"The Hobo Life Ain't No 'Big Rock Candy Mountain' Anymore......................."

Good Afternoon;

So..... A letter/comment originally sent to the Baltimore City Paper
in response to the HomeLessCide column "Back To Abnormal"....:
(link to it is in the third post back before this one)

Dave (May I call you that?),

I read your column faithfully. Now, I’m not your typical City Paper reader. I’m a conservative-leaning moderate living in Central PA. Let me say up front that I don’t know at all what it’s like being homeless and I hope your day comes where you don’t have to lug all your worldly goods around and wonder where you’re going to spend the night. If I were homeless, though, I don’t think I’d spend my winters in Charm City. Sometime in early autumn I’d face south and head for the Caribbean (Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida). I understand that you have family in B-mo, but you have to take care of yourself. You could face north in early spring and be back in Maryland by June. Good luck, guy, things will be better. Stay warm!

Chuck Spiroff

Thanks for the support Chuck, there are homeless people who do "follow the sun", but that open up a whole new set of challenges. If one does not have any knowledge of, friends, or contacts in a new city it is infinitely more difficult to both simply survive and learn the ins and outs of that city's go/no go zones. Services are harder to access and in some cases not available to transients, or who at least have a longer waiting list behind long term familiar faces. Transferring any benefits may take almost the whole time one would spend at the new location, and then it's time to move North and do it all over again.....every 6 months. Plus the mere logistics of travel and transport would be well nigh impossible. For those who have a source of income that will sustain them, it may be feasible, but walking into a strange city 'cold', broke, and alone, with issues of anxiety, paranoia, and depression? And as you mentioned, I have family here that I am not about to leave.

Besides, with any luck and the blessings of the gods, be they major, minor, old, or new, I am at last in the 'fast track'.. (of course we are talking "Government Fast Track" as in 'Hurry Up And Wait' where molasses and snail racing are considered high speed concepts!!!! ........LOL).. and nearing the point in the neverending application cycle where I will actually get to deal with a human, face to face, as opposed to computer generated, form letter, automatic rejections and dismissals. Another jurisdiction means a new S.S.A. office and having to re-start he whole process, and I already LOST 2 YEARS!! because a former 'service provider' dropped the ball.

Anyway, I'm here at the library, about to head out to the bus and over to the coffee shop in Mt. Washington now, so I'm not stuck here in Pikesville with nowhere to be once the library closes at 5:30 pm. The rain has stopped it looks like and it is not TOO cold and it does not look like tonight will be too bad either. Last night was damp, drizzly, and foggy, but only chilly not bitter and I think tonight will be similar.

Not to say I don't want someone to come by and say " Jump in the car and crash at my place for a while"!!!!!!.........LOL!!!
Later............................Dave