'A Day In The Life Of The Homeless'

Many of us are within at least one life experience of losing much of what we have -- our jobs, our homes, our possessions, our families.  Many of us struggle to survive with the jobs that we have -- trying to keep a roof over our heads, food on our table, keeping the lights on, staying warm in the winter and cool in the summer, making sure we have water to drink, keeping clothes on our backs and shoes on our feet.

It only takes a matter of minutes or seconds for those simple luxuries to be threatened or flat out taken away.  Many of us are at risk of falling into the numbers of the homeless across the country.

At the moment, I drive a transit bus through the Wasatch Valley in Utah for a living.  I drive through an area where there are homeless shelters, where I can see hundreds of people waiting outside for a place to stay for the night.  Those numbers include men, women, children, families, young and old alike.  They're not just found around homeless shelters.  I can drive miles away and see people holding signs on street corners, around shopping malls, along freeway exits, asking for help.

I've never been homeless myself, but there has been a time in my childhood when I've gotten a small taste of what it could be like, spending a night with my family sleeping in our car.  I remember the fear, a feeling of hopelessness, a feeling of helplessness.  I remember the feelings from that time to this day.  The experience has stuck with me into adulthood.

That's why over the past several years I've been very involved in the Wasatch Hills Seventh-day Adventist Church's Inner-City Outreach (ICOR)  ministry, which goes out to a downtown Salt Lake City park and distributes warm clothing, shoes, backpacks, blankets, food and hot drinks during the coldest winter months.  It provides an opportunity to get to know the people we're serving, a time for fellowship.

Yes, there are many people who are homeless who are in that position because of addictions or mental illness.  There are also scam artists out there.  There are still many more who are genuinely in that position who either have jobs and can't afford a place to live, or they've run into a situation where "life happens" and they suddenly find themselves facing the hardest times of their lives.

I've seen families living out of their vehicles, crammed full with all the possessions they have, leaving little room to sleep.  It's brought back haunting memories.

I'm also a writer.  I created a blog -- A View From The Middle (Class) -- a few years ago at a time when I'd just lost a decent job myself and found myself frightened and wondering how I was going to suppport my wife and three children.  The blog has dealt numerous times with issues surrounding the homeless.  The most widely read article from my blog has been "A Day In The Life of a Homeless Person ."  My stories about the homeless and our ICOR ministry have touched some hearts, and prompted people from as far away as the Los Angeles area to get involved in similar outreach programs.

I've spent hours talking to people finding themselves living through the depths of poverty, all too often through no fault of their own.  All too often, it's a case of "life happens."  It's stories like these that have prompted me to use my writing talents and launch a book project, "A Day In The Life Of The Homeless," in which I spend a day with people and write about their struggles to survive, focusing as much as possible on families with children, trying to find those who want a hand up more than a handout.  The stories would be told in a series of books.

My goal is to go beyond my own neck of the woods in Utah, and go into the other larger cities across the United States -- Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Chicago, New York, etc. -- and tell the stories of the people whose lives consist largely of a daily struggle to survive.  I want to tell their stories through words and pictures.  I want to reach into readers' hearts and prompt discussions about what we as a society can do to help those who are less fortunate to make their lives a bit better, instead of just passing them by with little more than a glance and a smile at best.

I've worked as a newspaper reporter and editor.  I've worked as a mainframe computer programmer.  I've often wondered why I ended up driving a transit bus through the most populated valley in Utah.  Maybe it's because it's given me an opportunity to get out there and see people like Rob Bradford, a young man in his mid-30s with a wife and two daughters who once held up a sign on a street corner that I passed by, talking about how he once worked to survive in the restaurant business, only to have that come to a sudden and dramatic end when his legs were badly burned in a car accident, through no fault of his own.

Rob moves around with the help of a cane, and you can tell that every step is painful.  The scars on his legs are real, as is the story of how he and his wife decided to have their daughters live with relatives hundred of miles away to save them from the despair of homelessness while the parents have lived on the streets and back alleys of Utah, looking for work and a place to live that provides an actual roof over their heads.  They're struggling to survive, to pull themselves back up.

There are many stories like Rob's out there, waiting to be told.  Many of us are closer than we might want to think to being in their position.

I want to tell Rob's story here to launch this project, to give just a glimpse of what it is that my project will be about.  There are stories deserving to be told, and I want to seek them out and tell them.  It will take time, it will take travel, it will take our own living expenses.  This is a project that's close to my heart.  We need to open our eyes, hearts, and minds to what people who are less fortunate go through on a daily basis, and think about what we as a society can do to help each other.

Thank you for your support!