WE FEEL LIKE LOST RAFTS IN THE OCEAN

Part of experiencing homelessness is feeling like society isn’t made for you. Homelessness often feels like being left to drown, while bodies around you look on and swim past.

Feeling invisible to the world around you is a common thing. The only recognition being the nervous shuffling of judging eyes. It feels like the only time you’re considered is when you’re being a burden to someone.

Everything conspires to make you feel alone. In many ways, the coronavirus crisis hit the homeless population with the same hostility that the rest of life has.

I’ve been homeless since I was a child. I grew into a young man, clean, going to school. I could see how the juxtaposition between my appearance and situation colored how people treated me.

I was just barely innocent-looking enough not to have been beaten by security guards who found me sleeping in the stairwells of private buildings, unlike my homeless friends.

My brown skin hid the dirt and grime to an extent and gave me friendships with regulars in 24-hour coffee shops.

When I was out on the streets, I was a kid. No one knew I needed help, and I couldn’t find it on my own.

I ended my street homelessness in January, after I made the decision that going to school wouldn’t be possible on the streets. I’d been sleeping on the City College campus. I was stealing food. I even had a few close calls with the police.

Finally, I found the right people to help me. An organization known as Youth Assistance Coalition led me to the Alpha Projects tent. I rested on a sheet, my body completely laid down for the first time in years.

It’s all too often understated how powerful a consistent roof over your head is, or even what one meal a day does for your psyche. City College’s semester was about to begin. Having that roof over my head and the guarantee of food gave me the confidence that I could succeed in my classes for the first time in my life.

But the coronavirus pandemic changed all of that. It began with talks of the college shutting down. I had taken a few online courses in prior semesters, but I knew without stable internet access, I’d be fighting an uphill battle.

Talk of online classes from my professors made me feel once again like I wasn’t being considered. I’d went to my counselor’s office, and no one had any answers.

I was reaching a fever pitch of frustration. After having tried so hard, and having gone through so much, I was about to have my education taken away from me. I felt like I was being left to drown, again.

I was venting my frustration to a woman who worked at the Youth Assistance Coalition, and she reminded me of an option we had discussed in prior conversations. There was a program for homeless youth called Urban Street Angels.

I refused to join the program at first because I didn’t want to see old friends. I always had trouble focusing in their company. But Urban Street Angels had computers, and Youth Assistance Coalition had the connection to get me admitted.

This was the only chance to continue my education, so for me, that sealed the deal, and I agreed to join. I was pondering the ease of which I made that decision, when I realized something: My priorities and discipline had paid off.

Many people experiencing homelessness felt something familiar when this pandemic shook up everyone’s lives. We felt the shifting of the world around us, and we felt society rise to answer, without finding answers for us.

I was lucky enough to have something to place my hope in, but many of us have long since been broken. We often feel like lost rafts in the ocean, and the uncertainty of the pandemic is just another current pulling us in a direction we didn’t want to travel.

For us, the homeless population, the suffering is all too familiar. It is my wish that in these trying times we are kept in your hearts.