I’ve been homeless about six times now in my short 25 years. That’s not including the few times I was homeless as a minor. And even though it seems like there are all these great and helpful resources for people experiencing homelessness to get the help they need, it’s all a lie.
After a lifetime of navigating the gaps, here is what we actually know:
1. The Resource Dead-End
More than half the resources I've found online, in person, and even the ones given to me by police officers or other members of the HOT (Homeless Outreach Team) are usually a dead end.
My partner and I got into this God-awful shelter called City Net that apparently has a success rate that is 2x higher than the national average. Since I've been here, I don't even have to look at the numbers to know that the national average is very, very low. This place is a lie just like the rest of them. The staff are here to get paid for nothing and the case managers are completely useless.
99% of foster children under 18 are more resourceful than these case managers. It’s sad. How do I know more resources than they do? Oh yeah... I've been through this a million times.
2. The Homeless Industrial Complex
There are too many nonprofit and for-profit businesses involved in this industry for the government to be actually willing and trying to get rid of the homeless. Do you have any idea how many jobs would be lost if there were no homeless people?
They need us to stay homeless and helpless so they can keep their jobs. They give us the bare minimum to keep us coming back for more. It’s a business, and we are the product.
3. The Foster Care to Streets Pipeline
It’s a mad cycle, but the worst part is that recent research shows that 50 percent of homeless people have been or were involved with foster care at some point in their lives. This means that at some point in their childhood, they had nowhere else to live that was safe and/or could provide basic needs.
Imagine that. As a child, you have no home. You have no idea what it's like to even live in a healthy home (80-90% of the time). You don't even know what tf taxes are—like most people at age 18 don't—except you also have:
No support system.
No idea of what a credit score is, let alone a good one.
No driver's license (80% of us don’t know how to drive a car by 18, let alone own one).
and a bunch of other things I don't have the time or patience to list (please share what you think I should've added to the list in the comments below)
4. The Trauma of "Figuring It Out"
Don't even get me started on the likelihood of having healed from the trauma you experienced as a child.. That includes the foster care system itself, the abuse that often occurs in foster homes (family settings), the social separation you experienced in group home settings which leads to severe social anxiety when you're "aging out" and then being thrown into the real world and told to "figure it out."
How the fuck????
when you’ve probably never even gone to a real school before, you dont even know who you are yet and you have no idea how hard its about to get. 18-21 is sooo much easier than 21-25 because your clueless. You don't realize that you should be saving, should be budgeting, shouldve been looking for a place to live when you turn 21 and should've been building your credit score. if you weren't in school you should've been working because those checks will stop coming and what are you gonna do when the big day comes? what's your plan? because the resources stop helping too. next thing you know you're 25 still trying to figure the same shit out that you were dealing with when you were 18 except this time the resources have all dried up and you're too old you "should know how to adult by now."
The Bottom Line
If you think you're stressing now from reading this post imagine how stressful it would be if you didn't know what was coming. it gets much harder. And believe me I know your social anxiety is through the roof and you're probably isolating or resorting to much worse coping skills but Guess what: THEY’LL KICK YOU OUT ONTO THE STREETS WITHOUT A SECOND THOUGHT. Because at the end of the day, it’s their job—not your life—that’s on the line.
Its a job to them nothing more or less. this is your life on the line; whether they see it that way or not doesn't matter. What matters is that you know more now than you did 10 minutes ago and I'm dead serious when I tell you that everything I just shared is true for 95% of all foster youth.
Don't be another number that the system can just use against us. if you came across this post its for a reason. You don't have to and dont want to struggle like I did and still do.
You gotta find a way out. You gotta stop the cycle.
I couldn't, but I could've if I had known then what I know now.
Its okay though that's why you're here.. to change the world; and when you do, come find me. I'll be waiting for you.
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