Monday, December 24, 2018

Christmas Time.. On the Streets 2018



Christmas.... 2018

Life on the Streets
19 Holiday Seasons and counting...


19 years of Holidays on the Streets. 19 Thanksgivings and Christmases spent in the park,
when the weather permits, with a large stack of books. It has become a tradition, year after year....
spent alone, in the park reading. When you have no place to go, nowhere to go and never
once invited any place, your options are quite limited. I never imagined decades would be
wholly consumed on the streets, and where it is made crystal clear, time and time again....
Your life has no meaning and means nothing to anyone. Otherwise, I would not be
experiencing my 19th Holiday Season once more on the streets, where I have become a
staple of life, a standing figure, a fixture that has become the very landscape itself.

What is the purpose of life when that life is not welcome as part of society?? Life is
moving past me in a blur, and I have not been able to procure a ride
through it.... but only dragged through in its wake.

I had HOPE, and FAITH.... that I would find the help and assistance I would need when
I was forced from my home by and through the illegal actions of a despicable landlord, but
finding nothing but door after endless door, phone after endless phone slammed in my
face and in my ear. Hope has faded to the merest shadow of form and Faith....
not something I have anymore, in any regard. Any Faith I had has been shredded and
torn to something that can no longer be recognized, due to all the False Hope and
Empty Promises made to me, many times over from individuals,
those in Law Enforcement, as well Organizations.
Filling my head and heart with so much Hope, only to sharply
pull the rug right from under me.

Right from the start I was told I didn't have any legal recourse I could take, because the
landlords in the city of Alameda could do whatever they wanted, whenever they chose and
tenants had to abide, no matter what the landlord did, whether it was legal or not. This was
from the Bay Area Legal Aid, who is supposed to be there to help, especially to help those
with no other means to obtain legal action.

They informed me that the only thing I could do if I wished to pursue anything was to
retain a lawyer, and the minimum for that would be $5,000 to do so. Not the kind of
money I had anywhere. I called numerous attorneys, in the hope of finding one that would
hear my case and help. But no attorney would listen, and none of them wanted to get
mired in legalities of Landlord vs Tenants. And because I didn't have the means to
fund their “time”, or their expensive tastes of LIFE, I could find no help.
I didn't have the means to pay for anything, much less the thousands of dollars
for a retainer, and still not have any assurance that the attorney would be able to help.

So decades later..... those doors and phones are still being slammed on me.
And thus, marking this my 19th Holiday Season of life on the streets.

A time when no one should be on the streets. But there is really no good time
to be on the streets. Holidays just make it harder. Life on the streets, a permanent
darkness that overflows in your heart, like molasses.


Holidays on the Streets... Just another Day in the Life.
Holidays are just another Day on the Streets.

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