I’ve always worked a lot, since I was old enough to work.
I started babysitting when I was 12. At first it was just here and there, but then it became a regular weekend and summer thing.
I got my first “paycheck job” as soon as I turned 16, and from then on, I always worked and was in school, or worked multiple jobs, or both. A forty hour workweek has been a minimum for my entire adult life, not a maximum (it’s something I’m actively trying to change at this current point in my life).
I’ve always worked a lot, except for that one time I was homeless.
(“Experiencing homelessness” is a better way to describe a human going through the trauma of being unhoused, but I’m purposely using “homeless” to describe myself, for various reasons.)
I moved from Galway, Ireland (where I was working two jobs, an average of 55-60 hours a week, plus homeopathy school one weekend per month!) to Silver City, NM to study clinical herbalism. The director of the school had assured me that there was plenty of work available in town, but when I got there, I found that in her excitement to welcome students, she had exaggerated.
The town had been facing economic decline for several years before I moved there. Local mines had closed less than a decade before, causing a ripple effect downtown, where half of the town’s retail shops and restaurants had gone out of business and were standing empty. I was in school full time (three full days per week, plus one weekend day out in the field), and I managed to cobble together enough work between three jobs:
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A coffeehouse, where I worked open to close Tuesdays and Thursdays
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A bar, where I worked as a waitress on Thursdays after I closed the coffeehouse
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A small B&B, where I did whatever work they had available for me: washing dishes for their weekend breakfasts, filling in whenever a housekeeper called out sick, and all of their yardwork and gardening whenever I had any spare time.
None of the work was particularly prosperous, but it didn’t need to be. I was there to focus on school, so I just needed enough for the necessities, plus an occasional night out. I was content!
For Christmas that year, I flew back home to celebrate with my family. When I returned to Silver City after the holidays, the almost unbelievable had happened: I lost all three jobs at once.
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The owner of the coffeehouse decided he didn’t want to run a coffeehouse anymore, and was planning a move out-of-state
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The bar was too slow and didn’t need me anymore
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The owner of the small B&B could no longer deal with her chronic illness and run a business at the same time (we had a long heart to heart about her decision, and I still think of her sometimes).
I went from having three jobs to having zero jobs in less than two weeks of being away, and I became very poor, very fast. It was nearly impossible to find work, but I found little jobs here and there, and I worked some unconventional jobs (one job included a 12-hour commute twice a week!) to get by.
During this time, my landlord had hired a new property management company. They found some old fees in the books, fees that had been waived (but not in writing!) and they needed to collect or else (barely any tenant rights in NM, at least at that time!)
One day, I came home to a 3-day eviction notice on my front door.
That’s how fast it can happen.
Just a series of unfortunate events, and a relatively comfortable life can turn into chaos.
I’m skipping a lot, because I’m sharing this to show how quickly life can change, rather than sharing to tell my life story. It would take quite a while to share all the details, and at the time I was living through this, it all felt more bohemian than traumatic, mostly due to the kindness of near-strangers (though 25 years later, I still experience a little panic when I receive certified mail).
I did not experience the same level of trauma that most people who are unhoused experience.
Through no effort of my own, I got very lucky.
During the two months that I was homeless, I only had to spend one night sleeping in my car. The rest of the nights were spent in a tiny trailer in someone’s backyard who I never met but was a friend of a friend, and on the living room floor of a couple that I had met just one time. With access to a safe place to sleep, a place to shower, and clean clothes to go to job interviews, I was able to get back on my feet.
We (in the US) are currently criminalizing people experiencing the same thing I experienced, except without the luck and the kindness of strangers.
Regular people, just like me, just like you, are being criminalized for falling on hard times.
If you are a person who believes that the unhoused populations should be criminalized, I challenge you to a thought exercise: how would you want someone you know to be treated if they were experiencing homelessness? How would you want someone you love to be treated? (You can't just say "that would never happen", because it can and does happen all the time)
If you are a person who believes in reciprocal community support, check out NHMARF and NHYSP for ways to help your neighbors and build upon mutual aid systems, and/or check your local area for a mutual aid group, community fridges, or other local non-profits who work directly with people.