YouTube comment from Ryan: Bro, you are in so much better shape… mentally and physically, than when you started this journey. Impressive. Most would have flopped.
My response: I had promised myself I would not deprive my basic wants and needs to a point of suffering. The question is can a person survive being homeless on the fringes of society and gain the sustenance for survival and live a fulfilling life? The answer to that question is yes.
Many who are chronically homeless find freedom in their transience. Especially those with schizophrenia. Many schizophrenics create a fantasy world in their mind. This fantasy world that they’re mind creates may not be accepted by mainstream society, because of delusions and an inability to communicate and function within the guidelines of societal norms. They’re expected to be medicated, which is like a chemical prison sentence for them sometimes. But like Cheryl who lives happily in her own fantasies in a tent off the highway, she seems quite satisfied. There are more than enough resources in most of the metropolitan areas in Massachusetts.
I noticed that many drug addicts although their bodies wither rapidly due to the toxic chemicals they consume and the effect of living outside with poor skill, subject to the filth that comes with outside living, and the dangers associated with closeness to other homeless people like theft or other violations, they still have the freedom to experience the extreme highs of drug use, coupled with the lows that come from the crash when they can’t obtain their drugs of choice.
With all lifestyles of human society comes conditioning. When the rich fall from grace, and lose their wealth, sometimes they become despondent or even commit suicide. Identity is a construct of the mind. I have learned that the world we create in our mind is more powerful than the material world that surrounds us.
I woke up around 8:00 a.m. I ate two melatonin gummies last night, one before I went to bed and then one in the middle of the night cuz I woke up and I couldn’t sleep. I stayed in the tent until about 11:00 a.m. writing and getting caught up on blogs. I’m completely hidden in the thicket and foliage. I’m camped out at the DW parkway in Brockton Mass. This is a large wooded area with a road that runs through it. It’s pretty close to the metropolitan area of Brockton, about 15 minutes bike ride.
At 11:00 a.m. I rode my bike to Father Bill’s, a homeless shelter that serves three meals a day to the homeless. I was surprised when I rode there yesterday for dinner how many homeless people were lined up to eat or stay the night. Once again I passed the church that was all locked up with a fence that had about 20 homeless people in front of it. Next to that church is at the park there were about 15 people, who seemed homeless, drinking, using drugs, and canoodling. And next to that park was Father Bill’s shelter and meal provider and like the evening before, There were nearly a hundred people lined up. I hadn’t seen many homeless people while riding my bike around the city. They seemed to all be condensed in this small area. Or at least at the time I come they do.
I sat down on a slab of concrete next to the building covered by a piece of plywood. I sat with a couple other homeless people. We made small talk. Soon the doors opened and people started going inside to get their lunch. It was soup and a sandwich. Since I didn’t stay in the shelter I was given a bag lunch, anyone who does not stay at the shelter gets a bag lunch outside. I sat with two homeless men, Joe and Mark. We had some conversation. Joe said that he had contracted Lyme disease and he used to do tree work. He felt the Lyme disease had tapped his energy and it had withered his skin. Joe now lives in the shelter. Mark did not talk much. Joe is very talkative and eventually he gave me a piece of gum after we ate. He told me it was a special gum that helps fight cavities.
After eating I took a ride to the local recovery center called Stairway to Recovery. Recovery centers are state and federally funded peer supported centers or people with drug addictions and people who are in recovery can go for a safe place to just hang out, enjoy meetings, receive help from recovery coaches, or gain other access to social services. Stairway to recovery was a very well run recovery center. There was about 20 people hanging out, they were celebrating the 4th a little early and having hot dogs and hamburgers. I had two hot dogs. I had a conversation with a nice woman, she asked where I was from and I said the North shore. She said she used to live up that way, and I asked her why she moved down to Brockton. She said she was a personal care assistant and had a recurrence. Recurrence is a more clinical and non-stigmatizing term for relapse. I didn’t ask her what her drug of choice was. I knew what she meant, and I told her that I had not heard the term recurrence used very often. The last time I heard it was when I was working at Aware Recovery Care, we used to use the word occurrence over relapse in that company, when clients went back to using their substance of choice.
I hung out at the recovery center for just under an hour. The staff was very nice and I really liked the environment.
I left the recovery center and rode my bike to the library where I charged my phones and portable battery. I also worked on getting caught up on posting blogs. I’ve done a lot of the writing on Google docs. I just had to transfer to the blog site and add pictures and videos and things.
Around 4:00 p.m. I took a ride over to Boston fried Chicken and burritos, a Boston knock-off of what I would think would be Kentucky fried Chicken. I got a chicken sandwich and fries, and the food was pretty good. The kid working the counter was really nice, and seemed to communicate well with the people ordering food.
A little after 4:30 I left Boston fried Chicken and burritos, and rode my bike over to Father Bill’s which is about a 5 minute bike ride away. I’ve eaten enough, but I figured I would stop in for the meal at Father Bill’s just so I could sit and connect with the people, and eat a little bit extra since it would be the last food I ate for the night.
I sat again on the concrete slab covered with plywood. Once the line was small I waited with a small contingency of people. The door’s opened and we were all let in. I was ready this time for the shakedown. I left my pliers and my surgical scissors, and anything else that could be considered a weapon, back at the tent. I kept my pepper spray and my trusty foldable knife on me, since that is my protection. A really nice young woman gave me the shakedown and metal detector. I gave her my pepper spray and knife for safekeeping. She told me that I needed to put those in a locker. I was given key number 60, that goes to locker 60. The night before the staff at Father Bill’s had held my “weapons” behind the counter. I specifically said that I am only here to eat, and she said that’s fine just put your stuff in the locker, it’s better that way. I said okay.
I went down into the chow hall. I got my meal of dry pork chops and macaroni salad, with a slice of pumpkin pie. I sat next to a homeless girl and her dog who she called Lady, a female pitbull. The homeless girl was very dirty. She seemed very nice, but you could see that she was covered with dirt. I asked her if I could feed Lady and she said yes. I had already eaten so I gave Lady a good portion of my pork chops. Lady the Pitbull lived up to her name. She was very sweet and gentle.
After I ate I said goodbye to all the people I was sitting with. The chow hall was full of people as I walked out. I went back to the front room to collect my items from the locker and leave. When I entered the front room, one of the shelter workers, a young woman began yelling at me. She said you can’t come back here. I said I need to collect my items in the locker. She said you’re not staying the night. I said, they asked me to lock my items up. She said, you can’t come back here tomorrow. I said, “why, I don’t understand?” She said, you have to get out of here. You’re not allowed back here. At this point I became angry. The shelter worker said the lockers are only for people that are staying all night. I told her that I explained to the shelter workers when I came in that I was only coming to eat dinner. I called over to the woman behind the counter I had spoken to when I arrived, she gave me the key to locker 60, and I got my knife, and my pepper spray out of the locker. I gave back the key to locker 60 to the woman at the desk, and I said, I told you I was only coming to eat. The other shelter worker continued yelling at me and telling me that I could not come back. I told them that I had done nothing wrong, that they were disrespectful, that I did not deserve to be talked to in this way or yelled at. I told the shelter workers that they were wrong.
I was pretty pissed off, I remembered asking the nice woman that shook me down how many people stayed at the shelter. She told me about 160. That seemed like a very large number of people. I can imagine they have certain rules and they are quick to punish people, banish people, restrict people, or admonish people. That’s the feel I got. I don’t need to eat at Father Bill’s. I’m pretty self-sufficient and have my own resources. But what about a homeless person that had been given conflicting information as I was. I didn’t make a mistake. I was quite clear that I was only coming for dinner, and the staff gave me a key to a locker where I can lock my things up. I tried to explain that it was a misunderstanding and I was yelled at and I was told I could not come back to eat. What about a homeless person that didn’t have another choice for food. Would they go the next day without eating? Would they have to come crawling back and beg for forgiveness when they did nothing wrong? F*** that s***. The way those people acted was disgusting.
I left Father Bill’s around 5:30 p.m. and I went to the library. I looked up all the executives and board members on the non-profit of Father Bill’s. I began messaging them one by one on LinkedIn. I don’t have a LinkedIn premium account, so I had to post it as a comment to one of their posts. This is the message I sent:
I’d send you a private message, but I refuse to get LinkedIn premium. I’m not a big fan of this platform. I am documenting a year of living homeless. I am in Brockton, I was horribly disrespected and verbally abused at your Brockton location. The reason being, I ate my dinner, came back to get the items I was told to lock up. Then I was told by a staff member I couldn’t come back. I was told only people that are staying the night can lock stuff up, but when I came in to eat I explicitly stated that I was only eating dinner. I was given the key to get my stuff, and verbally berated on the way out. I would like an apology from the staff working at 5pm tonight. If your staff treat others like the way I was treated, this is a huge problem. I am only in town a couple more days. If you do not respond to me I will go public with my experience and seek other remedies.
I’ve added here Father Bill’s 990 tax filing, which shows they make 41 million a year, and spend 35 million. The CEO makes about $300,000 and other executives are banking over $100,000 a year. They care nothing for homeless people. A nonprofit like this is a perfect business, the customers have no where else to go but to them. My spidy sense tells me there is some serious financial corruption in this operation, just from seeing it from the ground level.
https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/222538039/202431169349301868/full
After messaging the higher-ups at Father Bill’s, and charging my devices a little bit I decided to head back to my camp. I stopped at a convenience store on the way and by a divine twist of Fate the woman that had accosted me at Father Bill’s pulled up and got out of her car. I said to her, hey aren’t you the one that just harassed and disrespected me at Father Bill’s? She said, no. It was her, I recognized her! I followed her into the convenience store and I told her that I had reported what had happened to all the executives of Father Bill’s. She said she didn’t care. I said do you like your job? She said yes she does. I said well you’re probably going to lose your job. She said that I needed to stop bothering her or she would call the police. I said, go ahead, I can say whatever I want, it’s a free country. I got a good picture of her too while she was walking down the aisles. Then she pulled out her phone and got a picture of me, I did a nice little pose cuz I don’t give a s***. I told her I said I’m going to pursue this, unless you apologize to me and then it’ll all go away. She refused to apologize to me, showing exactly what type of person she is. She’s an awful, cruel, stubborn, spiteful person who treats homeless people like s***. I could tell that she was visibly upset as I gave her the same treatment she gave me in the homeless shelter. I told her that she was going to lose her job, and she said good luck with that. I said you’re going to apologize to me when the CEO is telling you to. I told her, as she was getting in her car, that father bills is a 41 million dollar a year company. The last thing they want is a firecracker like me throwing s*** all over their fake ass, human helping, name.
People like this are common in social services. You could probably cut The homeless population in half in Massachusetts If you just got better quality people to do the social service jobs, humanize instead of dehumanize, and set an example of compassion instead of cruelty.
Brockton is a tough city, and after this confrontation I began to worry that perhaps this girl has family or friends who might see me riding my bike down the street and put a bullet in my head. Regardless, I have two more days here, I plan on going to Father Bill’s administration office and raising some hell.
I went to another convenience store and I picked up American Spirit cigarettes, and some nicotine pouches. I rode my bike back to my campsite to settle in for the night and write this blog.