Finding hope with a home
Onetime street dweller shows jobs are key
Leedell Omar Thomas has been in his apartment since January, but he often misses the camaraderie he had as a homeless man living among other tent dwellers.
His things now clutter the living room of his one-bedroom apartment near the Richmond BART Station: blue tarps, bike frames and crates with seat posts, crank arms and tire tubes that he uses to build bikes in his spare time.
A piece of the red fabric from the tent he lived in peeks out from underneath the pile.
“It reminds me of Northgate,” said Thomas, referring to the Northgate Avenue encampment, one of the most visible tent cities in Oakland. “It makes me feel comfortable.”
Thomas, 25, was homeless for two years, and he lived on Northgate Avenue for five months. After he moved into his apartment, he kept his tent on Northgate, almost like it was a weekend property.
“I’d come there and kick it and hang out with people, and sometimes I’d spend the night out there still even though I had an apartment,” he said. “I realized I can’t be doing that, and someone else could be utilizing that space.”
Thomas got his apartment through Shelter Inc., an organization based in Concord that provides housing support services. He works the graveyard shift as a security guard at the Safeway at Church and Market streets in San Francisco. He pays 30 percent of his income in rent, which comes to about $500 a month.
Thomas could’ve given up. It’s inspiring to watch a former foster kid, whose mother sold drugs and whose father pimped women, swim against the current of hope-
lessness flowing through the Bay Area.
I think we can all agree on this: Homelessness is a crisis. But what’s the solution? Sure, building more affordable housing will help, but we won’t eradicate homelessness until we address an underlying factor that causes people to lose their homes: the lack of full-time jobs.
Yes, there is drug abuse in homeless camps, but there are many, many more people in the camps who, like Thomas, just want a job so they can pay their own bills. As soon as he found a full-time job, Thomas’ life began turning around.
“Most of the people we work with, they just had a bad break or a series of bad breaks,” said Leslie Gleason, the director of program operations for Shelter Inc. “And they have everything going for them except maybe a job or a support system or access to a unit. Or maybe they’ve messed up a little in the past, but they just need someone to give them a break now.”
I met Thomas one afternoon in June while he was visiting friends who still live in a tent on Sycamore Street, which is a short walk around the corner from Northgate Avenue. Thomas, who has dreadlocks with reddish tips, was reclining in a leather chair as he ate a cup of ramen noodles.
“It’s my community,” he told me that day. “But I miss it, too. It becomes normal waking up in a tent. You wake up with people in your situation who understand what you’re going through.”
Thomas remains loyal to people in the village who taught him the ropes of surviving outdoors, starting with how to get a tent and tie it down properly. Instead of being alone, he ran with people who knew how to access resources — food banks, bus tickets, clothes and water.
Thomas learned to befriend neighbors, because on the street you need someone you can trust not to sell your belongings while you’re at work or out scavenging.
Thomas learned batteries and flashlights were a hot commodity, because the people who can see at night can watch for the trouble they need to avoid.
Thomas learned to steal food.
“It came down to, am I going to eat?” he said.
When I visited his apartment in Richmond, incense sticks tucked under the edge of a light switch plate burned. There was a half-eaten sandwich on the table, Thomas’ breakfast after a night at work. Metal folding chairs are the only seats in his place. But it’s his place. Living on the streets has been hard to shake. Thomas still thinks of the refrigerator, and the ability to store food, as an amenity. Now he can make ramen without borrowing a stove or walking to a convenience store to use the microwave.
Now when he goes to Northgate Avenue, he gives out cigarettes and water. He might even give money to people he knows well, and he’s invited his closest friends to his apartment. He lets them shower and sometimes spend the night.
“I wish somebody would’ve did that for me,” Thomas said. “A shower would’ve been nice.”
Thomas wants to continue giving back to his community. He also wants to set an example.
“I don’t want to screw up this apartment or have some issue and lose it and end up homeless again,” he said. “I just want to stay productive and just work and be an active part of society.”