Red's Wrap
Happiness. It's relative.
Your Homelessness is Bothering Me Friday Round-Up.
It’s a bitch being an eyesore. Ask any of the folks who got a warning from the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Department that the car they’d been living in was going to be towed. Homelessness is so messy, especially in Park & Ride lots next to the freeway, blocks away from residential neighborhoods. Betting that most of the people living in their cars would really prefer not to be there, but where to go is the question. Where do you go when you’re not supposed to be anywhere?
Yesterday, I laughed so hard with my friend that I almost ran off the road. I hope I don’t lose that – the sense that our laughter will keep people from running into us. Once, on the freeway, she said to me, “Roll your window down and don’t panic. There’s a bee on your head.” We drove on as if in a cartoon.
Street Angels, the homeless outreach group I work with, won a $100,000 grant the other night and we were all nearly overcome with glee. This is the same group that, excuse me, didn’t have a pot to piss in a few years ago. Don’t ever count a bunch of committed women out.
Richard, the painter, is gone. Yesterday, I watched him completely unpack his car on the neighbor’s lawn. There were shirts and shoes and cans of paint. Tarps and brushes and a dozen water bottles. Trash from takeout, t-shirts, and newspapers in stacks and balls. Then he repacked. I wondered for a minute if he was living in his car but I didn’t ask. He said he’d be back in the morning and he was, but just for a minute, then gone. Richard did a fine job.
The people selling our house up north keep ‘bringing issues to our attention.” Like peeling drywall next to the chimney, a door that’s hard to unlock, and a bit of a doggy smell in the downstairs. Twenty-five years, six dogs, I’m not surprised. They all wanted to be remembered and, I guess, they are.
5 Comments on “Your Homelessness is Bothering Me Friday Round-Up.”
Leave a Reply
Recent Comments
 | joviald3f8e0e214 on Brevity is Beautiful |
 | Nancy Bauer-King on Truck Life in the Big City |
 | Deb on Truck Life in the Big City |
| joviald3f8e0e214 on Where’s the Money When y… |
 | Reflections of an Un… on Where’s the Money When y… |
Snow Door | wisconsinacademy.org
Listen to Jan read her essay “Billy” presented on WUWM’s Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “At the Breakfast Bar” on WUWM Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “The Parish Hall,” on WUWM Lake Effect
“Fury Cannot Touch Me,” Modern Love, NYT, 9/29/11
Congratulations for the entire group Jan! I would just say that if I was buying a little house by a huge lake I would expect and find the not perfect bits to be there. Odd if they weren’t given it is not an eyesore of the mansion by the lake sort. Peoples perceptions (and expectations) can be so very skewed these days- in lots of areas.
Agree totally. We did decide that the back door that only my husband can open (and then only sometimes) needed to be replaced and that we had to repair a couple of spots of water damage (amazed there aren’t more considering how many pipes burst over the years). It’s a beach house furnished by Goodwill and my expert curb shopping. Still, it’s a one of a kind, that’s for sure.
People seem to not want to actually see homeless people, preferring to think about them in the abstract. As you know. We are all one bad turn of luck away from being homeless. Congrats to your group for this windfall, this proves the power of never surrendering and fighting for good. As for the house, I sold my little 100+ year old house a free years back and so many things were illegal , out of whack, and out of code, but I just saw all of those things as quirks of the house
Congratulations and thank you, Jan. And, keep laughing…
I’m afraid homelessness is going to become more of a problem as AI and other robotic and computerized methods of production continue to take over jobs. Thanks to you and the other Street Angels for working at a solution to homelessness. I know you well deserve your generous grant.