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When I was homeless I met a guy also on the streets. He was given a council flat (as I later was) and moved in. When I visited him some months later, his place
by buro9 12y ago
When I was homeless I met a guy also on the streets. He was given a council flat (as I later was) and moved in.
When I visited him some months later, his place was a tip. He hadn't managed to adjust to coming off the streets. His electric had been disconnected as he'd failed to pay the bill (he received benefits to cover this), and he cooked on a camping stove on the floor of the living room. There was trash everywhere.
He just wasn't ready to come off the streets.
He had gone onto the streets after a nervous breakdown, brought on by divorce from his wife (I think... I have some difficulty remembering who experienced what). He'd lost it all, and was no longer mentally equipped to deal with life. He remained charming, intelligent and good company, but just a shade of whom he must've once been. Never saw him again, but his struggle to adjust hit me hard.
I remember my own challenge with the adjustment. For a while I too lived in just the living room... a thin mattress on a broken tile floor, a camping stove and a walkman for company. But I'd seen that this wasn't what you do, and that you had to form patterns, new routines, and spread out in the space, compartmentalize living functions to different spaces and form new routines around those functions.
I used to have a calendar on the wall to tell me what day it was (since I no longer saw the rhythm of the world around me), and it would remind me when to pay bills, or run chores. It was the little things that I now take for granted that were difficult for me. Why go out? Why speak to anyone? The things I had needed for so long (a dry warm space, the ability to bathe when I chose, a safe place to sleep, food when I needed it) I now had in abundance, so why do anything? Why even pick up the trash? Or make the bed?
I've believed since coming off the streets that it is less about physically providing the roof over a head, and is more to do with providing the support to help someone or targeting only those who are ready to leave the streets. Both sound horribly ambiguous and no doubt would leave space for a truck to drive through if enacted as policy, but the essence is that a person who has spent time on the street needs help to have an epiphany about caring for themselves and their surroundings, about functioning in a new space.
- junto 12y agoWhat you are describing are habits. Most people require habitual processes. Your friend needed to have new habits to survive in a world where you need to tidy up around you, go to work every days and pay the household bills. It is hard to switch into new habits, which is often the core challenge for people stuck in a rut with alcohol and drug abuse. People forget that habits are easy to change, but it takes persistence and determination. When you speak to people who are reformed alcoholics, drug free or have quit smoking for good after a few years they often cannot fathom why they couldn't have quit sooner. At the time the challenge seems impossible. I personally find habitual rituals fascinating. As someone who has twice been stuck in unhealthy habits, I now realise the power of habits, when turned around for good practices. One book that helped me was "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People". I recommend it: http://www.amazon.com/The-Habits-Highly-Effective-People/dp/1455892823 http://www.amazon.com/The-Habits-Highly-Effective-People/dp/...
- AndrewOMartin 12y agoSeems to me that you don't need the "ready" or "epiphany" hypothesis, just stick with supporting someone's transition. Coming off the streets without any transition support is not only being "thrown in the deep end" but also removing someone from their previous life on the streets where they'd probably somewhat adapted, and had something of a routine and community.
- imgabe 12y agoHow do you tell when someone is ready to come in off the streets? If you've been there a long time and have adjusted to it, I don't see how staying there longer is going to make you more prepared for the transition. It sounds like we need to provide help - counseling, therapy, etc. - to people coming off the streets.
- buro9 12y agoGood question. For which I have no answer. But if the other replies are right and this is really just about habit changing, then that is where the support and focus should exist. Perhaps the key is to move people into shared temporary houses to build those habits together before being moved on?
- bootload 12y agobeautiful writing David.