“Normally I go places where they're feeding. Coffee's important in the morning. Normally I cruise like up and around. Lately the park's been, I don't know, it seems like some of the hoodlums are gone, so it's not so bad. You know, you can't turn your back sometimes. Just take your stuff.
My wife passed away and found out that she hadn't made a house payment in like 42 months. And I called the mortgage company and I was like, ‘Hey, can I get the same deal?’ And they're like, ‘What?’ And I go, ‘She didn't make a payment for 42 months.’ I said, ‘You know, now that she's gone, I said, Can I get 42 months free?’ They're like, ‘No, we're gonna pull it up for auction. You'll be out in 90 days. ‘
I go to St. Vincent's for my hygiene stuff. I go up to Evelyn Mount, take a shower about every third day, because they're charging 10 bucks now.
Then my laundry, I do on Fridays at the laundromat down here, it's free.
You get to know all the free, you know, it's like, you know, this guy, this guy works for $18.50 an hour and he's got as much money in his pocket right now as I do in mine, and I don't work. And I got two dollars and 82 cents. He goes to work 12 hours a day, four days a week. It's like crazy. And he lives in the park. So what does that tell you?
I haven't been to the homeless shelter because the lady that worked there, that works for the county now, she said, ‘if by all means, if you don't have to go there, don't go there.’ It's horrible. But I haven't been there, so I don't know firsthand.
She just said, she just told me, you know, she was my case worker way back, three years ago, and I saw her at the senior center and she's just like, ‘If you don't have to go there, don't go there.’
But you know, if you have to go there, then you know, it's covered. It's warm, da da da. Other than that, if you don't have to be homeless, don't be, seriously, I mean, there's a lot of people that wouldn't last two days.
You get used to not having a social life.
Half these people you don't want to talk to. And the other half, you know, if they're talking to you, they're looking at, you know, my stuff.
They're trying to see what they could take. If I close my eyes, people are people, well, we're not all bad. All the homeless aren't, aren't creeps and, you know, people have a [perception] about what homeless are and it's like, you know what? You got it wrong. You know, some of us are people that are just down and out for a minute. You know, I don't need your three dollars. You know, I don't need you to give me a sandwich.
I just need you to leave me alone for a minute and let me be, you know, that's it.”