What you should know about homelessness
According to Yale Neurology I am homeless. I say according to them, because the resident who saw me most recently noted that. I did not want to depict my lifestyle that way, but how else would one assess five consecutive nights without shelter? Although I make $1163 a month in Early Social Security benefits and am getting a small stipend from a cousin, it is never enough here in Connecticut. Between dental bills and storage payments to both the U.S. and the U.K., where I went to grad school, I'm tapped out two weeks after receiving my money.
You don't want to lose even one night of sleep. Although you may think you understand how it feels, because you have traveled to Peru and experienced jet lag or enjoyed an all-nighter at 17, ending up at a pancake house at five a.m. and not sleeping (as I did once), you don't have any idea. After five nights of sleep deprivation, even if you can count backwards by 7's (as I did for Yale Neuro, at their request), you are confusing words, forgetting simple names you know, having accidents (I fell on my face and broke my nose and split my gum in August), becoming irritable (have lost most friends) and a lot of other fun stuff. You will catch 15 minutes' shut-eye here and there because you are creative, yes, but mainly because your body demands this. I am grateful for the natural inclination to sleep, but it can be dangerous too. After breaking my nose, I've fallen asleep with my head on the counter at 7-11 only to feel the pain of my injury anew when my head bangs against the table.
There are no adequate resources for people in New Haven County. I say this because when I asked the housing director if there were private rooms, she said no. When I asked for photographs of the community rooms, she said in a terse email that such pictures were not available. I was so shocked that I wrote the mayor, Justin Elicker, from whom I received no response. During the height of Covid I understand there were motel vouchers available. I was not transient - a.k.a. homeless - at that time, but that is what I was told. There is no reason those vouchers should not be available now.
I would not be in this position if on April 30, 2023 when I was substitute teaching in New Haven, I had not been unfairly singled out and made to feel responsible for a lapse in teacher coverage (after being assigned fourth grade but given a Maker Space class for all grades, something I was unfamiliar with). There was inadequate staffing in my classroom, on a day when I experienced a partial lockdown (my first) due to gunpowder detected in the area. Or that is what I was told, after hours of scary silence sitting alone in my room after the class left to their next session. The politics and the terror of that day pushed me to quit, only to be told when I wanted to restart that that would not happen.
Not only should there be motel vouchers, but I would like to see sleep pods built throughout New Haven and in parts of West Haven. These would be four-hour sleep units, kept clean as a whistle, that would require identification to become admitted. I envision a code that could change weekly, sent to someone's phone, who has been registered with the Department of Social Services. There is no civilized reason the Mayor, Rosa DeLauro or Christopher Murphy should allow anyone to sleep on a damned park bench in New Haven. This is not only uncivilized, it is cruel. It is also cruel to expect people to stay awake when they are sleepy. I was once kicked out of Wendy's at the Pilot Gas for having committed the sin of falling asleep.
I have a master's degree in eighteenth-century studies from King's College London and have reported for Scientific American, the BBC, Entrepreneur and many other news outlets. Before I experienced homelessness, I caught Covid (Feb. 2023) and in a sad twist of fate, got the best job offer of my life, which I refused due to fear and insecurity. I worried I would get sick again in a newsroom where others could be vectors (and in fact, soon after I turned down the job, someone there caught Covid), and that in a Red State, I would not enjoy the same level of guard rails for the illness. Some of that or most of it is right but had I known Covid would not be the same issue a year later, I would have jumped at this chance.
I have not met another homeless person with a master's degree, but that does not mean she or he is not out there. It hardly matters, because my M.A. is worthless if the person looking at me has already judged me to be 'less than'. I was recently asked by an otherwise well-meaning woman if I wandered the streets. Wandered the streets. Why would I wander the streets if I could pop in a Starbucks for the day? Or a library? I was offended, which apparently did not seem like the right response from this woman. To which I say, unless you have been forced to stay awake all night you have no idea the hell that comes. If you are a lady, be prepared for strange men to approach you and assume you are a hooker. It doesn't matter if you are 63 years old or wearing a King's College London sweatshirt, they will approach you. I have perfected the sneer, a sneer so venomous only a moron or a true rapist would approach. And that could effing happen.
So for this holiday season, I beseech you: quit judging your fellow man or woman. Do not talk down to them. Do not assume they are on drugs, or running from the law or a crazy ex-husband. Sure, a lot of that is out there. But some of us are ageing women rejected by a youth-oriented society that appreciates toned bodies over wit and wisdom.
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