People keep asking me how I overcame homelessness.
The best answer I can give at this time is: go watch the Will Smith movie, In Pursuit of Happyness.
It is an excruciating film to watch — the character goes through hell before he achieves even a hint of success — but it’s an inspiring movie, too.
It’s also based on a true story.
Details are at www.sonypictures.com/homevideo/thepursuitofhappyness/
Ao Akua,
Joe
www.mrfire.com
PS — Will Smith’s acting is breathtaking in the movie. You feel for his character.
6 Comments
You are so right! That movie is so hard to watch! You think things can’t get worse…and then they do. If I hadn’t known the ending, I wouldn’t have been able to get through it. It’s such an attraction movie though and just proves that you don’t accept reality until it is the way you want it!
I live in Austin Texas and I’ve seen the same “homeless” people in some spots for years. I have a nice home, a great family – my external life doesn’t appear to be ANYTHING like their own. My comments aren’t meant to be some judgement or looking down my nose AND…
I remember as a young man when I slept out doors in the shelter of a large tree, in someone else’s car, someone’s drive way – I’ve lived in places that were less home than homeless. In all those times that I had no shelter I could call my own, no friend’s shelter I could abide in – I never thought of myself as homeless.
In my profession I cannot resist challenging the information – I want to ask questions about the questions to keep my brain moving toward resources. Is “homelessness” the same as diabetes? If someone says “I’m diabetic – this is the condition of my life” does someone else say “Get a Pancreas!”?
When someone says (perhaps with a mean spirit)”Get a job!” – is this a farce? Mean or not – can a homeless person get a job? I’m sure some can’t – perhaps they can’t get into a mental hospital or rehab and in the moment you see them – they are doing the best that they can. Are all homeless people drunk or crazy? Are they all Vietnam vets?
My answer to the question directed to Joe is the following:
When we get dumped in a relationship at age 22 – we don’t tell the world for the rest of our lives “I’m single” as if it’s an incurable condition. It is the hunger, the need, the hope and excitement of getting fed, resting peacefully, feeling safe and moving from needs toward fulfillment that breaks us out of any condition that we might claim for an hour, week, year, decade. I think that for many homelessness is a transient state that the individual has adopted as permanent.
A couple of years ago I owned a company that is a blue colar labor field (I usually did the work). One day I was overhwelmed and had no help – I saw this man who had a sign that said “Will work” or something like that – OBVIOUSLY homeless. I picked him up and told him what kind of work I did and asked him if he was interested. He said he was and we bartered for price/hour. He gave me his number and I added two more dollars an hour on top of that. He gave me a great days work, I gave him a handful of cash at the end of the day and asked him where he wanted me to drop him off – he returned to his box under the bridge. I don’t know what drives him under a bridge even with enough cash to stay in a decent hotel room – but I know that man has the means to break out of his outcast prison. I don’t have the answer for the masses of homeless in this country or any other, but I’d rather find a way to inspire even just one of them to embrace life enough again to have their basic needs met daily than to wring my hands and feel sorry for them. The sorrow that I feel is within myself – realizing I don’t know how to help most of those people and of course in my perfect world everyone has a great home.
If you like my comments and want to find out what else I might have to say, please feel free to visit my site at:
Bruce Burns
The Negotiator
http://www.yourownbestgood.com
Excellent point Bruce. You can lead a man to water but you can’t make him drink.
If someone believes they are “homeless” on a very deep level, no amount of moneywill ever lead them to a roof over their heads.
Bruce,
I echo your sentiments. The way I see it is this: If a person has no desire to put forth a miniscule amount of effort to improve his place in life when offered all other elements needed to make it happen by a third party, then all of the aid and encouragement in the world will not improve his standing.
I am in the very beginning of the planning stage for creating a foundation which will attempt to work with that group of individuals that do possess the above mentioned trait. I realize that even with super-funding, one group cannot bring the entire population out of poverty and homelessness, but by identifying those who will make the most of the help offered, perhaps they will be inspired to be great and do something worthy also.
The name of my Foundation is WonWish.com. I don’t have the site live yet, but am working daily to first create the business plan that will guide my efforts.
At some time in the future, I will be soliciting Executive Officers and financial contributors, but I need to get a great plan in place first.
Stay tuned.
Please help him I’ve known him for 15yrs plus and feel helpless he has been a manager for three north american multi-national plants of the it division only a short while in a freak twist of events he ended up out of a job and HOMELESS! for one reason or another the company let him go! here is his email you can email him IF your serious in helping him out [email protected]
here is his email what a sad state of affairs!
This sucks
Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2007 20:28:03 -0700
Mike, I want to confide in you since we’ve been friends for a long time.
My health is going downhill – I’m getting weaker, feeling very fatigued, my heart pounding like mad and feeling chilly around my arms and feet, dizzy, my blood pressure either diving or shooting up even when I’m relaxing, my episodes of extreme fatigue hitting me without warning are getting more frequent and more intense ever since I lost my job and a secure roof over my head almost four weeks ago… and I don’t know what exactly the cause of my growing illness is (and I’m not sure even what it is, and I was a med student so it got even me puzzled), save that the stressors of losing both a place to live and losing my job in the same week, while I’m struggling now just to find a job so the bill collectors can stop hounding me, may all be contributing factors for multiple sources of quadruple-stress of course, but it doesn’t explain all of my measurable flu-like symptoms — and I have absolutely no med or insurance coverage, and the state says they have none to offer to people like me due to my age, my not being married, the level of income I earned last year disqualifies me, that I have no history of disabilities so I don’t qualify, etc.
The state of Nevada ’s Governor Gibbons is a Republican, he’s known to be either neutral and is not known to have much compassion for the poor, disabled, transients, minorities, retired or working class. To him and his supporters, people like me are a potential burden on the taxpayer, people he doesn’t want living in this state. Unless you own your own casino or run your own mining operation, his doors are not open to the general public, or so they say.
Homelessness, without a job, and no good clothes to wear is a real bitch when you come down ill on top of it all. Most of my stuff is in a storage rental of which isn’t mine so I am dependent up on my friends’ schedules when they have the time to get into it on the other side of town, of which is only once every two weeks or so.
I tried the V.A. for help since I served in the military twice, but they tightened up the minimum qualification rules for med coverage for military vets since the budget’s so strained because of the cost of the war and all. The local homeless shelters either run by churches or run by the local authorities are overflowing full; they’re turning away people. I don’t want to go to the religious homeless shelters; they indoctrinate you to the max in their mission to save others while they barely feed you, deprive you, and take control of your money, your property and whatever assets you have left.
My friends said they cannot keep me living in this house for long since it is scheduled for demolition because the title-owners want to sell off the land this old home is sitting on. So I have to get out, regardless, and with hardly any gas left in my car’s fuel tank, and they’re going to shut off my cell phone pretty soon cause I can’t pay the bills as of late. Real bummer. And it started snowing outside, a spring season snow shower. It’s cold outside. Damn, my car is a compact, and with my height, I don’t have enough room to stretch my legs even with the seats kicked back all the way. The back seats are too small and too narrow to sleep on even when you’ve doubled over in the fetal position.
This sucks.
overcoming homelessness, or the feeling of being homeless? let me pose a question to my fellow manifestors, if right now you were homeless, or lets say you just got evicted and your staying from pillow to post, what are the exact techniques you use to start turning your situation around, more specifically,turn your thoughts and feelings around? me personally, i was without residence last year. i had enough money for a hotel for two weeks only. nevermind the fact that i had my 5 year old daughter with me as well. i had this book with me on hypnosis, you could actually hypnotise yourself while reading it. it had scripts for all kinds of things, one of them was a script on getting answers from your subconcious mind. so i started performing these sessions twice a day, after i took my daughter to school and after she went to bed.i sought an answer,how do i get an apartment? what the hell am i gonna do?!!!my intellect kept trying to tell me “YOU NEED TO GET A JOB! HOW ARE YOU GONNA GET AN APARTMENT WITHOUT A JOB?!! I proceeded to try to get a job, any job for the first week of my hotel stay, to no avail..nada. Then i remember pacing my hotel room knowing in one week id be on the streetwhen I heard this..voice inside. It said “IF YOU WANT AN APARTMENT, GO OUT AND FIND THE ONE YOU WANT. YOUVE BEEN SAYING YOU WANT AN APARTMENT BUT YOU HAVENT EVEN PUT ONE APPLICATION IN! GO OUT AND FIND YOUR APARTMENT, EVERYTHING ELSE WILL UNFOLD TO YOU ALONG THE WAY!” My first day i found an empty apartment in a complex i stayed at years earlier. the landlord gave me the key BEFOR I PUT A SINGLE PENNY DOWN!!! I proceeded to sell some of my songs( im a record producer/songwriter) and i borrowed some money, but the point is i wouldnt even have known there was an apartment available had i not listened to the voice.