The 7 People You Meet in a Homeless Shelter

And you have met them all before

I hold my breath as the person beside me has another nervous breakdown.

It has been a week since I stepped foot into the shelter, and I am beyond exhausted at the trauma served fresh to me daily. Most days, life is peeling away at my dignity and desire to be human. I have stepped in enough human shit to last a lifetime.

There are seven people you will meet in a homeless shelter. Seven souls so tortured by their own existence that they fade away a little more each day.

The lady beside me is 63 with no children or spouse but a sister she has been fighting with for the last 20 years. She slapped her in the face and sent her to jail for abuse.

She is not alone; most of the women here have suffered some form of abuse in their lives. Truthfully, they might suffer more before they leave the shelter.

I want to tell you about them, even if you won’t spend time with them or read their story. There is an entire population that is homeless, and people ignore them because it is difficult.

Venomous words bubble in my throat at the thought of someone in need, and we continue to do nothing because it makes us uncomfortable.

Homelessness is not a crime.

It is a state of existence that could be solved, just like adoption and how we view children in foster care. But that is a different battle, one I will fight tomorrow.

The Chronic Visitor

A woman shuffles past me as she sends her greetings.

“Oh, I thought you died.” A voice calls out a few tables over.

“Who? Me? They can’t kill me.” She cackles at her own joke. Later that day, I will learn she has been in and out of the shelter for three years now. She does not have a place to live and spends months at a time in the hospital or jail.

Sometimes, she steals to have a place to sleep. Sometimes, she breaks a bone to have a meal to eat.

She will leave the shelter, one moment better than the last. Maybe this time she will have a job, maybe she would have gotten sober, but give it three months, and she will be back.

The shelter is the closest thing she has ever had to stability, and like a moth to a flame, she will return even if it burns her life away.

The Complainer

“You see this?” Pointing to her book of notes and numbers. “This will get me out of here!”

“I can’t stand these damned bitches, to hell with all of them.” She grumbles in a hushed tone.

She will never talk loud enough for the staff to hear. At first, you will look at her with concern. You will watch her break down and cry and scream.

When you realize it is a pattern, you will pull away to protect yourself as she accuses you of sitting too close. You will pull away as she yells at you for not believing her claims of leaving.

She might hurt your feelings as she complains and calls everyone “bitches.” Do not fear; she is hurting and a chronic complainer, not yet brave enough to say her words aloud.

And, unfortunately, you look like an easy target.

The Kind Soul

You will meet them in a quiet corner.

With their heads bowed as they mumble a prayer and ask whoever for help or salvation.

They do not speak much, but when you hear their voice, you will be filled with compassion and a need to protect them.

I have heard too many quiet and kind souls crying in the silence of the night. They do not believe in the same salvation they pray for, and yet you see them grip their bible with so much force that you know they are stronger than they seem.

A kind soul in a shelter will hold the hand of another as they cry. They will listen to the complainer and the chronic visitor with gentleness. They will shed tears with one another and try to convince you to keep going.

Protect them at all costs, but remember to protect yourself.

The Abused

They will cower in a corner and bristle at the act of simple touch.

Have you ever seen a wounded animal? Have you ever held it close to you as it whimpers and shivers?

Did your heart break at the thought that anyone can do something to such a creature?

This image is the same for the abused. 1 in 3 women will have experienced abuse in their life. Of the abused and traumatized, there is a 50% chance of them experiencing more than one form of abuse.

Most women are in a hospital or psych ward due to a mental breakdown. The next step is usually a shelter.

They do not do well in shelters, a place full of darkened corners and more trauma than a person can endure.

But you do not want to know about that. It makes you uncomfortable.

The Mentally Ill

Have you ever watched a person have a schizophrenic episode? See them giggle and yell at an audience that does not exist in your eyes?

It is interesting but also all-consuming.

I have watched people spiral into a manic episode that lasted four days and three hours. Yes, I counted. I was too afraid to do anything else.

And yet, for every high, there is a low. The depression cycle afterward was so scarring that I dared not think about it. I dare not remember it, lest it makes me suicidal once more.

The mentally ill are ignored in most cultures. They are ostracized for the firing of unbalanced chemicals in their brains.

Being mentally ill is not a crime.

The Abuser

They do not say it out loud, for they are too old to admit their crimes, but you can tell.

Their daughter is a doctor. Their son is a lawyer. They are just so proud of them.

Occasionally, they will tell you a story. One in which they lived a full life and had a happy home. They will tell you of an uncle who overstepped a boundary. Or a father who did something unspeakable.

They might even tell you of the punishments their children received. The whippings were more like torture, but they needed that child to understand the world was not kind.

And in turn, you will notice how their eyes still light up at what they did to their children. How their spouse learned early never to question them, or they too could get slapped down.

The abuser also drowns in a prison of their making, reliving the abuse that made them a monster that still smiles.

In a shelter, you won’t know the difference unless you talk to the old woman who is nice to everyone except for those who remind her of her children.

The Sacrifice

A lamb led to slaughter.

Their family betrayed them.

Their employer used them.

They have the words “will bow” tattooed across their soul.

You have met the sacrifice before. You have seen them smiling while being broken down and sent away to an assignment that does not belong to them.

The sacrifice is always the first to die in a shelter. They will turn to drugs, something swift and simple. Something to ease the pain of existence.

They will bow and break.

And you will watch them because you are too afraid to save someone while drowning.

I am one of those seven people you will meet.

I have lived in a shelter since September 26 of this year and hated every moment.

If you can help, then please donate to my GoFundMe.

This link will take you to the page and tell you more about the hospitalization that put me in a horrible situation.