If one thing could be easy...
...the shock of it would kill me. If you were reading yesterday, you may have noted that I woke up early to get in line before 7:30 AM to ask for help at a place called Homeless Recovery. It was about a mile away and I tried to get there as early as I could. I arrived, stood in line with some very interesting characters, walked in, took my number and waited to be seen. I held the wonderful number 15 in my hand. When they called me up to the window, I found out I needed a referral. So, I dejectedly walked back, only to find out that I never did have a referral in the first place. So, there was nothing I could do except what I did this morning...go to get a referral to prove I'm homeless. I'm not sure how one proves the non-existence of a home, but there's something official involved.
A somewhat helpful but WRONG man told me to go to The Shop...a place only two miles away. I walked there, for some reason that I cannot fathom, I didn't call ahead to make sure they were open. After my long walk in the hot Florida sun and humidity you could cut with a knife...of course, they WEREN'T OPEN. I almost took a bus back to the hood but I figured that if I want to wander the earth like Samuel Jackson in Pulp Fiction, I should be able to walk back. The one thing that made it harder than it should have than it should have been was that it wasn't two miles. That's where the guy was WRONG. I know how long a miles is, 5,280 feet...right? Well I walked closer to 6 miles than I did five.
On the way back, I stopped at a grocery store to put minutes on my phone so I could call my daughter. I even got change in preparation for a nice ride in one of HART's air conditioned buses. While I was there, I ran into a lady who I had met at the flophouse. She told me that the owner of the Good Samaritan Inn would give me a referral. I never even had to leave the building, much less spends hours walking.
But, At some point I just said, "The heck with it and walked all the way back. The first guy I saw when I wandered in was the jerk who told me it was "no more" than 2 miles. Now I'm exhausted, but I got the stupid referral.
A somewhat helpful but WRONG man told me to go to The Shop...a place only two miles away. I walked there, for some reason that I cannot fathom, I didn't call ahead to make sure they were open. After my long walk in the hot Florida sun and humidity you could cut with a knife...of course, they WEREN'T OPEN. I almost took a bus back to the hood but I figured that if I want to wander the earth like Samuel Jackson in Pulp Fiction, I should be able to walk back. The one thing that made it harder than it should have than it should have been was that it wasn't two miles. That's where the guy was WRONG. I know how long a miles is, 5,280 feet...right? Well I walked closer to 6 miles than I did five.
On the way back, I stopped at a grocery store to put minutes on my phone so I could call my daughter. I even got change in preparation for a nice ride in one of HART's air conditioned buses. While I was there, I ran into a lady who I had met at the flophouse. She told me that the owner of the Good Samaritan Inn would give me a referral. I never even had to leave the building, much less spends hours walking.
But, At some point I just said, "The heck with it and walked all the way back. The first guy I saw when I wandered in was the jerk who told me it was "no more" than 2 miles. Now I'm exhausted, but I got the stupid referral.
posted by Meg Kelso | 2:49 PM
2 Comments:
What about a local Catholic Church (Catholic Charities) or United Way?
You know, that's actually a good question and it has a rather interesting and sort of answer. It's something that I should answer in a post so as sson as I write the next post, I'll explain that. It's actually a good thing to write about because very few people get to experience this (fortuntately) but it's something that some people would benefit from. Either out of interest or necessity, it's something upon which I should elaborate.
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