Too Close to Home(less)

Hello all;

I actually spent the night indoors yesterday! On a bed! ( alone...sigh; and it was almost as comfortable as some of the cardboard pallets I've constructed), but it was in a house with heat, lights and a bathroom. I stopped by to pick up some medication from my friend, Monkee and we had not talked for a while so we ended up catching up on things, next thing we knew it was almost 11:00 pm. I have stayed at Monkee's on occassion, but it is an emergency or deadly weather situation only option, by mutual agreement, so I was more than pleasantly surprised when she said to just sleep there in the bed in the basement for the night, out of the blue. Prayer, clean living, a good atttitude, being properly grateful despite it all??? who knows, something paid off!!

Just a few thoughts on how the economic meltdown and the shameful foreclosure procedures are affecting people who I never expected to see on the streets, those folks more like you than me. I was speaking to a woman on the subway last night who had become homeless due to being conned in the mortgage debacle, she was working at a good job, had been keeping up on her payments until her mother got sick and passed away, she tried to renegotiate, make arrangements to get caught up on arrears, and other reasonable options, but because there was a balloon payment due and it was an ARM, the mortgage holder refused to work with her. So she is in a women's and childrens shelter until she accrues enough for an apartment, (first-last-security). Somehow the mortgage holder ( I don't know if it is a bank or insurance co. or what..), has frozen her assets while she appeals the foreclosure. And these are the companies that are being bailed out????

I was talking to a man in the coffee shop today who I have been on nodding acquaintance with for some time, he stopped and talked to me today and we passed the usual pleasantries and exchanged a bit about one another. When I told him about my being on the streets, he stated that he was almost there himself. He owns his own business, and has been in operation for 30 (thirty) years, successfully, is married with six kids at home, and between BG&E, food, and gas prices, is close to losing his home, having one of the kinds of business that people stop patronizing first in a recession.( I am being vague at his requst for anonymity).

I just wanted to show that more folks than one would think are really only 3 or 4 months, in some cases PAYCHECKS away from the streets.

I gotta go............Dave