As some of you may have noticed, I haven't shared any new drawings in a few months now. If you've followed my blog or social media, at any consistent level, you also know I'm a homeless guy. I'm not your typical homeless guy, by any means. I work 7 days a week, writing, blogging, and drawing usually, and doing social media every day to promote the art and writing, and keep in touch with the people who follow my work.
But it's winter here in Southern California, and that means it's our rainy season. When I first moved to SoCal, back in the 1980's, the rainy season was from early December to the end of February. Back then, by March first the rain was over. Southern California is known for is great weather, so I'm not complaining. But it's different here. We rarely get a quick downpour that's gone in 20 minutes, and almost never get actual thunderstorms. I think I've seen lightning three times in California.
This is desert that's right next to the ocean, much different than Florida, which California often gets compared to. We get long, slow rains that often last two to four days. It's gray and ugly, with steady rain, almost the whole time. All winter here, it's chilly, in the 50 to 65 degree (F) range, often with some wind. No big deal, until you're outside in it around the clock, and it gets down to 40 or 45 degrees at night. Now I know people in most of the country are laughing. Hey, I grew up in Ohio and Idaho, I saw plenty of cold and snowy weather as a kid. My family survived a week during the Blizzard of '78 with our power out, heating our living room with the Franklin stove, one of those steel fireplaces. I appreciate the lack of weather in SoCal, a lot.
But the winter rainy season here, when you're homeless, is a time of panhandling money for basic needs (food, bus fare, laundry, other daily needs) during the sunny days, then hiding as much as possible, and hanging out in dry places (libraries, fast food restaurants, buses, metro trains etc.) during the rainy days. It costs extra money to stay dry when homeless.
It's a time of just surviving much of the winter. I get a lot less done as far as writing and particularly with artwork, because I spend a lot more time scraping up money, dodging the rain, drying out clothes and sometimes my sleeping bag, and hanging out in places where I can't draw. There's more daily "work" to surviving as a homeless person during the rainy season.
With the climate change going on, the Southern California rainy season has stretched out, as well. We may get rain in November, and those rain storms now stretch into March, and often April, maybe even May. It used to be that on March 1st, there would be no rain, at all, until early December. Now this season of having rainstorms every week lasts maybe six or eight weeks longer into the spring.
This year, in addition to the normal rainy season to deal, a bunch of other stuff happened. I signed up for Food Stamps again(called CalFresh), the one government program that really helps, in late November. I got one months worth a couple days later. I normally get those loaded on my card the 2nd of each month. But they didn't show up in December, or in January. That meant I had to panhandle much more to buy everyday food, right after the holidays when regular people pretty much stop giving to homeless people. So I was struggling for day to day food in early January. I called up the office twice, and they said, we'll load your card in a day or two. Then it didn't happen.
In addition, the sketchy prepaid debit card I had, that lets me get my art money out of my Paypal, that account got shut down. No notice, no reason. Eventually I got a notice saying it expired, but the expiration date on the card wasn't until 2025. That happened in December. After that, I couldn't sell artwork the way I normally do, using Paypal for payments, So that was a a double financial hit during the already sketchy rainy season.
Then I got really sick in mid January. I was just worn down, more tired than usual, not eating much at all, and caught some infection when my system was depressed. I went to the hospital, where I spent 2 1/2 days, getting antibiotics. Then got shipped to a "homeless recuperative facility" way up in Palmdale. When I left the hospital, they had either lost my sleeping bag and blanket, or thrown it away. When you sleep outside, a sleeping bag is pretty important. The infection I got turned to cellulitis in my left leg, which got really swollen, and super painful. Initially I was told I would be at the recuperative place for 90 days. Then that got cut to just over two weeks. The recuperative places are super low budget, and while the staff was really cool, I didn't always get my meds on time, and didn't heal as fast as expected.
I could barely walk a few painful steps when I went in there. By the end of the two weeks, I'd lost about 10-15 pounds, because we didn't get a whole lot of food. by the time I left, I was walking about a quarter mile to the local library every day. My leg was still really swollen by the end of each day, and still swells up every day.
I expected to be sent back out to the streets. But then I got sent to a "transitional housing" place on the outskirts of downtown L.A.. It was an 80 or 100 year old, dilapidated, building. The rundown, old hotel was a real looney bin of characters. One of the residents was walking around with a baseball bat under his arm in the lobby, because someone had dissed him a couple days before. The food was pig slop. There was mold or mildew all over the window sill of my room, and some on the mattresses. The toilet didn't flush, and there were no public restrooms in the building, which had been a mediocre hotel, in probably the 1940's. The elevator was tiny, and had the safety thing you had to pull across before hitting the button to go up or down.
I was supposed to live there, with no food stamps, surviving off of their horrible, cold food, for 3 to 6 months, while they tried to find me "permanent housing." Now, that sounds good to average people. But "permanent housing" means being diagnosed as either having mental illness or serious addiction, then getting S.S. Disability or SSI. Then you eventually get approved, living in poverty, in a ghetto apartment that is empty because the people in the ghetto don't want to live there.
"Housing" programs DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT help you get back to working in some normal way, and making a good living again. When you go into housing, you are going to rely on a government check, and several local programs, FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE. You're not allowed to earn very much money. If you find a decent job, and start making money, you lose your housing, your food stamps, your monthly government check, and your medical insurance and prescription benefits. My point is, there is a reason that there are 40,000 homeless people in L.A. county. If the "housing programs" were really better than living on the streets, the homeless people would flood into them. Most people, myself included, would rather live homeless, rather than to be in the current housing programs. The people going into housing are the worst of the worst, the people who just don't care anymore.
I can actually work every day as an artist and writer, living outside. I'm (supposedly) allowed to earn money, and try to get my life back on track. The homeless programs of this country are creating a separate population of people, and they are government sponsored drug addicts, for the most part. There are over 7 million men already living this way, and more every day. I don't want to be a government sponsored drug addict. I don't drink ANY alcohol. The last beer I had was in 2009, I think. I don't do any drugs. I don't take any prescription drugs, except when I'm sick, like for the leg infection. I don't do any recreational drugs, at all. My last hit off a joint was at a Cirque du Soleil crew party in 1997 or '98, and before that was in Boise in 1987. I don't have a work history after the years of not being able to find a job while in North Carolina, which, combined with being old and out of shape, make a "real job" pretty much impossible. If there was a job I could have found that would pay enough to rent a place to live, I would have done it years ago. So I keep working to create my own job, some combination of my art and writing. Not being able to get a real bank account has been one big issue over the last few years.
Anyhow, I left the sketchy ass transitional housing, the government sponsored crack house in downtown L.A., after one night, and went back to the streets. Right into the storm that dumped over 7 inches of rain in about four days. A few nights later, someone stole my shopping bag with some of my stuff, while I was sleeping. It had all my spare clothes in it.
So, to recap, I lost my food stamps in late December (but finally got them going again a couple weeks ago). I lost use of the debit card that I use to get money out of Paypal, so I can't get paid to draw right now. I lost my sleeping bag and blanket. A friend here loaned me a sleeping bag, but it's really not good under about 48 degrees. It's much better than nothing. And I lost all my spare clothes. I have the clothes I'm wearing, and two extra pairs of socks right now. That makes laundry a bit of a problem. Then I left my big sketchpad in a restaurant one night, and lost that. That was totally my fault, I was tired and just spaced off and left it behind. I do still have my Sharpies and basic art supplies.
So I'm working to slowly replace all the stuff I lost, and get back just to a basic street survival level. Then figure out a new debit card I can get, and get back to drawing. This is everyday life as a working, homeless, artist/ blogger. But it was just a whole bunch of hits in a short period of time, and that time was the worst part of the year for weather here. It's just been a rough winter.
I'm writing a lot now, and I will get back to drawing, but probably not for a couple more months. Check out my Substack for some of the deeper writing I've been doing link below). Yes, this is a depressing, whiny post. I don't write these very often. I'm not asking for help, I'm just explaining my current situation. My Patreon money from February and March is in Paypal, but I can't access it yet. There's just a bunch of little steps I need to take to get back to "homeless normal," and then work to rise beyond that. So that's where I'm at, for any of you wondering. Lots more writing coming, and the drawings will start up again when I can do it.
No comments:
Post a Comment