drove off.
[SPEAKER_00]: I cannot blame him.
[SPEAKER_00]: The second driver took the chance and let me in.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I am grateful for that to this day.
[SPEAKER_00]: The man chasing me walked around the vehicle, staring angrily.
[SPEAKER_00]: The driver asked me what I wanted to do, and I told him to just leave.
[SPEAKER_00]: I did not want to deal with the police because I was addicted to heroin at the time and had substances in my bag.
[SPEAKER_00]: He dropped me off three blocks away at a gas station.
[SPEAKER_00]: Being homeless is no joke.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was harder than anything else I have ever done, and people should be kind to homeless individuals because they truly do not have it easy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story 17, I am not homeless
[SPEAKER_00]: There was a very large man who was known as the nice homeless guy where I lived.
[SPEAKER_00]: People tried to help him get back on his feet, but his alcoholism made that very difficult.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I was younger, around eight years old, I was attacked by three teenagers who wanted money for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: He scared them away and protected me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And because of that, I always felt safer when he was around.
[SPEAKER_00]: As an adult, I no longer live in the same town, but when I visit, I still sometimes see him near the train station or the mall.
[SPEAKER_00]: I usually buy him packs of cigarettes because I know he generally has food and wine.
[SPEAKER_00]: One day I decided to sit with him and talk for about an hour.
[SPEAKER_00]: We sat on a piece of cardboard near the mall, and I was wearing my usual hoodie and joggers, so I probably looked homeless too.
[SPEAKER_00]: What scared me and hurt me for him was the way people looked at us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Most people ignored us, which is common, but some looked at us with pure disgust, like we were worthless.
[SPEAKER_00]: even though we were just sitting quietly and bothering no one.
[SPEAKER_00]: It made me feel awful because I do not know him as a drunk.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know him as the man who protected a child from being attacked.
[SPEAKER_00]: He does not deserve to be looked at with that kind of contempt and neither do the others.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was not fear for my life that scared me.
[SPEAKER_00]: but the realization that some people make you feel like you deserve to be there, like this is normal punishment, and that is what truly stayed with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story 18.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is not my story, but one from a close friend who asked me to share it, because she does not have a Reddit account.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I was 14, I had a group of strange friends, the kind of punk kids who hung around the train station and took whatever substances they could find.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like the rebellious teenager I was, I ended up sleeping on the streets with them for about four weeks.
[SPEAKER_00]: One night after running from the police because most of us were underage and using substances,
[SPEAKER_00]: We searched for a place to stay.
[SPEAKER_00]: We found a small playground with three little wooden huts.
[SPEAKER_00]: There were five of us, so we split into two pairs, and one guy slept alone on a bench because he was over two meters tall and could not fit inside the huts.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone eventually fell asleep except me because I have always had terrible insomnia.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was staring at a large green stain on the wall when I heard a sound like someone gargling mouthwash that wet, gurgling noise.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had just turned 14 and was still scared of almost everything, even after weeks on the street, so I closed my eyes and tried to focus on anything else.
[SPEAKER_00]: After a long time, I fell asleep.
[SPEAKER_00]: I could not have been asleep long before I was shaken awake.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone was yelling and screaming, and everything felt blurry until I blinked a few times.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then I understood what they were saying.
[SPEAKER_00]: The big guy on the bench was dead.
[SPEAKER_00]: His throat had been cut.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was still dark, so we only had phone lights, but one of the older ones checked him to be sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was no breathing, no heartbeat, and his throat was open.
[SPEAKER_00]: I only sought from a distance because I was the youngest.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of the older guys led me away from the playground and told me they had found him like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I almost had a panic attack when I remembered the sound from the night before.
[SPEAKER_00]: I realized I had heard him being killed and had closed my eyes instead.
[SPEAKER_00]: We did not call the police, I cannot fully remember why, but we were all high, and there was nothing we could do for him.
[SPEAKER_00]: We drank all day afterward, and I smoked my last cigarette with them for him in a way.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then I said I needed to use the bathroom, but instead I just kept walking until I reached the train station.
[SPEAKER_00]: For a moment I thought about ending my life, but then I realized I had to keep living because
[SPEAKER_00]: I got on a train and went home.
[SPEAKER_00]: When my mother opened the door, I broke down, unable to tell her everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: The next day I was admitted to a psychiatric hospital, because the experience completely broke me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am still in therapy six years later.
[SPEAKER_00]: I never saw anything about it in the news, and I never saw those people again.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think they knew I was gone for good.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story 19, I should probably be able to think of a lot because I saw so much.
[SPEAKER_00]: But honestly, it all became so normal that it barely stands out anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: There were countless substance users doing chaotic things.
[SPEAKER_00]: I once woke up in the back seat of a car and got screamed at because the guy in the front was injecting substances and said I was shaking the car too much.
[SPEAKER_00]: I watched one of my close friends get stabbed while he was completely blackout drunk, maybe ten feet away from me, and I had to help get him to a plaza so he could receive medical care.
[SPEAKER_00]: I saw a substance user hit a pregnant woman and then get jumped by about 10 people we were hanging around with.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had guns pointed at me multiple times, including one press against my chest while I was pinned to a wall.
[SPEAKER_00]: I stayed at a teen homeless shelter for a while and lived with people who were actively trying to hurt me or worse.
[SPEAKER_00]: During the day, we would get kicked out, so I had to constantly avoid them by leaving early or waiting until they were gone.
[SPEAKER_00]: One time I saw the car of a man I knew had a gun and was looking for me and my best friend pull up nearby, and we ran and hid inside a Starbucks.
[SPEAKER_00]: That kind of thing just became part of life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story 20
[SPEAKER_00]: The scariest thing I ever saw happened on Skid Row sometime between 2005 and 2007.
[SPEAKER_00]: At the time I was selling illegal substances and had a large amount on me along with a lot of cash.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was in an area where substances of all kinds were being used or sold openly.
[SPEAKER_00]: About 50 feet away from me set an elderly man around 67 years old, quietly eating a sandwich on the curb.
[SPEAKER_00]: He kept to himself and did not drink or use substances.
[SPEAKER_00]: I will call him Bob.
[SPEAKER_00]: About 100 feet up the street, a younger man was walking toward Bob.
[SPEAKER_00]: When he reached him, he kicked Bob's head against the curb and began stomping on his face and head.
[SPEAKER_00]: Within seconds, there was a large open wound at the backup Bob's head and blood poured out rapidly.
[SPEAKER_00]: Bob tried to stand, gagging and struggling, blood everywhere, fighting with everything he had to stay alive.
[SPEAKER_00]: His skin began turning pale and bluish, his lips discolored, and he started vomiting uncontrollably.
[SPEAKER_00]: His hands were clenched into fists, as if he were physically fighting death.
[SPEAKER_00]: Several men stood within a few feet of him, close enough to intervene and possibly save his life.
[SPEAKER_00]: The entire time, the young man who attacked him stood there watching, completely blank, showing no emotion at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: A police station was very close to where this happened, and the Los Angeles police eventually took the attacker down forcefully.
[SPEAKER_00]: I remember my supplier, a heavily armed man with others around him, telling me to do nothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: That day nobody helped, nobody stepped in, a life-ended while everyone watched.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story 21 My family was homeless, my mother, my brother, and me.
[SPEAKER_00]: We had just been evicted and ended up with nothing, and someone stole most of the belongings the Marshall had placed on the curb.
[SPEAKER_00]: We ended up deep in a very bad part of town.
[SPEAKER_00]: The kind of place where the sound of police helicopters was constant.
[SPEAKER_00]: My mom knew a man who renovated houses, and he had one that was half finished where we could stay.
[SPEAKER_00]: It had no running water or proper electricity, just a long extension cord stretched across the street from the house where he lived.
[SPEAKER_00]: We were a very visible minority in that neighborhood, and it was clear the people there did not want us around, especially being poor and homeless.
[SPEAKER_00]: They would throw glass bottles at the house, but since it was boarded up, the bottles just shattered outside.
[SPEAKER_00]: We stayed there for a while with no phone.
[SPEAKER_00]: This was before cell phones.
[SPEAKER_00]: So my mom had to walk to a pay phone to call around and try to find a charity that could help us.
[SPEAKER_00]: During that time, someone on the street had their gas shut off because it had been hooked up illegally and somehow they blame my mom for reporting it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even though we had no idea and no way to report anything, even if we wanted to.
[SPEAKER_00]: One day the neighbors tricked my mom into coming outside, where a group was waiting.
[SPEAKER_00]: They attacked her with a baseball bat while my brother and I watched.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was left bleeding badly from head and body injuries.
[SPEAKER_00]: Someone eventually called an ambulance, and the entire street cheered and celebrated as we were taken to the emergency room.
[SPEAKER_00]: Seeing my mom beaten nearly to death for something we had nothing to do with, was the worst thing I experienced.
[SPEAKER_00]: She survived, but it shortened her life, and she never fully recovered.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story 22, I was homeless for 10 years.
[SPEAKER_00]: Once in Riverside, California, we decided to camp in a dry concrete riverbed.
[SPEAKER_00]: We were travelers and had cookware, so we grilled steaks and shared whiskey.
[SPEAKER_00]: We saw a couple of other rough-looking people and asked if they were hungry.
[SPEAKER_00]: One guy came over and kicked our grill over.
[SPEAKER_00]: His girlfriend got into a fight with one of our friends and I pushed the guy away.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our dog stayed calm during the whole situation.
[SPEAKER_00]: We used our only water to clean the food and kept going, then passed out.
[SPEAKER_00]: I woke up in the middle of the night to a hard blow to my head while I was still in my sleeping bag.
[SPEAKER_00]: As I tried to get out, I was hit several more times and then knocked to the ground, where I was kicked for close to a minute before I fully understood what was happening.
[SPEAKER_00]: I managed to grab a pipe from one of the attackers.
[SPEAKER_00]: There were about six or seven people beating us while we were still half asleep.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was dark and the dog stayed quiet.
[SPEAKER_00]: Eventually everyone got up and defended themselves and the attackers ran off.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of our friends was badly bleeding and older man was unconscious in his six-week-old puppy had been killed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our dog captain had a clearly broken jaw and could barely move.
[SPEAKER_00]: My head was split open in multiple places.
[SPEAKER_00]: My eyes were swelling shut.
[SPEAKER_00]: Blood was pouring from my nose and my entire body hurt.
[SPEAKER_00]: We walked to a store carrying our injured dogs and called the police.
[SPEAKER_00]: The officer walked us back to the campsite, made us clean it up and told us to leave.
[SPEAKER_00]: We found an emergency veterinarian and ended up surrendering captain so she could recover and be adopted.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was one of the saddest days I ever experienced on the road.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story 23, I was very young and what stuck with me the most was the constant violence.
[SPEAKER_00]: At any moment, you could be attacked without warning.
[SPEAKER_00]: During my first nights I walked in circles around places I recognized.
[SPEAKER_00]: If I saw police late at night, I hid in bushes, but the real danger came from cars pulling over in the early morning hours.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was usually one of two things.
[SPEAKER_00]: Groups of guys trying to intimidate and rob a 13-year-old, or adults trying to exploit me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was extremely lucky that nothing truly catastrophic happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: I stayed alert, got into a few fights, and eventually a familiar person saw me, pulled over, and convinced his mother to take me in.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is how I got back into school and earn my diploma.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know many other kids like me, and it is incredibly lonely because no one really understands unless they lived it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Most of the others I knew ended up being exploited, joining gangs, or becoming addicted to substances.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I do not associate with them anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: The violence left a permanent mark.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do not like going out.
[SPEAKER_00]: I cannot carry weapons, and I do not trust unfamiliar places.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am the quiet, distant person at work who does not get invited to social events, always expecting something bad to happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe that is my own guilt catching up to me, because I did some terrible things back then.
[SPEAKER_00]: At first it was survival, but eventually it crossed into something darker.
[SPEAKER_00]: I stopped that life, and now I actively work on learning how to connect with people, controlling how I speak and act in professional settings, and keeping most of my past to
[SPEAKER_00]: Story 24.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mine probably does not compare to some of the things shared here, but I still wanted to tell it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was homeless for about four months after being in and out of psychiatric hospitals for suicide attempts.
[SPEAKER_00]: My final stay was two months in a state hospital before I was discharged into a local shelter.
[SPEAKER_00]: The scariest thing for me was running into a man I had previously met while hospitalized.
[SPEAKER_00]: Back then, he had been extremely creepy, asking if I had a boyfriend.
[SPEAKER_00]: What my type was, and at one point I had to report him, because while we were alone in the television room, he began touching himself through his shorts while staring at me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Staff told me to stay away from him and never be alone with him.
[SPEAKER_00]: months later I was walking alone in a quiet part of town when I saw him.
[SPEAKER_00]: I tried desperately not to be noticed, but he recognized me, came over, and started acting overly friendly, asking how I had been in making small talk.
[SPEAKER_00]: I stayed polite while trying to say I needed to leave, but he kept pushing, asking where I worked.
[SPEAKER_00]: I lied and said nowhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he took that as meaning I had nothing to do and started insisting I'd come with him to his friend's house for coffee, even trying to lead me in that direction.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was early morning and the street was mostly empty.
[SPEAKER_00]: and I was reaching the point where I was going to stop being polite and just walk away.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then out of nowhere, a woman came around the corner, walked right up to us and started loudly arguing with him about how he had not seen her recently.
[SPEAKER_00]: She looked directly at me and nodded, and I immediately took the opportunity to walk away, speed walking down the street and turning the corner.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I look back, she yelled a bit more, then stormed off, leaving him confused and standing
[SPEAKER_00]: That random woman saved me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am convinced he had bad intentions, because he had always been pushy and completely unaware of boundaries.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am incredibly grateful she saw what was happening in step-in without hesitation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story 25, I was scrounging for change at a car wash in Arizona during the summer of 2008, hoping to collect enough money to buy some bread to last me through the week.
[SPEAKER_00]: A man pulled up in a sport utility vehicle and started yelling at me for being an eye sore and told me to get out of his town.
[SPEAKER_00]: I tried to explain that I was hungry and down on my luck, and his attitude suddenly changed.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said he would take me through a drive through and buy me lunch if I got in his car.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every alarm bell in my head went off, but I was starving.
[SPEAKER_00]: I got in and he started driving around town, passing multiple fast food places without stopping.
[SPEAKER_00]: He began flirting with me, and I tried to stay polite because I thought food was still coming.
[SPEAKER_00]: Eventually he pulled up to a small house, and the garage door started opening.
[SPEAKER_00]: He told me he would take care of me, that I could come inside, take a shower, and he would cook for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had accepted kindness from strangers before, but something about him made every instinct in my body screamed to get out immediately.
[SPEAKER_00]: As he pulled into the garage, I unbuckled my seatbelt and opened the door.
[SPEAKER_00]: He grabbed my arm and tried to hold me, so I pulled out a knife I carried, which startled him enough to let go.
[SPEAKER_00]: I ran as fast as I could and spent the entire night walking back to where I usually stayed.
[SPEAKER_00]: To this day, I am convinced he planned to seriously harm me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story 26, I have been homeless many times, and I have two moments that stand out as the scariest.
[SPEAKER_00]: The first happened on my very first day when there was still an actual shelter in the area.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was sitting alone out back smoking a cigarette when a man approached me and said we should go party at his house.
[SPEAKER_00]: I told him no, because years of true crime television had taught me to be cautious.
[SPEAKER_00]: He then started listing off different street substances and said he had all of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: I still refused.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then he pulled out his wallet and flashed a $100 bill.
[SPEAKER_00]: At that point, other homeless people came into the alley, and he shifted his attention to them instead, asking if they wanted to go home with him.
[SPEAKER_00]: The whole interaction was deeply unsettling.
[SPEAKER_00]: The second experience happened during a period when I was dealing with an undiagnosed dissociative disorder.
[SPEAKER_00]: Being homeless was already stressful, and smoking marijuana every day only made things worse.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was a small park near a bread factory across from a large office building with highly reflective windows.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had run out of marijuana, and although it was less than a full day, it felt like an endless nightmare.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing felt real.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was anxious and walking around when I began to dissociate.
[SPEAKER_00]: Something I had done my whole life without understanding it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I started daydreaming intensely, imagining a familiar fictional character nearby, and then suddenly everything shifted.
[SPEAKER_00]: I looked into the reflective windows and felt overwhelming panic that I could not find my father.
[SPEAKER_00]: I began asking a woman for help, begging her to help me find him, and she repeated my words back to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Eventually I realized the woman was my own reflection, and that I was not a child looking for her parent.
[SPEAKER_00]: The realization that I had been staring at myself for, who knows how long without recognizing myself was terrifying.
[SPEAKER_00]: Looking back now, I understand what happened neurologically, but at the time it was one of the most frightening experiences of my life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story 27, I lived in my truck for nearly a year around 2008.
[SPEAKER_00]: Finding a place to sleep was always tricky because my truck was a flashy, lifted monstrosity, was sparkly red paint in color-changing flames.
[SPEAKER_00]: I bought it that way because the price was too good to pass up, but it made me a magnet for police during the day and thieves at night.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of my regular sleeping spots was a dirt road surrounded by massive fields, with a sweet spot where no houses could see you thanks to a hill on each side.
[SPEAKER_00]: People sometimes dump trash there illegally, but otherwise it seemed quiet, and I thought it was safe.
[SPEAKER_00]: One night while sleeping in the back of my old ram charger, I woke up feeling a gentle rocking motion.
[SPEAKER_00]: As I lay there trying to fall back asleep, I heard a tapping sound coming from the front seat.
[SPEAKER_00]: I lifted myself up and saw a man hammering a screwdriver into my ignition.
[SPEAKER_00]: My adrenaline exploded.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am not a tough guy, but I tried to sound terrifying and started screaming at him.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought he might attack me, so I grabbed the cheap machete I kept under my pillow, and that was enough to make him jump out of my truck.
[SPEAKER_00]: For some reason I climbed over the seat after him, and found myself facing two more men standing next to a waiting car.
[SPEAKER_00]: I panicked inside, but apparently they did too, because instead of escalating, they all jumped into the car and sped off, spraying gravel everywhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: After that I started parking in a dried up pond that was low enough to hide my truck from the road.
[SPEAKER_00]: At night I was practically invisible.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was actually peaceful and I could leave the back gate open and enjoy the summer breeze.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story 28 I became homeless after a long opioid addiction that eventually turned into intravenous heroin use.
[SPEAKER_00]: other addicts and I formed small encampments around the city, and the group I stayed with had around 50 people at its largest.
[SPEAKER_00]: It became a small community of sorts.
[SPEAKER_00]: When you are that low, survival looks different.
[SPEAKER_00]: Being addicted, using substances, feels as necessary as food or water, because without it you get violently sick.
[SPEAKER_00]: People reuse needles, sometimes ones already used by others
[SPEAKER_00]: After a while rumors started spreading about people testing positive for serious illnesses, then more names were added, it became terrifying.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even if you did not share needles, seeing other people's blood was common, and sanitation was almost non-existent.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some people who later tested positive seemed to care even less, almost like a misery-loves company situation.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the end, my roads stopped when I was arrested for a substance-related crime.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had spent 12 years addicted and was exhausted.
[SPEAKER_00]: That arrest became the intervention I needed to ask for help.
[SPEAKER_00]: I entered treatment, then moved into a sober living home, and focused on building a sober community.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have been sober from all substances for 462 days.
[SPEAKER_00]: While in custody, I tested negative for all communicable diseases, including human immunodeficiency virus and hepatitis C. I dodged more bullets than I like to think about.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story 29 I was not exactly on the streets, but at 19 I was accused by my local counsel of choosing to be homeless.
[SPEAKER_00]: Their logic was that people over 20 with mental illness were no
[SPEAKER_00]: When I eventually got into sheltered housing, I shared it with four men who had recently been released from prison.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were actually very kind people, even though some might find that scary.
[SPEAKER_00]: One night, a woman with severe epilepsy who lived across from me had a seizure, wandered outside in the snow, and was found around five in the morning unconscious with broken ribs.
[SPEAKER_00]: She eventually recovered.
[SPEAKER_00]: At a homeless shelter I stayed in before that.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was a violent incident where blood was smeared everywhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: And some of the children were disturbingly excited to show me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Another time, the police dropped off an unconscious woman who had been beaten by her partner and hospitalized for several days.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was diabetic, had not been fed properly, and the police left her there without guidance.
[SPEAKER_00]: The woman who ran the shelter had to care for her
[SPEAKER_00]: The shelter manager Leslie was an incredible woman, small, bald, always wearing a bandana with sweet dogs and endless kindness.
[SPEAKER_00]: I still think about her often.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story 30 I spent some time traveling and hitchhiking, though on this occasion I was in a car with two other people.
[SPEAKER_00]: We were driving through northern Wisconsin near La Crosse when someone told us about a quarry where we could camp.
[SPEAKER_00]: We went there, built a fire, cooked dinner by a small spring fed lake, and found a flat rock plateau above the water where people used to cliff jump.
[SPEAKER_00]: We decided to sleep there because it was smoother than the rocky ground below.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the middle of the night, my friend woke me up.
[SPEAKER_00]: Under the three-quarter moon, we could see a pack of wolves down near where we had cooked, about 200 yards away.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our car was nearly a mile away, we had nothing with us, and there were at least three wolves howling and making noise.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was nothing we could do, so I pulled my sleeping bag over my head and hoped for the best, eventually falling back into a very light sleep.
[SPEAKER_00]: Beyond that, most of the scariest things I experienced involved other homeless people.
[SPEAKER_00]: Methuse and untreated mental illness are extremely dangerous.
[SPEAKER_00]: I once saw a man with one leg kick his bike towards someone, stabbed him in the face and right off while being chased.
[SPEAKER_00]: I also once had a police officer tell me that if he saw me again in Kansas City, nobody would ever see me again.
[SPEAKER_00]: That stayed with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story 31 I lived on the streets in South St. Louis in the early 1990s.
[SPEAKER_00]: I slept in parks, behind dumpsters, at bus stops, or just in alleys.
[SPEAKER_00]: I saw a lot of horrible things mostly overdoses in prostitution.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was one prostitute I remember more than anyone else.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was very young and small.
[SPEAKER_00]: I used to watch her work her corner, and I would try to get her to go home, telling her
[SPEAKER_00]: She never listened and always said she was tough enough to handle street life.
[SPEAKER_00]: One day I watched a client pick her up and drive off.
[SPEAKER_00]: They came back a short time later and she got out of the car and walked behind it.
[SPEAKER_00]: The driver suddenly tried to back into her.
[SPEAKER_00]: She yelled at him and walked around the front of the car and he hit her with the front end, knocking her into a storm drain before driving off.
[SPEAKER_00]: I helped her out of the sewer and lectured her again.
[SPEAKER_00]: She laughed it off and walked away.
[SPEAKER_00]: I did not see her again for about a week, then one day she stumbled out of an alley, pale, shaking, and covered in blood from about her chest down.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was whispering for help, begging me not to let her die.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was wearing a white button-up shirt open to her waist and underwear.
[SPEAKER_00]: As she got closer, I saw a large butcher knife stabbed into her armpit, the handle forcing her arm out at a strange angle.
[SPEAKER_00]: I tried to comfort her, and told her I would not let her die.
[SPEAKER_00]: I helped her sit down and she died shortly after.
[SPEAKER_00]: I never knew her name, or where she came from, or what she was running from.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I will never forget her.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wish someone had loved her.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story 32 I lived in roughrooming housing for a few years.
[SPEAKER_00]: I moved into a room that had previously been used for dealing substances, so people were constantly trying to break in, or knocking on my door at all hours asking for substances.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was 25 at the time and had made bad decisions and was incredibly naive.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was trying to detox from meth and everyone in that house either smoked it or sold it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But what I witnessed there constantly reminded me why I needed to stay away from it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Over time I got used to living in a constant state of alert.
[SPEAKER_00]: I never slept properly.
[SPEAKER_00]: Any loud noise would have me jumping out of bed, half awake and ready to fight.
[SPEAKER_00]: The police were there every few days for one reason or another.
[SPEAKER_00]: I rarely went outside because the area was just as dangerous as the house and sitting behind a locked door gave the illusion of safety, even though people had broken in before.
[SPEAKER_00]: One day I felt an unexplained urge to go for a bike ride.
[SPEAKER_00]: Something I never did.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I came back, there were police cars everywhere, and the house was taped off.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of the men had snapped and brutally stabbed the person in the room across from mine.
[SPEAKER_00]: I remember pushing my bike through pools of blood that splashed up the walls just to get back to my room.
[SPEAKER_00]: They eventually cleaned it with bleach.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the smell of bleach mixed with blood never went away the entire time I lived there.
[SPEAKER_00]: A few weeks later, both men were back on friendly terms.
[SPEAKER_00]: So many terrible things happened there that still haunt me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I have nightmares about it almost every night, even five years later.
[SPEAKER_00]: Many people in Australia prefer sleeping rough to living in rooming houses.
[SPEAKER_00]: I later got involved in homeless activism and heard countless stories of people developing severe trauma in those places, people dying in their rooms and not being found for weeks, discovered by other residents in horrifying states.
[SPEAKER_00]: I realized what I experienced was considered mild by comparison.
[SPEAKER_00]: In a few months later, I finally got out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story 33 I was homeless for about eight years, mostly in the Midwest.
[SPEAKER_00]: Eventually I made my way to San Diego, which has a very large homeless population and many programs to help.
[SPEAKER_00]: Compared to other places, I enjoyed my time there.
[SPEAKER_00]: I could shower, eat, and find places to sleep without constant harassment.
[SPEAKER_00]: Police in the Central City were generally fine with people sleeping in parks at night, as long as they were gone by dawn.
[SPEAKER_00]: I only had to ask for spare change for about four months before I managed to save enough money to move to another state, get a cheap apartment, and start job hunting.
[SPEAKER_00]: That was the end of my homelessness, and I am very grateful for how California treated me.
[SPEAKER_00]: The scariest thing I experienced however, involved border police around 2012.
[SPEAKER_00]: From San Diego, you can take a trolley across the border into Tijuana, and people suggested it as a way to find easy work.
[SPEAKER_00]: I tried at once in the ended up jumping off the train because of how badly people were being treated.
[SPEAKER_00]: Border officers were demanding money from Americans, threatening them, and arresting them if they did not hand over at least $20.