The Invisible Homeless

A few days ago we went camping, and it was great. It was quiet, we didn't have to worry about people bothering us, and we had a fire. Now for us, fire translates to great quantities of warm, easily available food. Warm food is something you really come to appreciate when your meals regularly consist of cup noodles and cold canned food. We'd brought smores and rice noodles, and we were ready to spend the next four days hunkered down in the mountains of Vermont.


Then, on our second night, it began to rain. We settled down in our tent, and figured the rain cover would keep us safe and dry for the rest of the night. We tossed some of the better pieces of wood into the empty van for the next day, and took the kindling inside the tent with us. Eight hours of continuous rain and fitful sleep later and we began to panic. The rain had slowly seeped between our tent and the tarp, and the bottom layer of our three layer bed was soaked through. Jackson's laptop and my camera were all dangerously close to a damp demise, and I was worried the rain cover had begun to let water in through the walls of the tent as well. So, at six in the morning, we frantically pulled the van around and ferried the driest of our things to the safety of the car, abandoning the sopping tent and sleeping bags. This, of course, was done in our underwear, as is oft to happen when you wake up to a rather damp and time sensitive situation. Later, when the rain slowed, I stood on top of the car and strapped everything down so we could drive back into town. Which, of course, was done in ponchos and what can't really be considered our skivvies.  (Jackson almost flashed an elderly couple that drove by our campsite, and this was mentioned entirely on his request.)


The next day the rain cleared up, and we were presented with a problem.


Half of our bedding was wet, and we needed to dry it out before it began or continued to grow mold.


It was sunny and warm, so we lay our things out in the sun. Two sleeping bags, one small blanket, three towels, a tent, and the tent's rain covering were all dutifully spread around the asphalt and sidewalk of our little corner in the Walmart parking lot.

We sat on the curb and stared back at the people in their cars. We were out there for a good hour or two at least, and only two people bothered to talk to us. An elderly woman asked us if we were all right, and a woman walked up to us to see if we were broken down.


Now, spending the majority of our time together, and only having face to face conversations with one another, neither of us respond very well to surprise social interaction. Luckily, doing weird things tends to chase people off.


Do me a favor, and remember the last time you were on a corner with a homeless person. You, safe in your car, headed to or from some place or another, them standing on the corner with some form of sign or cup. What did you do? Seriously think about it. Do they make you uncomfortable? Do you give them money? How much? What motivates you to give them anything? Do you avoid looking at them? Why?


Personally, Jackson and I have both always avoided their gaze. Him because he is an eternally better person than me, and knows that if he looks at them, he'll want to help them out, even when he can't necessarily afford it. I avoid their gaze because they make me nervous. They make a lot of people nervous, and I know why.


Before I took this trip, I always assumed it was the "better safe than sorry" idea that they could be a murderer. You never know, but it's best not to risk it. Now that I am a member of the invisible homeless, I've stumbled onto a different reason.


It is impossibly easy to become homeless. And impossibly hard to get out of it.


Yesterday, as we stared people down, or watched them avoid our gazes despite their curiosity, I realized they're afraid. We are all just a few hundred dollars and a strike of luck away from being homeless. Really, truly homeless, invisible or not. And that's terrifying. That's why you respond to homeless people in the way you do; it's fear. Looking at them forces you, maybe even in the smallest ways, to face the fact that maybe they aren't crazy, or bad people. Maybe they're just like you, and if things ever go just the slightest bit bad, you could end up next to them one day.


As for me and Jackson, we do our best to avoid drawing attention to ourselves. We do our best to stay presentable, and as clean as is reasonable when you live out of a car. These are a few of the things that shuffle us into the invisible category of homelessness. We don't weird people out more than we absolutely need to. We wear big headphones and stare people down so we're left alone. It's because of this we are slightly more acceptable than then people on corners with signs. Our homelessness is luckily chosen. It's hidden and quiet, and it doesn't force people to consider their morality or their slim claim to the middle class.


Homeless people aren't incessantly bad people. They aren't necessarily anything; they're just as diverse as everyone else, just as smart and creative, it not more so. Being homeless is incredibly difficult, in all regards, and I imagine it just gets more difficult the less you have.


I've come to the end of this blog, and I'm not really sure what I was trying to accomplish. Continually now, we've realized things on this trip that are incredibly difficult to articulate and share, and continually I find my abilities at a loss. It will take many better authors than just me to properly grasp the idea, and really make you think, but maybe at the very least I've planted a seed, or made you slightly uncomfortable. Maybe the things I try to write about fail me because they are things that must be realized by you, and only on your time. Who knows. I just know I'm not nearly as good at writing as I'd been led to believe. I know that homelessness is so incredibly hard and that I'm constantly glad I'm not doing this alone. I know I am incredibly privileged and lucky to be able to experience this on my own terms, and to be able to return to a warm bed in the summer. I know it's a complicated topic, that is a completely solvable problem no one seems a to be solving. I know that people are consistently afraid of their own frailties, and that's what's holding us back. But mostly, I know Breaking Bad is a terrible show, and we are both incredibly disappointed.