Articles

Special Report: A Day in the Life of a Homeless Person
By Tommy Elder Jr.

Faith And The City Newsletter
Volume 4 Issue 1
Winter/Spring 2004

Editor's note: Suddenly you are homeless. Maybe you lost your job to corporate downsizing, or your position offers no insurance benefits and your medical expenses skyrocketed. Maybe you fled from home to escape an abusive relationship. Perhaps you have a drinking or drug problem that you deny or a mental illness that you can't even recognize. You have no family in the area to take you in. You are one of an estimated 6,000 to 12,000 homeless people in the Atlanta metro community. Like most, you have been out on the streets now for several months.

As the sun rises, your day starts with the need to shower. Checking the calendar, you realize that the day is Monday. Your day for taking a shower comes on Wednesday. This fact confronts you with the problem of how to find a place to clean yourself. But if, like me, you previously acquainted yourself with some community action agencies, use of their restrooms can at least remove the grime and odor of a hard night. After discreetly cleaning yourself, you venture out into the world.

With time on your hands and without a good place to spend it, you wile away the hours of the day like most of Atlanta's homeless people, facing obstacles as they come. During your wandering through the boulevards and avenues of Atlanta, the call of nature suddenly assaults your consciousness. The thought of where can you can find a toilet torches your brain. Knowing that Atlanta lacks public facilities creates another crushing blow that assaults your self-esteem when you realize that you do not have the price of coffee, which would afford you a commercial restroom.

Suddenly, you realize that if you can only wait until 11 a.m., a friendly church will welcome you with a hot meal and the plumbing needed to relieve the pains caused by an active body. As the long line forms, you begin to feel that the answer to nature's clarion call for nourishment and physical relief waits at the entrance to the church.

After you fulfill nature's needs, you leave the accommodating sanctuary of the house of faith to begin your daily routine. As a person interested in improving your lot in life, the public library will be your next venue. Since reconnecting with middle-class America grips most of your current thoughts, the computer pulls you into its orbit. As you sit at a computer, the news and job sites of the Internet command your attention. Limited usually to about 30 minutes of computer usage, you quickly peruse the web pages hoping to snare both insight and relief from your present plight.

Buoyed with inspiration from your dance with the achieving world, you leave the library hoping that the information you obtained will assist you in hurdling the obstacle course of your daily life, which includes the absence of toilet facilities, a place to lay your head, and a place to find decent food, at least for the night and hopefully on a permanent basis.

Still, the urge to read pulls at your person. Since this endeavor occupies much of your spare time, you find a newspaper. As a city wanderer, you sit in a storefront. After about 10 minutes of reading, a police officer tells you to move on. Of course, you politely fold the paper and head for a more accommodating setting.

You know that the CNN Center will allow a person to read in their facility, so you make your way to this international media conglomerate. For a couple of hours, the joys of reading and sometimes the gift or purchase of food and drink command your attention.

Suddenly, 10 p.m. rolls around and the time to sleep nears. What place can you find to rest for the night?

Tommy Elder is a freelance writer and homeless person living in the Atlanta metro area. Elder, who taught secondary school in Botswana as a Peace Corps volunteer, holds a bachelor's degree in history and a master's in community development. He can be reached at telderjr@hotmail.com.


Selected Articles from FATC Newsletter on Homelessness
Congregations Can Help End Homelessness
Special Report: A Day in the Life of a Homeless Person
Blueprint to End Homelessness: Seven-Point Plan Recommendations
Interfaith Group Build Houses for Families, Bridges for Community
Shelter A Family: Lighting the Path from Homelessness to Self-Sufficiency
Atlanta Community Court: Alternatives to Jailing the Homeless
Who are the Homeless? Highlights of the Tri-Jurisdictional Survey
Download pdf of Faith And The City Newsletter on Homelessness