By Linda Deskin Santa Monica
Since I read the first response to the story on the young couple who is homeless in Santa Monica I have wanted to write (SMDP, May 24, page 1).
This is my story of being young and homeless.
I was orphaned at the age of 10 and dumped on some distant cousins. After several years of not being able to do anything right or worthy in their eyes, I ran away and was put in foster care.
I was not taught one living skill by any adult. I hadn’t a clue how to have a banking account and balance it. I hadn’t the self esteem to get a job. I was lost socially because I had no roots. When I left foster care I was 17 years old with just a high school education and no money. I struck out into the world on my own. In the dead of winter, I slept in the doorways of businesses in a small farming community located in upstate New York. I needed parental permission to get housing, but I had no parents. I needed references to get a job but had no family to vouch for me. I would have used my foster parents as references. Unfortunately, they convinced me I wasn’t the sharpest pencil in the box. I don’t believe I would have received a glowing reference from them.
I was even more certain that no one would hire me. I tested for the Army and the Navy but never followed through. (A good thing because I had major issues with authority). I had myself declared an emancipated minor and worked a furniture factory job for a short while, but it was hard labor, loading wood into different molding machines and saws. I skipped work like I skipped school and was let go. I floated around for a year or more, always looking to escape but had no where to escape to. I ended up getting pregnant and having a son. Though I didn’t care if I was homeless (because I didn’t care about me), I fought to make a home for him.
I spent years in tears trying to do what was right for my son. Remember, I had no life skills, no one to turn to and “ask how do you do this?” I lived by my mistakes, and my son suffered my poverty. After eight years of ruining my life and my son’s life, I went to the Catholic church and told the nuns all that had happened. I pleaded with them to find a righteous home for my son. He was adopted under open adoption so I could know he was doing well and he would know that I did not abandon him but gave him a life he deserved. He is 27 years old now and father of two. A good man just as he was a good son. A man I am proud of and a son well loved. And my social and economical superior.
For me I still struggle in my poverty. I work low-wage jobs, often trading work for a place to stay, or some other daily need. I have worked 100-hour weeks to have a bed and a meal — nothing more. I live in a residential hotel right now and any second I could be homeless. Today I worked 10 hours and came home with $5 after expenses.
Laziness is not my problem. It is not having a stable life. I have moved about 80 times in my life. I have no family, no one to give a good report of me and my life. I pay cash for everything. I have never had a credit card because I do not have banking accounts.
I wish I could say there is a happy ending —that I became a brilliant lawyer or a renowned doctor, but the truth is I just make it from one day to the next. I am forever facing the prospect of being homeless. It is one illness or struggle away. It is a hard life with little or no reward. For some born into this world, this is just life.
The letters I read were a spit-in-the-face of that young couple. Not one word of encouragement, not one job offer, not one suggestion on how to move forward, not one realistic goal for them to obtain.
I heard a young man in pain searching for his rightful place in this world, struggling to balance the insecurity of youth in a world of elders. Perhaps you have to be there to understand.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 8, 2004. Read the original PDF.