The Homeless Challenge may seem like a romanticized and exciting challenge of survival in the streets of the city. I have never thought this to be so. One of my greatest fears as a person from an extremely low income background (where I come from we just call it poor) is becoming homeless. I didn’t want to take the challenge and I started the experience filled with dread. From the moment I stepped outside the doors of National Coalition for the Homeless, I felt a change within myself. I was afraid to look people in the eyes as I walked down the sidewalk for fear of them avoiding me or perhaps even worse, signs of pity. Feelings of anxiety, dread, fear, and shame were fairly rampant and my thoughts kept circling around what I could do to be noticed the least. I kept asking myself, “What would I REALLY be doing?” It wasn’t until afterwards, during the reflection that I realized my feelings of shame were not self-inflicted. I believe that I internalized what society says I should feel, and in retrospect that’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever done. Along with shame and dread, I was feeling quite terrified and anxious. I’ve been putting together NCH’s annual report that documents hate crimes against the homeless for the past 10 years and every terrible and unimaginable act of violence committed against a homeless person kept looping through my mind. I felt anxiety over panhandling, negotiating soup kitchens, and interacting with strangers as I am an exceptionally shy person.
As my challenge partner and I settled into a park to sit for a while, since we couldn’t really think of anything to do, I considered what I was truly getting into. I struggled with coming to terms about how privileged I was to CHOOSE to be homeless for 48 hours. I always considered myself to be a decent homeless advocate and the stubborn part of me that didn’t want to do the challenge kept insisting that I would learn nothing. While I stewed and tried to come up with a story to tell anyone if they asked, I forgot to consider time as neither of us had a watch. We ended up sitting there for about 3 hours and I managed to receive a relatively painful sunburn on my face.
We chose to panhandle for lunch. Mainly because my partner wanted to try to experience as many aspects of homelessness as he could, and I hated the idea of taking a meal from someone who was truly homeless. This proved to be really difficult for me. My background of never quite having as much as we needed forced me to have to mentally coach myself through this process. I tried asking 10 people for money, and I was ignored, looked through, or quickly passed by every one of them. My self-esteem plummeted and I had to stop because I knew if one more person looked through me as if I didn’t exist, I was going to break down and cry right there in the streets. Now that the experience is over, I can jokingly say perhaps I should have cried, maybe someone would have taken pity on me and given me some change. My partner managed to earn $2.50 which doesn’t really stretch far enough to feed two people. You’d be surprised how tantalizing a dollar menu is when your pockets are empty.
We spent the rest of our day looking for jobs and applying for library cards and then waiting because time seemed to be in an everlasting vacuum after lunch. When we met up with our guide he introduced us to his friends and pointed us in the right direction to get a meal from a church that visits the park frequently. As we sat around talking, it became clear that survival as a homeless person in DC is heavily dependant upon a persons ability to ask for help. There are so many places a person can get a good, hot meal that the only way a person would starve is if they stubbornly insisted on getting their own food, as my partner and I did at first. We were told about so many days, times, locations, groups, and services that I couldn’t keep them straight. The key was obviously to make friends.
The night was nothing as I expected, our guide went out of his way to make our experience safe as we slept outside a metro. I thought I wasn’t going to be able to sleep at all, but the whole day had been so emotionally and physically exhausting. I slept remarkably well. We joked because as a light sleeper, I would randomly wake up disoriented as someone walked by and my guide would look over at me and say “you’re ok.” and I would go back to sleep.
The second day was the worst. I was grouchy as we had been forced to clear out of our sleeping space at 5 am. I had moved beyond thinking about privilege, all I could consider was how nasty, tired, and thirsty I was. It was such a pain to find a bathroom that didn’t require you to be a customer to use, and honestly it disgusted me to see my bright red face and dirty hair in the mirror.
We went to a soup kitchen for breakfast that took us what felt like an eternity to reach and then lunch at another 22 blocks away. Then we waited. It seemed that our time was quickly eaten up with walking, waiting, searching for food, and waiting some more. We made friends with a man outside the meal program we went to for lunch and he helped us get though the process without being too awkward. I felt particularly bad for misleading him. He was genuinely concerned for our well being and kept giving us advice and best wishes. It was refreshing to have a human conversation with someone outside of my guide or challenge partner at this time.
Again, the afternoon stretched endlessly and I had a terribly weak and embarrassing moment where I honestly was planning how I could quit. I was so disgusted by all the people walking through the park and how EVERYONE was so disengaged from society. They were listening to music, looking away, or talking on their phones. I grouchily and defiantly began staring into every face that walked by, daring them to respect me. This is when one man changed my mentality for the night and strengthened my resolve to finish. He passed by saying hello, and returned to ask me questions about my journal. We held the most random and seemingly insignificant conversation, but as he left, I felt human again. I forgot my earlier desires to quit and peacefully went to meet our guide.
When our 48 hours elapsed, we made the journey back to NCH for a final reflection. After sharing in the reflection of how depressed and horrible I felt about myself during the challenge, my guide held back to speak to me before he left. He said “Never let others define who you are” and it was one of those moments in your life when you feel chills because that opened up my internal struggles and let me see them for what they were. I should have never felt shame or anxiety or let my self-worth fade in the face of societies fallacies.
Now that I completed the challenge, I am very glad that I did it. It was a tough emotional struggle for me, but I feel that I gained so much. I believe that I have a far deeper understanding for the homeless than I thought possible. These stereotypes that are dumped on the heads of the homeless are far more frustrating to me now. It’s hard to be clean and fragrant when you have to sleep outside with no place to offer you relief from sweltering heat or bitter cold. It’s laughable that the homeless are called lazy as I honestly walked more looking for a meal than I do on any given day. That common retort “Get a job” is so outrageous! How could a person get a job when they have to search and wait for sustenance, they can’t reliably get clean, and must carry their belongings with them. HELLO, society! Open up your eyes and your minds and think before you start making assumptions... after all, we all know what they say about people who assume.
To that end, my take home points from the challenge focus around the importance of being engaged in your surrounding. Acknowledge people, regardless of their housing status: say hello, smile. The significance of these simple gestures may be far greater than you could ever imagine. Days are so long when you don’t have a home or a job, leaving you with so much time to reflect. The most significant of my observations is the sense of community and support among the homeless. While there may not be a manual on how to be homeless, there are plenty of other homeless persons who will gladly point you in the right direction and offer you some friendship or mentorship along the way. That being said, my final point is to remember the importance of respecting yourself and thinking outside of societies boundaries.
After taking the challenge I finally realize that living on the streets is not really living, it is like the homeless population says, surviving. I also realized how difficult and heartbreaking panhandling actually is. People are not going to give you money or attention unless you literally feel really bad. With this realization it becomes evident that it is very logical that many homeless people suffer from depression etc. It made me an ever stronger supporter of measures which will take people off the streets as soon as possible!
During my challenge I did not find the citizens of D.C. willing to help me and I think that goes for the whole of the U.S. This is another sign for me that the work that NCH does is very important and will be continue to be successful. Part of this work is the Homeless Challenge, through which many individuals will open their eyes and see homelessness for what it is in the most true form possible, without being homeless themselves.Both of these things had already been stressed to me by members of the NCH Faces of Homelessness Speaker’s Bureau but to get a true sense of what being homeless is actually like you need to experience it yourself. Doing the Homeless Challenge has therefore led me to believe that if people wish to effectively work towards ending homelessness, they need to have experienced it first. The experience is something I will always remember and although being difficult at times, it was definitely worth it.
I would recommend doing the Homeless Challenge to anyone who has an interest in the issue of homelessness. It provides valuable insight into the lives of homeless people. The experience will change you.
