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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