10 Search Results for "addiction"

• maierpaige

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• PERSONAL: Temptation and Rescu PERSONAL: Temptation and Rescue

  • From: Chakazuluu
  • Description:

    Certain realizations have come to me in my time on this earth and one of those is that when you have led the type of life that I have in the past you cannot leave all of it totally behind. Sometimes what you think you left behind is moving faster than you, in the same direction and is heading to a crossing point.

     

     

    I am sitting at my desk on my job at about 3:00 pm on a Thursday and my cell rings. I answer and the voice on the other end says "Ron?". Yeah this is me who is you. Ron, this is Clean Head.

     

     

    Oops! Suddenly I am mentally catapulted back in time. I remember Clean Head he use to work for me. Whenever I needed someone lightly chastised Clean Head was not the man to send because he was far too brutal his means of chastisement was always extreme. He would often take a person within an inch of death and sometimes beyond. Many times I would send people who were less brutal and also less experienced in the arts mayhem.

     

     

    When someone really, really pissed me off and I was done with them I would send Clean Head and the person to whom his attentions were focused then no longer was a problem.

     

     

    So Clean (what we called me for short) says he made a big mistake. His wife left him and took the kid, he went of the deep end and ended up in the dope house (crack house) and he really needs to get out of the dope house, straighten up and get back to his job (he hadn't been to work for three days). The problem is that he owes the dope man $300.00 for the dope he smoked and said he had money for but really didn't. I asked him "you want me to go into a dope house and bail you out"? The answer was yes.

     

     

    Clean said that he had gone to anger management classes and got a handle on his anger. He hadn't had an outburst or a physical confrontation in three years. He met this lady at the bus stop on his way to work and married her a year later. They had a son another year after that. He said that this event is his only fuck-up and he really needs help getting out of the situation otherwise he knows only way to alleviate his position and he doesn't want to do that because it will put him back where he was when we were working the streets.

     

     

    O crap! What am I suppose to do about this shit. This man wants me to go into the dope house. I can't be no where around a dope house, I am in recovery, and I will be for the rest of my life. Being in the dope house could jeopardize me staying clean.

     

     

    Gotta make a decision. I could be selfish and say no. That way I don't have bother with the crap. But selfish is not part of my program these days. Hmmmm The situation here is that clean was an original member of my, lets call it "group". He stayed loyal to me form the beginning to the eventual disbanding of my "group". When I disbanded Clean was the only one I told if you ever need help call me and I will be there for you. Now when I told him this I did mean I would help him no matter what the situation is. But this is a different time, I am a different person so therefore the situations in which I would help him has to be where is is honest and straight forward. This is what he claims he is. Hmmmmm

     

     

    Ok, he sounds like he is telling the truth. He has reached out to me for assistance and my personal program says that if I believe that all that he says is the truth I need to help him.

     

     

    I went home strapped on my quick draw pull down holster (left over from the old days) and placed my piece in it. I put my Clipit knife on my pocket and placed another knife in its holster under my pants and above my right ankle. Finally I put on a jacket (another left over) that is padded in such a way that you can't tell that I am wearing a cannon (44 Magnum) under my left arm. By now I am not really feeling good about this situation. Just wearing this stuff is placing me in a frame of mind that is not comfortable.

     

     

    I arrive at the dope house that is surprisingly nice looking in a seemingly decent neighborhood. I must really be out of touch 'cause I remember them being in the seedy parts of town and in some run down house. This dope shit is running very upscale. They let me in the door and I see my friend (is that what he is my friend, I don't know) in a room with a bunch of people smoking the dope they bought at the house.

     

     

    Through the kitchen door comes the dope man. Oops again! I am thinking what is this a goddamn conspiracy? The dope man happens to be my former dope man, he is older, fatter and obviously by the cut of his clothes and the jewelry he wears more prosperous. He greets me as if we were home boys for years. I know the type he is now so I tell him straight up what I want. I want to trade the money for the package (my friend being the package) and get out of his house peacefully but if any bullshit goes down I am prepared to shoot my way out if I have to and where my mind set is right now I will take out anybody that I see. I look back on that statement in retrospect and I know if I didn't before that I am still capable of any other fucked up thing that I have done in the past. What is different is that now I wear the façade of respectability and acceptability. That statement knowing that I fully meant it at the time gave me the realization that I have to be aware of my motivations, intentions and reasons for doing 24/7. This is because I could at any time with the right motivation, emotion or intention become again who I once was or worse

     

     

    Dope man says I remember you in your heyday, I also remember what you were capable of. I don't want any trouble from you in any way, give me the money and you can have the package.

     

     

    Well it doesn't quite end there; you didn't think it would anyway did you.

     

     

    Dope man is slick he see some money walk through the door so you know he is gonna try to get some more of it. That's his job. So dope man says let by gones be by gones here have some good stuff and smoke it on me. Another oops, here is the trap I see it as soon as it is sprung. I anticipated something of this nature before I got there. But here is the problem not only did he spring a trap he laced it heavily with dope. What he laid on the table in front of us was not a 20 nor a 60 it was at least a 100.  That is a lot of dope to just give to somebody. The motivation is of coarse is to get me and clean sprung and no matter the amount of dope you smoke you always, always want more and more is never enough. MORE is the name of the beast.

     

     

     

    No I did not walk out of the house immediately I pondered first for about a minute and a half I pondered with the dope man standing there looking like the cat that ate the canary. I knew in my mind the he knew that he had given me an offer I could not refuse. Fortunately in reality he hadn't. Just on reflex knowing that if I don't do something positive immediately I am doomed I spun around grabbed clean by the arm and quickly left that place.

     

     

    That was a few years back but I learned a lot about the reality of my self and I am continuing to learn. You know Clean, you can't call him that anymore now 'cause now he is a priest or something of that sort ministering to the poor and the homeless.

     

     

    Doesn't it strike you peculiar that two street roughs can end up going 180 degrees and end up helping people? I work for a non-profit that works on the behalf of the homeless and he a priest, minister or something helping folks to god. What a world.

     

     

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  • 2 years ago
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• PERSONAL: A Life Changing Expe PERSONAL: A Life Changing Experience

  • From: Chakazuluu
  • Description:

    So, here I am sleeping on the banks of a wash (so I think) in Tucson Az after consuming large amounts of crack and copious amounts of beer (to get to sleep). I am dreaming of my miss-adventures of the previous night of being paranoid and suspicious of every real or imagined sound that the desert produces. I see myself firing my .44 at all the miniature cops, FBI agents and other government task force members (they have all been shrunk to about two feet especially for the task) assigned to take me down. I can here my self screaming "I know you are out there I can here you skittering around trying to get in close, your not going to take me down". I can here the echoing reports of that cannon which is my .44 Magnum. I can see the five boxes of shells sitting beside me which I acquired specifically for an emergency like this. I knew this was going to go down soon because I could here them planning there strategy in low whispers under the floor of the beds of various hotels I occasionally stayed in.

     Suddenly I start to waken feeling a choking sensation, I open my eyes and I am under about two feet of water. It had rained while I was asleep and washed the bank I was sleeping on with me into the wash. I struggled to rise and could not because my sheets and blanket was wrapped about my feet. I looked out of the water and there above me was a black man at my feet bending down and reaching his hand toward mine. He pulled me out of the water.

     His description is worth mentioning here because it struck me that he looked older than anyone could possible look. He was about a foot and a half shorter than I was, he wore denim pants, a denim prison jacket, and floppy denim hat and had a bedroll tied with a leather strap over his shoulder. But his face is what struck me it was creviced with unmanageable age and I could not tell the color of his eyes they seem to flicker from light brown to dark black.

     He waggled his finger in my face and said "I was originally told that it is your time but something just now changed it's mine". I said wait a minute and I bent down to unwrap my bed clothes from around my legs and when I finally looked up (it was only about ten seconds or less) he was gone. I mean that it was as if he had not been there. I ran up on the bank and looked all around, no body to be seen. I looked in the sand and dirt around both banks, surely anyone who had stood in the water would leave some sort of wet prints. All I found was mine.

     Jump forward about two weeks,

     I am sitting in a hotel with a some time crack smoking girlfriend and I am seriously stuck on stupid. We were nearing the end of two eight balls which I had rocked up in a mason jar and I am setting in this chair and cannot move. I need to go to the bathroom bad and can't. She is talking a mile a minute as she is wont to do when she is high but her voice starts to fade in to a background murmur as another voice slowly comes into the foreground in my head.

     It is the voice of the old man in the wash. What is happening here? I am a prisoner in my own head. I can't move I can't shut the voice out; I can't do anything but have this running conversation with some old black haint in my head. He describes to me how I have degenerated to a crack smoking, gun toting feral predator, with food stains on my clothes that I haven't changed for a month. I counter with this and he says that, we go on for an hour or more and I can't escape the logic of his presentation. I suddenly feel naked to the world, I have been laid bare, all that I was, all that I am comes in perspective with the dreadful future that is to come, if indeed there is actually going to be a future for me. At that moment of realization, at that point of momentary clarity I realized that I needed to do some thing different or I would be lost. My mind was already going; I knew that I was not what I was.

     Suddenly the ability to move came back to me as if some invisible straps were released and I stood up. She asked me what I am doing I informed her "I have got to get this monkey off my back, what do you want to do". She replied "I want to get another eight ball". I walked out of the hotel and never saw her again.

     
    I found a pay phone and called a very, very close friend of mine and told her my predicament and all that I have gone through and that I have no Idea how to get out of this. She made all the preliminary decisions for me until I was able to do them myself. She took me to the Primavera Shelter for men from which I went to the Veteran's Administration Substance Abuse Treatment Unit as soon as they had a slot open for me.

     Now I was on my way back again.

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  • 2 years ago
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• PERSONAL: The Beast Within PERSONAL: The Beast Within

  • From: Chakazuluu
  • Description:

    You know, when I started working in the streets I was not especially vicious, brutal or predatory. I was your normal everyday Joe Blow heir to bouts of anger accompanied by the usual cussing, frowning and mumbling under the breath but nothing particularly violent. So one of my first lessons that I learned was that everyone I dealt with from those that were successful to those that were struggling to rise in the field of crime were particularly volatile. They were all very dangerous feral creatures of the asphalt jungle. The conditions remind me of a saying that my street mentor use to tell me.

    The beast feeds where it can

    And I was named a beast

    At every feast before I was

    Ever named a man

    He would often say it to me when he would find me being compassionate, forgiving and kind to others. "You'll never make it like that" he would tell me. You will always be a low level street urchin if you don't learn to toughen up. At some point I did acquire the understanding that though all the street people were dangerous the most successful ones were the most dangerous. I realized a correlation between success and volatility.

    I got tired of making the small change while others were making the bucks. I also got tired of folks shitting on me, giving me the left over's, treating me like what I was a low level street urchin. I started developing the qualities that I recognized that was necessary for success. It wasn't easy to burn and cauterize the good guy in me. I would slap around the one female that I had on the streets hoeing for me (in the street vernacular she would be called a two-bit hoe in that she didn't charge very much) because she didn't bring much money back. At first I would slap her pulling my slap, then I would have recriminations and seeing her crying, flinching from my movements and red from the blows I would want to take it back. But I couldn't if I was to be successful.

    Slowly and over a period of time I became more predatory but then something peculiar would start to occur. Something that I recognized when ever it happened. When ever I got into a situation where my money, status or welfare in any way was jeopardized some where in my head a sinister voice would chime in and say something like beat that bitch, shoot that motherfucker, show him who he is messing with or some such.

    Over time I gave it a name "My Beast". It was my guardian, when ever I became ladi da like every thing was cool and I consciously was not particularly aware of changing situations around me and something would occur that I was oblivious off that could jeopardize my existence My Beast would speak up and spur me into action and most of the time that action was violent.

    So I decided to get clean (you can read about that in my first two Blogs) I'm gonna straighten out my life, go mainstream and live happily ever after. Not!!

    Ya' see it wasn't that easy is any goddamn thing ever? It was a fuggin chore it was the first hardest thing I ever had to deal with in my life. Ever!! Not only was I a predator with all the appropriate predatory instincts (somewhere in one of those first two blogs I give you more detail on this) I was a gaddamn drug addict to boot.

    Now My Beast is also My Addict, combined it is an extremely difficult facet of my mind to ignore. Well, I did get clean and have stayed so for these 11 or 12 years. But I am going to tell the real truth my beast/addict is still with me. I am mainstream now I help provide services to the homeless through the Primavera Foundation in Tucson Arizona and my beast to this day while I am going through my normal work day will rise and suggest actions to supplement my income and sexual adventurism based upon the people and situations over which I have control. I always say no. But it tries me often and it uses pseudo logic in attempts to sway me. I have to be on it 24/7 there is no time that I can let down my guard. I have to be aware at all times of my motivations and intentions to continue in this life style that I have chosen..

     Ok, it sounds like I am some sort of paranoid schizophrenic but I believe we all have a voice that either compliments or works against us. Some of us have more than one voice and we always, always have a choice between yes and no. Even in situations in which we are in that we think we don't have a choice we always have a choice. We can even make a choice by not making a choice. I have chosen right over wrong and though my beast may push and prod me I have continued to hold to the coarse. I will not succumb to the beast within.

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  • 2 years ago
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• PERSONAL: Back Again PERSONAL: Back Again

  • From: Chakazuluu
  • Description:

    I entered the Veteran's Administration Substance Abuse Treatment Unit and was treated extremely well by all the staff and visiting veterans. I was surprised by the camaraderie of veteran's, I surely expected to be treated as some sort of pariah but this never occurred.

     The VA experience was a time of contemplation and soul searching for me. I knew I was a predator every time I saw a new person I went through that mental assessing process in which in which that person would be evaluated for their potential use for me. When I would encounter a particularly attractive female I would asses her personalities and weaknesses what approach I would take to break her down to satisfy my financial needs. Women were just a tool to be exploited and manipulated.

     When I graduated form the VA program I chose Primavera's Five Points Transitional Housing program as my net stop on my road to success. While there at five Points I met a very dear lady that ran the program that was instrumental in my success, to this day I like to call her my friend in which I hope that it is mutually so.

     While at Five Points I earnestly started on my personal evolvement process.

    I read many PMA (Positive Mental Attitude) books, CDs and courses in order to facilitate the process of reintegration back into mainstream society. I extracted from this book or that course and some info from CDs and came up with my own personal eight steps to success which I have used ever since for re-inventing myself. The one book that assisted me most in this process of adapting my personality to a level of acceptability by society was a book written in 1926 called The Secret of the Ages by Robert Collier. This book had a tremendous effect on my progress. I first focused my transformation on my attitudes toward women and forced myself into meaningful, productive and sometime trite general conversations with them, I formed friendships and bonds all the while forging my self into a person that could interact with a women without attempting to figure out how I could use her. Finally when this effort started to work it spilled over into my dealings with all people.

      I next focused my eight steps to success and my efforts on my anger issues. I was quick to anger and I could easily strike out with physical violence from hardly any provocation. I bought myself a Nintendo and every day after I returned from work I would mentally place the faces of those that I perceived (often my perception was wrong) to have angered me in a violent game and shoot them, blow them up or beat them up until the negative energies disappeared. Sometimes when I felt particularly hateful toward an individual I would write on a sheet of paper as if writing to that individual all my hateful thoughts that I harbored toward him. I would then after expending all that bile into the writing process I would then burn the sheet of paper. These processes helped me considerably in my efforts to control my anger.

     All these personal efforts my eight steps to success, the tricks that I used on my mind to change my personality all helped and contributed to the person that I am now. Now don't get me wrong my beast still resides within me, it still wants to abuse, use and throttle people but I am always in control and the answer is always NO. You see I am a recovering crack addict and I have to be on guard from my motives, environmental influences and what other negatives that might trigger my beast/addict. I have to be on it 24/7 I can never let down my guard be cause at any point I could use any excuse to relapse. Yes, it is work it is a lot of work but I did this to myself and this is the price I have to pay.

     I stayed at Five Points for over a year concentrating on my foundation I remained celibate (so that I don't have to take on any one else's problems while working on my own) and progressed greatly. I don't even think that anyone there noticed what I was going through but the nature of the place means that everyone was probably combing through their own skeletons.

     At some point in my stay at Five Points that dear lady that I informed you that ran the program hired me to be the resident manager of the Alamo a resident program for men next door to Five Points. What do you know I am back again?

     Admittedly I had to skip probably some important aspects of my life but I didn't want to make a book out of this thing. Those that really know me are probably aghast at some of my omissions but you got to pick and choose.

     I don't know if anyone has read this and it probably doesn't make any difference if any one has or not. For me this writing is closure to a life that probably should not exist today but I believe I am a better person for trying and of late I believe there are some people that are better off by my presence in their life.

     If any one has read this I would appreciate if you click on "Comment" below and add your thoughts whether positive or negative all will be accepted and appreciated.

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  • 2 years ago
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• PERSONAL: The Hunger PERSONAL: The Hunger

  • From: Chakazuluu
  • Description:

    Yes ya think ya know, you clinicians that work all ya lives to save people from themselves. Ya go to school ya learn all there is to know about addiction the various methods of dealing with it all that clinical stuff that social workers go through , the endless paper work the different styles of approach and the team meetings. Ya do this for years and because of all the wasted souls and also those that have recovered and are leading some normalcy of life, ya still think ya know. You parents, relatives and friends that have experienced the abnormality, aberrant and recalcitrant changes in the addict that ya know, you also think ya know. None of you, not one of you really know what drives the addict. Nor will you ever know fully.

    Listen to me carefully, you will never know un less you walk in his/her shoes, oh yes you will have a concept or a clue but that is where the knowing will stop.

    I can speak for the crack addict because I am one that is in recovery, I have experienced all that drives the addict and you for as long as you have known me, whether you are married to me or you are my brother/sister, my mother/father or the closest that any one human can be to another you will never as long as life endures in your body understand what has driven me. Does that make me an anomaly? No! Because there are many of me out there we are kindred souls, we attract each other primarily because of the common pain, anguish and degradation that we knew at the time of the height of our addiction was destroying us a little piece at a time.

    The hunger, the hunger is all consuming it fills and boils up in your body, in your mind and has to be satiated but is unsatisfiable. Ya think for a moment as the high climbs to its peak that you are about to reach that pinnacle, that nirvannic place that you have been striving for every time ya take a hit. It rises and ya know without a doubt that you are about to take off on gossamer wings to a euphoric state where no man has ever gone. But it does not happen but ya know it will just one more hit that is all that it will take, just one more that's all. You have got to do whatever ya need to do to reach that state. Steal ya momma's stereo, take yo daddy's car, bust someone in the head and take their money, time is short ya have got to be quick the time is now ya can feel it in every inch of yo body.

    Ya know when ya is stealing yo momma's stereo, yo daddy's car or busting someone in the head fo there money Ya know this is wrong. Ya know that it goes against all that ya have been taught. But ya can't help it you are driven by an unsatiable drive for nirvana, one that will not be denied. It will have you do the most damnable acts possible to strive for it.

    I remember the hunger, oh yes how well do I remember it. At times it drove me to exhaustion. Seriously I would stay awake and on the move for 2 or 3 days sometimes longer on the hunt for the next hit. I would not stop to eat, bathe or anything but what I was searching for. Then suddenly the body would say "enough" and I would drop in my tracks and go to sleep no matter where I was at.

    Yes I remember the hunger, I will remember the hunger 'til the day I die.

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  • 2 years ago
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• PERSONAL: The Addict PERSONAL: The Addict

  • From: Chakazuluu
  • Description:

    Yes ya think ya know, you clinicians that work all ya lives to save people from themselves. Ya go to school ya learn all there is to know about addiction the various methods of dealing with it all that clinical stuff that social workers go through , the endless paper work the different styles of approach and the team meetings. Ya do this for years and because of all the wasted souls and also those that have recovered and are leading some normalcy of life, ya still think ya know. You parents, relatives and friends that have experienced the abnormality, aberrant and recalcitrant changes in the addict that ya know, you also think ya know. None of you, not one of you really know what drives the addict. Nor will you ever know fully.

    Listen to me carefully, you will never know un less you walk in his/her shoes, oh yes you will have a concept or a clue but that is where the knowing will stop.

    I can speak for the crack addict because I am one that is in recovery, I have experienced all that drives the addict and you for as long as you have known me, whether you are married to me or you are my brother/sister, my mother/father or the closest that any one human can be to another you will never as long as life endures in your body understand what has driven me. Does that make me an anomaly? No! Because there are many of me out there we are kindred souls, we attract each other primarily because of the common pain, anguish and degradation that we knew at the time of the height of our addiction was destroying us a little piece at a time.

    The hunger, the hunger is all consuming it fills and boils up in your body, in your mind and has to be satiated but is unsatisfiable. Ya think for a moment as the high climbs to its peak that you are about to reach that pinnacle, that nirvannic place that you have been striving for every time ya take a hit. It rises and ya know without a doubt that you are about to take off on gossamer wings to a euphoric state where no man has ever gone. But it does not happen but ya know it will just one more hit that is all that it will take, just one more that's all. You have got to do whatever ya need to do to reach that state. Steal ya momma's stereo, take yo daddy's car, bust someone in the head and take their money, time is short ya have got to be quick the time is now ya can feel it in every inch of yo body.

    Ya know when ya is stealing yo momma's stereo, yo daddy's car or busting someone in the head fo there money Ya know this is wrong. Ya know that it goes against all that ya have been taught. But ya can't help it you are driven by an unsatiable drive for nirvana, one that will not be denied. It will have you do the most damnable acts possible to strive for it.

    I remember the hunger, oh yes how well do I remember it. At times it drove me to exhaustion. Seriously I would stay awake and on the move for 2 or 3 days sometimes longer on the hunt for the next hit. I would not stop to eat, bathe or anything but what I was searching for. Then suddenly the body would say "enough" and I would drop in my tracks and go to sleep no matter where I was at.

    Yes I remember the hunger, I will remember the hunger 'til the day I die.

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  • 2 years ago
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• Who Are They? Who Are They?

  • From: Chakazuluu
  • Description:

    We go through our through cities center and we see the Homeless and the working poor sleeping or socializing in the parks or panhandling on the streets and we lump them all together in our minds eye as being Homeless. 

     Do we really know who they are, where they came from. The word Homeless has come to be a convenient catch phrase for a group of people that allows us to see them in a pigeon hole without actually knowing who they are or where they are from. We have de-personalized them to the point that we do not know who they are.

     No one really knows how many Homeless there really are. HUD has mandated that each state provide a census of their Homeless population but they did not provide the means to do it. So each states efforts are a lackluster and none to accurate count. So the numbers that you see in publications and in the media are generally extrapolations based on what is considered known numbers.

     Homeless Male Veterans

     A third of the Homeless men in the US are veterans to look at it another way one out of three Homeless males are veterans and as many as 200,000 go to sleep at night with no place to call home.

     Homeless Female Veterans

      The risk of Homelessness is two to four times as much for female veterans as for other women. About 8000 women veterans lack permanent shelter and those numbers will increase as more of them return from war.

     Right now, the number of Homeless male and female Vietnam era veterans is greater than the number of service persons who died during that war.  Atlthough many Homeless veterans served in combat in Vietnam and suffer from PTSD, at this time, epidemiologic studies do not suggest that there is a causal connection between military service, service in Vietnam, or exposure to combat and homelessness among veterans.  Family background, access to support from family and friends, and various personal characteristics (rather than military service) seem to be the stronger indicators of risk of Homelessness.

     Homeless Alcoholics and drug addicts

     .In their book, A Nation In Denial, Alice Baum and Donald Burnes shatter many of the myths surrounding the root causes of Homelessness, which have little to do with the economy, governmental social policies, lack of affordable housing, and so forth. According to their research at least 65-85% of all homeless adults suffer from chronic alcoholism and drug addiction. Forty to fifty percent of these individuals are "dually diagnosed" - suffering from addiction to alcohol and/or drugs, as well.

     Homeless Mentally Ill

    Approximately 20 - 25% of the single adult Homeless population suffers from some form of severe and persistent mental illness (National Resource and Training Center onHomelessness and Mental Illness, 2003). While 22% of the American population suffers from a mental illness, a small percentage of the 44 million people who have a serious mental illness are Homeless at any given point in time (National Institute of Mental Health, 2005). a new wave of deinstitutionalization and the denial of services or premature and unplanned discharge brought about by managed care arrangements may be contributing to the continued presence of seriously mentally ill persons within the homeless population.

     Homelessness and Poverty

     Poverty and Homelessness are inextricably linked. Poor people are frequently unable to pay for housing, food, childcare, health care, and education. Difficult choices must be made when limited resources cover only some of these necessities. Often it is housing, which absorbs a high proportion of income that must be dropped. Being poor means being an illness, an accident, or a paycheck away from living on the streets.

     I don't have access to numbers on number of poverty stricken people that are Homeless which is ok because I have already stated that the numbers are inaccurate because there has not been any real effort to get a good count.

     Homeless Children

     There are at least 1.35 million children that are Homeless every year Homeless children get sick twice and hungry twice as often than other children. They also have many more mental health problems than other children. The vast majority of Homeless children and youth live in shelters, doubled up with friends or relatives, or in situations such as motels and campgrounds.

     Homeless Families with Children

     One of the fastest growing segments of the Homeless population is families with children. A 2005 study revealed that of the counted homeless population there were 98,452 Homeless families, making up 41% of the entire Homeless population. Recent evidence confirms that homelessness among families is increasing. Requests for assisted

    housing by low-income families and individuals increased in 86 percent of the cities during the past year. The same study found the requests increased by an average of 5% in 2005 (U.S.Conference of Mayors, 2005). While the average number of emergency shelter beds for homeless families with children increased by 8% in 2005, an average of 32% of requests for shelter by homeless families were denied in 2005 due to lack of resources.

     Homeless Drop Outs

     There are also the  Homeless individuals that want to not have responsibility for the life style that we in the mainstream maintain. They don't want to pay utility bills, rent or be responsible for any of the trappings of mainstream civilization. They prefer to be free to come and go at will and to be only responsible for the bare necessities of their well being. Many of them are not addicts or mentally ill. They just got tired of the rat race that we compete in and dropped out. Sometimes I look at the individuals in this group and realize that they are not fraught with the insecurities, neuroses, migraines and pressures that our civilization is air to. I wonder sometimes if I adopted their ethos would I be less bent than I am.

     I have placed a face on the Homeless now they are more than just a lump of people in a pigeon hole, now you can see the scope and the depth of this despicable condition. I have brought the condition a little closer to home for you. There also may be other sub groups that I did not mention possible some that I am not aware of even after all my years working in the field of Homelessness.

     Now when you see the Homeless on the streets I want you to see them as individuals with their on subset of problems and reasons for being where they are at. Please be compassionate and kind when you come in contact with them. We are part of the problem we can also be part of the solution.

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  • 2 years ago
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• Chronic Homelessness Chronic Homelessness

  • From: Chakazuluu
  • Description:

    The federal government's definition of chronic homelessness includes homeless individuals with a disabling condition (substance use disorder, serious mental illness, developmental disability, or chronic physical illness or disability) who have been homeless either 1) continuously for one whole year, or 2) four or more times in the past three years.

     Research reveals that between 10 to 20 percent of homeless single adults are chronically homeless. This translates into between 150,000 to 200,000 people who experience chronic homelessness.

     I have come in contact with many chronically Homeless individuals in my work with the Homeless agency that I work for. What happens is that an individual will get a job and possibly because of an addiction will loose the job go then into a shelter then get another job and the whole endless cycle happens again and again. Sometimes loosing the job has nothing to do with addiction it could be the lose of a dear loved one that the person never gets over and the depression and other unhealthy mental stuff may cause them to lose their job. Often what happens is that certain cultures look down on counselors and psychiatrists and the individuals suffering from these conditions fail to seek help because of these cultural prejudices. Sometimes the situation is exasperated by not only alcohol and/or mental illness but other really deep seated problems many of which could be physical.

     Often when the social worker comes in contact with certain individuals that are chronically Homeless there is a lack of understanding as to why the person is because that person will be educated, articulate, quick and smart. I have come in contact with former Doctors, lawyers, engineers and military officers that fall into this category.

     Very few times I have met those in that category just plain dropped out because they saw the doom that our way of life is taking us. They said "I can't do this any more" and just let everything go. They refuse to participate in the charade any longer and they take on the attributes of the chronically Homeless.

     There are also those vagabonds that refuse to live the complicated lives that we mainstreamers do. They don't want to pay rent, utilities, car notes and so forth. They want to live a free and loose life style living where they choose from this moment to the next.

     Those that were just mentioned by far are not the norm among the Homeless they are a small percentage but they do contribute to the body of the whole.

     When you try to give these peoples supportive services on an out patient level often time their recovery is slow and ponderous if it occurs at all because they still have to fight, scramble and hunt for every bit of sustenance.  The mental and physical breakdown that occurs while living in the streets tends to negate any positives that occurs in their lives.

    This is why permanent supportive housing and supportive services is an effective strategy for ending chronic Homelessness and is very cost effective.

     

     

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  • 2 years ago
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• Meandering Thoughts on a Bad S Meandering Thoughts on a Bad Situation

  • From: Chakazuluu
  • Description:

    THIS BLOG WAS ORIGINALLY POSTED TO MY OTHER SITE AT:

    myspace.com/homelessadvocate

    I was in a store in down town Tucson Arizona today getting myself a pack of cigarettes. The guy staggers by the store trips on his own feet and falls down. He is obviously Homeless . He is wearing a backpack slung over one shoulder with a bedroll tied to the bottom and a one liter water bottle tied to the bedroll with a piece of cord.

    This guy in the store had just made his purchase and was walking out of the store and on the way out he says "them goddamn fukin Homeless folks there all a bunch of drunks and drug addicts". Well I'm in no mood to get into confrontation today so I let the guy go.

    I went out side and knelt down on one knee next to the fallen fellow and I asked him is he alright. He states that he is alright but then I notice something about him. He is wearing a combination of civilian and military clothes and on his military shirt he has pinned all these metals. So I ask him where id he get these metals? He tells me he spent two tours in Iraq and he received them for his bravery and valor. I then asked him how did he get into this condition of being Homeless and drunk. He says that the alcohol is the only thing that takes the pain away and if he gets drunk he won't have the reoccurring nightmares.

    I asked him having been in the military and served during wartime why isn't the military taking care of him (I already knew the answer but I had to hear it from the horses mouth). He said that he has PTSD and at first the military health care system acted like they were going to take care of him but then his superior officers accused him of being a slacker and for the sake of the morale of his company and the rest of the military they kicked him out. He said that drinking was the only way he can keep from killing himself and that killing himself would be a sin.

    To make a much longer story short I put him in touch with a military support group that will help him.

    The point I want to make here is let us say that you are Homeless and mainstream society makes it a point that you know that they look down on you in a most disparaging way what means of surcease from the sorrow of it would you seek out to give you at least a meager break. Suppose you wanted to escape from the whole scene at least for a short period of time what avenue is available to you? Drugs and alcohol is the answer.

    Yes there are a lot of Homeless individuals that started out addicts and plummeted because of the addiction into Homelessness . But you and I contribute to the number of addicted Homeless people because of our apathy toward them. Because of the way that we treat them we drive even those that were not addicts before they became Homeless into addiction.

    There are an estimated 200,000 Homeless vets and an estimated ¾ of a million combined Homeless people in 2007. many, many of them are turning to addiction because of our and our governments lack of care.

    The ex soldier that I just told you about is not an exception to the rule. The military with it's callous and militaristic thinking processing are kicking soldiers out of the military left and right they have created an atmosphere in which no soldier that wants to make a career out of the military will admit that they are having problems. You then wonder why he hear of atrocities such as soldiers killing civilians that are not enemy combatants?

    Our system is fuked up I mean seriously fuked up. When we allow any person man or woman who has lost limbs and possibly their own sanity to protect us to end up on the streets eating out of dumpsters and sleeping in the alleys then we have really, really screwed up. Colonel Davud Hunt, US Army (Ret) states that "A nation that does not care for its veterans does not deserve them".

    It is not just the Veterans any time we allow anyone to end up on our streets groveling for a mere existence is a crime.

    I say that we have got to change the public mind about this very bad problem. We need to find out about Homelessness in out towns, where are the shelters, feeding kitchens, what are the needs. We need to help fulfill those needs. We also need to form public interest groups and lobby our congressmen, hold news conferences, make public service announcements. We need to do what ever we need to do to alleviate the situation in our cities and towns with our Homeless .

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  • 2 years ago
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