Category Archives: Homelessness

* Becoming William Tell

Career goals, Get on your feet, Homelessness, Motivations, The William Tell Show, , , , ,

This begins with an e-mail exchange between follower Vikkilyn and myself, back in May.

Wednesday, 05/21/14:  Me:  Recent events[1] suggest it’s time for me to get more serious about “becoming” William Tell.  There are some emotional obstacles there, so it’s going to take some work, and seeing this, it’s easy for me to grasp why William Tell hasn’t “happened” yet.  I’ll get through it.

Tuesday, 05/27/14: Vikkilyn:  Not sure what you mean by “becoming” William Tell?  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Tell  What part of William Tell do you want to be?  (I realize that is your “stage name” but you must have picked it for some reason, after all you have written a lot about the power in a name.)

This post includes many footnotes. To get to any footnote, click on the link in the body of the text. When you’re done reading the footnote, ALT+LEFT will return you to your original place in the text.

Continue reading * Becoming William Tell →

* Jimmy, part 2

Clippings, Dependency, Homelessness, Job search/Job prospects, Local news, , , ,

Thursday 2014-07-03.  Jimmy came up to me at McDonald’s yesterday and sat down and talked about the incident.  He doesn’t say he’d been drinking.  He says people thought he’d been drinking.

Recall his psychiatric diagnoses.

Pastor sent me this clipping about the homeless squatters’ camp underneath the Jones Falls Expressway, which the City was about to raze — again. He thought the housing vouchers it mentions might be available to me. They’re not. A different detail caught my eye: the remark that many people in the camp “struggle with mental illness and addiction.” Note the “and.”

Continue reading * Jimmy, part 2 →

* Job search update, 09/01/14

Homelessness, Job search/Job prospects

INTERVIEWS IN AUGUST:

Secretary II – City Health Department, 08/26/14

Tuesday 08/26/14:   I interviewed this morning for the position of Secretary II with the City Health Department.

My success depended on my performance overcoming my appearance.  This was the fourth interview I’ve had since becoming homeless, and the first time that my appearance was an issue.  As things went, by the time I left McDonald’s for the interview itself, my nerves were shot.

Continue reading * Job search update, 09/01/14 →

* In playground murder, 12-year-old boy charged as an adult

Clippings, Dependency, Homelessness, National news, The Way of Peace, World News, , , , , , , ,

Bookmarks:
In playground murder, 12-year-old boy charged as an adult • Homeless woman beaten by cop speaks out • Russian “aid” convoy in Ukraine • First steps in dealing with a problem drinker

Continue reading * In playground murder, 12-year-old boy charged as an adult →

* Out of reach

Homelessness, Jacob's Ladder, Motivations, Poverty, Squalor, , , ,

From my diary:

Thursday  2014-06-19.  13:30.  In a recent column, Dan Rodricks mentioned Manna House, which I’d never heard of before.  At McD this morning, Roy was talking to somebody and mentioned having been at Manna House last night — “with the critters and the crazies.”  I was quite surprised to hear him talk like that, since in my book, he’s “a critter and a crazy.”  The people who frequent that place must be really bad off.  I would recall [a former therapist, whose principal practice was in addictions]‘s saying, when I asked many years ago about the mentally ill among the homeless, that “they’re so sick they can’t be treated.”  Part of my heart reaches out to them; can it be that I might sink so low as to become able to see the world as they see it?  What does the Gospel look like to a hopeless schizophrenic?

Continue reading * Out of reach →

* Andy Kessler: Guilty as charged

Clippings, Get on your feet, Homelessness, National media, National news, OUR BEST POSTS, Poverty, Yahoo! Voices,

I participate on a certain online discussion board. My premiere antagonist is a man who got trounced by a playground bully in fifth grade. He never fails to seek to re-enact that battle with me (or any of certain others), hoping for a different outcome this time. He casts his opponent by turns as the bully he wants to be or the chump he fears he was; and interacts with those projections. It has nothing to do with me. He might as well be playing with his G.I. Joe dolls.

Andy Kessler’s 07/08/13 Wall Street Journal op-ed, “Summer Jobs for the Guilty Generation,” is little different. In his quotations of others’ expressions, I hear compassion; he hears guilt. I hear gratitude; he hears guilt. I hear hope; he hears guilt. What’s up with this?

Kessler projects his own guilt feelings onto his son’s generation. That’s easier than owning them, but solves nothing.
Continue reading * Andy Kessler: Guilty as charged →

* Paying my dues, singing the blues?

Career goals, Get on your feet, Homelessness, Motivations, OUR BEST POSTS, Poverty, Yahoo! Voices, ,

Courage and despair hang in the balance for a homeless radio talk jock wannabe.

“You’ve got to pay your dues
If you want to sing the blues,
And you know, it don’t come easy.”
— Ringo Starr, “It Don’t Come Easy”

Many years ago, when I first conceived the ambition to become a radio talk show host, I quickly selected that song as virtually a theme for my show. Life is difficult. My heart’s desire was to equip people to face life’s difficulties head-on.

My life circumstances were far more comfortable at that time than they have become since. Now I’m asking myself if I’m paying my dues; if I can sing the blues; and whether I myself will face life’s difficulties head-on.
Continue reading * Paying my dues, singing the blues? →

* Anacostia High valedictorian going from a homeless shelter to Georgetown

Clippings, Get on your feet, Homelessness, Local news, ,

Here’s a success story.

Just Asking: Anacostia High valedictorian on going from a homeless shelter to Georgetown

Rashema Melson, 18, will graduate on June 11. She lives with her mother and two brothers in one room at the D.C. General homeless shelter.   [William Tell’s note: This is the same facility that housed Relisha Rudd.]  Her father was killed when she was 7 months old.

What will you talk about at graduation?

I’m going to talk about how Anacostia pushed me. People feel like Anacostia is this place where all the ghetto kids go and that Anacostia is really easy, and I’m like, “No.” My speech is going to be dedicated to all the teachers who pushed me and who I could talk to in a time of need and who helped me when I didn’t have anything like food or clothing.

Your mom must be excited about your being valedictorian.

My mom knows how happy I am to be valedictorian, but sometimes she tells me to stop stressing and to relax and just live life. I’ve been stressing for years about grades. It has to be A, A, A, A, A. I can’t accept a B. I’m going to be the first one to graduate and get out of college and get a real job, something that can really help us.

Dawn Loggins presents a similar success story:
Harvard-bound homeless grad ‘overwhelmed’ by ovation
Dawn Loggins, Student, Heading To Harvard After Being Homeless, Abandoned By Parents
Girl, 18, who grew up homeless is accepted into Harvard

(Reblogged 04/04/19.)

* Keep the focus on you

Get on your feet, Homelessness, Job search/Job prospects, Motivations, OUR BEST POSTS, , , ,

(Originally published 09/15/12 at Trojan Horse Productions.  Reblogged 03/28/19.)

Teddy is an old man. He wears a rosary around his neck, and never fails to “testify” in chapel. “I talk to the Father, Son and Holy Ghost every day,” he says. Every time there’s an altar call, he runs right up there to get born-again — again. Five times a week, he’ll do that.

He got barred out a year ago for selling someone oxycontin.

Friday night 09/07/12, he came back. He insists to everyone that he’s never been here before, and said he wants to get into the program.

Aside from those things, he hasn’t changed at all. Still all the same empty religious talk.

Sunday night he said he changed his mind about the program. They require you to sign over all your benefits, and he’s not willing to do that. That tells me you don’t want to get well.

I get bad feelings every time I see him.

———— ♦ ————

Sitting outside waiting to be let in, Wednesday 08/29/12 Fallon and a couple other guys I don’t like too much got into reminiscing about how this shelter used to be, years ago, before the renovation. This upset me.

Continue reading * Keep the focus on you →