Jeffrey W. Walsh
I am an older first generation (1G) college student. This is my first semester back in college in a long time. I haven’t taken classes here and there but I haven’t really been a full time student in over 30 years. I am 58 years old and this my first time in Normal, Illinois. I have yet to apply for my AARP card. If I apply for my AARP card, I think I get 5% off at Applebees, Starbucks and IHOP. A few things happened since the last time I went off to college in 1985.
I am homeless. Half awake. Half asleep. Half presentable. Half disheveled. I see a drifter. That drifter is me. I see near-do-well, That near-do-well is me. I see a beggar, That beggar is me. Drifter, ne’er-do-well, beggar, busker, street artiste, bum, castaway, runaway, homeless, crack-addict, nomad, vagabond alike ,we are united. Come see the never ending freak show under your local highway underpass or Greyhound station. We are the zombie nation. Like an endless episode of Night of the Living Dead, we are a nameless and faceless people that roam the streets like mummies with their white gauze slowly unraveling until there is a core of dirt, grime and dust until we collapse in a heap next to a gunmetal grey garbage dumpster. Round us up, put us in tent cities and shuffle us off to the voting booth, Mr. Politician. No I.D.s, no birth certificates, no Driver’s Licenses, No State I.D.s. Get out your particle clipboard and your yellow legal pad, Mr. Census Taker. How do you count us? Do you care? Do you know our names? Do you know my name?
Homeless. I don’t fit the job description. My middle-class white ass should be vegging out on the couch with the remote, watching reruns of Friends or Seinfeld not combing the streets and hoping for the generosity of perfect strangers. In a very real sense, I was leading a double life. I did not want friends and family back home in Chicago to know that I fell on “hard times”. Pride goeth before a fall. When I called home it was “Everything is really great Mom. If you come visit me, we could go to St. Elmo’s Steakhouse. Best steaks in the Midwest.” Or “Hi, Joe. Hi Mike. Everything is really great in Indianapolis. Maybe we can go to the Indy 500.”
Homeless Veteran. I don’t fit the job description. Believe it or not, I used to model. I used have a TV show. You would never know that now. I don’t even own a TV. One reason I didn’t tell anyone because I didn’t think anyone would believe me. Technically, I am not a homeless veteran, I was still enlisted in the Indiana National Guard when I got thrown out on the streets. And, come to think of it, maybe being homeless isn’t so bad after all. I have a new role model and he is currently homeless. A Parisian beggar Jean-Marie Roughol is now a bestselling author. His book Je tape la manche: Une vie dans la rue (My Life as a Panhandler: A Life on the Streets has sold 50,000 copies. He still sets up shop outside a Chanel boutique on Avenue Montaigne in Paris. Wow. Maybe there is hope for my book “An Open Road and a Full Tank of Gas, Part 2”. Maybe I will rename my book “A Homeless Manifesto”.
Homeless Army Veteran. I didn’t sign up for this. I am not an officer, I am an enlisted man. I am an enlisted man with a college education. Call a hybrid if you like me. Call me a half-breed if you don’t. An enlisted man with a college education is white collar man living in a blue collar world. An enlisted man with a college education is the equivalent of a privileged boss’s son in a tweed sport coat working with the boys on the factory production line. I guess the good news about my homeless stint is that I now I have newly minted “street cred” among the working-class/ enlisted/ blue-collar set. He’s now one of us.
I was working two jobs in Indianapolis….one full-time and one part-time. The full-time job was at Morgan Linen and Uniform company. I was an inside salesman. I got on the phone 8 hours a day and called “prospects”- 5 star restaurants and 5 star hotels who needed tablecloths and napkins in maroon, aquamarine, white…or whatever color. I called garage mechanics and Maitre-Ds and any place white-collar or blue-collar who might be in need of uniforms for their staff. I was good at my job. We placed a lot of orders. I worked hard. I never had to beg like other homeless people. The staff at Morgan were mainly women. And women have a funny thing called women’s intuition. One day, a woman came up to my desk with a basket of money. About $100 dollars. She said something I will remember the rest of my life- we don’t know what’s wrong, but we think you might need this Maybe someone at work heard about me using the company van to move my stuff to the storage shed. Maybe someone at work heard the phone call from my landlord when he tossed me out on the street like a sack of potatoes.
I tried to establish a routine in my upended life without success. Availability to the storage sheds were from 7am to 9pm everyday. Personnel were in the office from 9 to 5. So I would sneak in there after 5 pm but before 9 pm and lock myself in my storage shed and go to sleep. Home Sweet Home. “Storage Shed Sweet Storage Shed”. This was the main place I slept but I tried others after all a storage shed isn’t a real home. No cable tv or mail delivery. If I ordered a pizza from Dominos…how would they find me? I found the local missions and homeless shelters depressing, often VERY depressing. Why? Because I knew my situation would eventually improve and I saw those people in the missions whose situations might never improve or so it seemed to me. I’m a diamond in the rough. Sooner or later, someone is going to look past my disheveled appearance and hire me as an executive at a large Fortune 500 company. Heck, I could even be on the Board of Directors, that if they could smell of being in the same room.
According to the National Coalition for the Homeless, two trends are largely responsible for the rise in homelessness in America over the past 20-25 years: a growing shortage of affordable rental housing and a simultaneous increase in poverty. Persons living in poverty are most at risk of becoming homeless. In the United States, homelessness is an undeniable reality that impacts people of all ages, ethnicities, and life circumstances. The National Alliance to End Homelessness states that there are 564,708 people experiencing homelessness on any given night in the US. 36,907 (6.38%) are children.
The storage shed became my new home. I decided to tough it out. I am not sure why my landlord throw me out. A Navy vet throwing out an Army vet. I think he is angry that we won the annual Army-Navy game this year. Thanks. I served my country and now I get served at the local soup kitchen. You ain’t part of the Band of Brothers, my turncoat friend. My favorite hangout was 16th and Meridian. There was a White Castle, a laundromat, a library, a Kinko’s copy shop and nightclub near 16th and Meridian.
I am homeless. I am half awake with daydream nightmares of zombie nuns rapping kids across the knuckles with wooden rulers. A lifesize statue of Jesus appears to me with tears flowing down his face into scores of unlit white devotional candles at Jesus’ feet. I am walking. Where should I go? My new experience as a “domicile-y challenged” citizen made me a little bit more religious but not by much, I went to the Catholic Charities center in Indianapolis. They told me that because I made “too much money” I don’t qualify for any assistance. I explained “if I make so much money, why am I living in a storage shed?” Unbelievable. I never set foot in a Catholic church again.
There is a saying that I learned in the Army that there are no “atheists in the foxhole”. Hmmm, are there atheists in the storage shed? WWJD? What would Jesus do? Jesus walks on water. I just want a proper shower. Right now, my shower routine consists of 1) finding a three star hotel three days a week, 2) pretending that I stay there by laying out at the pool and 3) jumping in. I thought might be too obvious if I broke out a bar of soap at the pool so I waited until I went to a hotel bathroom.
I remember my college professor telling me in my Sociology class from 1984 telling me that many city kids think of the suburbs like “an escape to Disneyland”. Yeah, that’s me, a clean-cut suburban kid from a nice home with a manicured lawn, white-picket fence and a dog that looks like it’s out of the cartoon “101 Dalmatians’ now living in a storage shed. Though I am a bonified suburbanite, I never forgot what it was like to be really poor.
A few things happen to all of us during the long road of life. Black or white, rich or poor…no one is immune. I have a B.A. in Psychology. My psychology degree served me will. During my trials and tribulations, I harkened back to the very first thing in my very first psychology class. I learned that “its not what happens to you in life but how you accept It” In 2017, I was on leave from the Peace Corps for 10 days. I heard about a Homeless Vigil in downtown Chicago. Old St. Patrick’s Church. 33 is my number. 33 was the age I was on the streets. The vigil was for 33 homeless people….I decided to attend. What I didn’t know…was that this was a homeless vigil…for 33 people that already passed away. Old St. Pats decided to give a proper wake and tribute to 33 homeless victims. Apparently most died without any family or friends because in many cases the Pastor called out a first name…and no last name. I felt helpless and defenseless sitting in the pews of a cavernous cathedral. The ceremony was both heartwarming and made me sick at the same time. I resolved that I would do something. My life at 33 led me serve in the Peace Corps in South Africa from 2016 to 2018. The Homeless Vigil in Chicago led to me decision to serve Homeless Veterans in the AmeriCorps at the Grace Home in Montana and Rural Dynamics in Downtown Great Falls in 2019 and 2020.
In 2016, I joined the Peace Corps and got to serve in South Africa, the land of social justice champion and freedom fighter Nelson Mandela. Wow. I can help poor people and get paid for it! Cool. Now you know why if you are walking with me I always give money to all the street people as I pass them. Now you know why I wanted to help poor people with the Peace Corps in Africa because I was once a poor person too. While I was a teacher in Maphoitsile, South Africa the Peace Corps, I was able to get 500 desks for my students through the Desmond Tutu Foundation in Cape Town. Boomers can become homeless too… though technically I am on the cusp of Gen X and Boomer, I guess. You could also call me a “homeless yuppie”. though homeless yuppie would be an oxymoron of sorts. Some see my unfortunate event 25 years ago as something to be ashamed of. I see my unfortunate event 25 years ago as something to wear as a badge of honor. As I mentioned above, my housing insecurities have led to bigger and better things. In 2019, I joined the AmeriCorps. I served as a VISTA a Great Falls, Montana helping fellow veterans get on their feet at the Grace Transitional Veterans Home. Many of the veterans at the home were part of the 8th Judicial District Veterans Treatment Court. Veteran’s Treatment Court or “Vet Court” as it is known to locals, is a 14 month treatment program for financial, legal, social, spiritual and cognitive needs. Every week, vet court participants would have to report to the Vet Court judge. It was fun watching caterpillars turn into butterflies. I went to three of the graduations. These graduations were a big deal in the community- so much so that a senator or a congressman might attend. I have come along way since my homeless days. It sure is nice to be able to give back. Half-awake and half-asleep and now waking up, it was an honor to be a part of the zombie nation.
- 2021.
As I mentioned above, I am an older first generation college student and as I mentioned above I haven’t taken classes here and there but I haven’t been a full time student in over 30 years. My brother and I were the first in the family to go to university. He attended University of Iowa. Here I am enrolled here at Illinois State. A few things happened along the way. I learned at early age that its not what happens to you in life but how you accept it. I am happy here at ISU. As an older Grad School student in the Applied Community and Economics Sequence in the Stevenson Center, I plan to study the link between military training, job insecurity and housing insecurity as my thesis or capstone project. I am also a Graduate Assistant. If I have time, maybe I’ll volunteer at the food pantry set up by the Graduate Workers Union. Nelson Mandela once said, “Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. It is the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to dignity and a decent life. While poverty persists, there is no true freedom.”. Amen. Things are looking up. It is great to be here in Normal, Illinois.