Even simple things are complex when you’re homeless.

Written by Max Waterman

Illustrations by Charles “Edward” Hunt

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People sometimes ask me what it’s like to live outside conventional society, off-the-grid, to be homeless. There is no quick and easy answer. Perhaps describing the thoughts, feelings and experiences I’ve lived through will shine light on the subject.

To me, being homeless is

• facing sleep-deprivation, with all its cognitive impairments and wild mood swings.
• carrying a lot of heavy baggage, which tires a body out, especially with all the walking.
• being stuck in the rain, which is uncomfortable, to say the least. Wet socks ruin feet, making craters and trenches.
• being hungry. One option is to beg, perhaps flying a cardboard sign. I do not do that; instead, I dig food out of trash cans.
• being unable to bathe properly. Grody, stinky people are not welcome in polite company.
• suffering the stigma associated with the aforementioned activities. Being looked down on is disconcerting for anybody.
• having a peer group of mentally unstable or downright bat-guano crazies.
• being seen as a thief because you own something expensive, like a laptop computer or a quality bicycle.
• experiencing constant stress from always having to “break the rules,” even to do ordinary things, like sleep.
• challenging when it’s time to do laundry. It can be difficult to find a place to remove dirty clothes and put on clean ones.
• being always on display, and sometimes having to interact with people when you’d rather not. Sometimes, everyone just wants to close the door and relax.
• dealing with these and other difficulties, often, in unhealthy ways, such as by using alcohol or drugs. Doing so creates feedback loops that worsen the situation.

When a person stays awake for too long, the mind responds in unusual ways. Brain and body require rest and unbounded play. If that does not happen through a succession of REM cycles, people start to hallucinate or superimpose their dream imagery upon the real world. Anybody in a normal state of mind would see a person with this issue as acting abnormally.

Enough proper sleep solves sleep deprivation. Getting good sleep is often difficult for a homeless person anywhere, whether in a city, small town or rural area. While sleeping, you are defenseless. When you sleep, you want to be invisible to others and certainly not messed with by anyone.

I like to sleep outdoors, surrounded by trees, with fresh air all around. I prefer a good amount of distance between me and other people so that I can hear someone coming. A homeless person must sleep vigilantly – with at least their ears open.

A place for rest

The luxury of nature is not always available, particularly if it is raining. For quite a while, I happily slept in a recycling dumpster. This dumpster was in the corner of a garage, under an overhang. The driver of the recycling truck had to get out of his vehicle and physically move the dumpster to where his truck apparatus could grab it and then lift it up to dump it into the truck. When the worker moved the dumpster, I would wake up. I was glad to have this extra insurance against being compacted by the recycling truck.

The dumpster was luxurious. That may sound strange, but it was well-insulated and comfortable. I could layer sheets of cardboard above and below me, keeping me warm and ensuring I was hidden. Employees of nearby restaurants would often dump bags of metal cans, plastic bottles and other recyclables into the dumpster. That didn’t bother me because the layers of cardboard hid and protected me. The biggest possible snafu with this sleeping technique was the possibility of being seen entering or exiting the dumpster. I solved this problem by carefully checking for people when entering the dumpster and I listened for footsteps when exiting. Using the dumpster really helped repair my body and mind after having to stay awake for days at a time.

After much suffering and consternation, I figured out how to bathe piecemeal in public restrooms by only washing one or two body parts per washroom session. By spending only short periods washing up and rotating between several different bathrooms, I could avoid attracting too much attention. I limited my tasks, for example, to taking a nice “constitutional,” changing my socks and washing my armpits.

Before moving back to St. Louis, I lived in a city that had public bathrooms available at night. That’s when I would shave or wash my socks in the sink and dry them with the hand dryer. For a while, I was clean and presentable and even able to enjoy such things as being invited into an art gallery. When the city decided to close the public facilities and remove all the benches, pay phones, bike lockers and other amenities, I became extremely distressed and very angry with gentrification.

Finding food

Eating out of garbage cans comes with risks, ranging from increased social stigma to illness. Illness is particularly possible when the weather is hot and food spoils quickly. Despite this, I believe that exposure to bacteria and even viruses strengthen the immune system. Aside from having eaten some spoiled food (something I quickly learned to avoid) and drinking one too many beers, the only other thing that ever sickened me while I have been homeless was the COVID vaccine.

Going through trash or picking cigarette butts off the sidewalk can cause one to think that they “don’t care what others think about them,” and that tends to cause cognitive dissonance. If I am digging in a garbage can, the last thing that I want to see, as a heterosexual, is a pretty lady. Seeing her avert her eyes and change direction can stay with the homeless person long after the scrounging. Usually, a shower, fresh laundry, and cash-on-hand cures this, but what about the long-term effects?

Pretty much anybody will agree that it feels good to be clean, wear new clothes and have money in your pocket. Humans are social creatures and there is something nice about sharing smiles on the street. It is pleasant to feel attractive to and accepted by one’s fellow creatures. Being homeless throws all that out the window, unless the other people are homeless; they understand what it’s like to be without a roof, shower, food or carefully chosen peers.

A person experiencing homelessness becomes accustomed to constant derision, overt or subtle, from most housed people. Condescension doesn’t feel good and can contribute to hurtful feedback loops, such as excessive drinking.

Pressing problem, simple solution

Imagine a person who is already feeling grody, drinks too much to deal with it, and suddenly has to piss like a racehorse. Even if there is a place to pee, what if he or she doesn’t make it and some of that stinky beer piss lands in the pants?! Ugh, more grodiness, more derision, more self-image problems and, very likely, more poorly chosen palliatives.

Housed folks take it for granted that they will probably be able to use a respectable bathroom. People experiencing homelessness have the stress of dealing with urination and defecation several times a day. If a clean-cut, freshly bathed person must use a toilet, they can usually go into an establishment and borrow the toilet, even if they have to buy something. Smelly, dirty homeless people carrying around a mound of bags or blankets don’t get that privilege.

Being male, one solution is what I affectionately call the ACME Pocket Toilet. By carrying a wide-mouthed bottle, a dude can shove the bottle down his pants to relieve himself in relative comfort without exposing himself and then can dump it down the sewer. The act may look weird in public but it’s better than stinking up somebody’s wall – and it’s certainly better than getting a ticket!

There is a brighter side

Being homeless is not all pain and suffering. Not being bound to a schedule allows me to be in the right place at the right time. I have had many pleasant conversations and have enjoyed much living art in the form of street music simply because I was there and not in an office or on a freeway trying to get home.

Being on the street hones our instincts. If hungry, one needs to find food. A person could be systematic and look in every trash can or could think about when particular restaurants throw out their leftovers. Or one could use their innate olfactory ability to detect where there is food. For me, a hybrid approach works best. It is surprising how often I get a sense of where to locate food, walk directly to it, and put the food in my belly.

Do humans have a hive mind? Did somebody broadcast “I put this here for someone” and I was able to tune into that thought? I can wonder about the non-locality of consciousness, but I know from my own experience that human beings seem to have innate hunting and gathering instincts. That is what allows us to find herbs, animals, berries and water. Some people are even natural dowsers and can feel where to dig for precious metals or rare crystals. Homelessness strengthens seeking and finding abilities in those who try to use those attributes instead of sitting on a streetcorner begging for beer.

Some people might not be able to grow skin as thick as I, and they might be beaten down by the experience of being homeless instead of being made stronger. It certainly wasn’t easy to overcome the obstacles. I’m not even sure if I have overcome all of them. There have been times I was so tired I could barely speak.

After my washrooms were taken away, I got so angry that I said a lot of ridiculous-sounding things – but the ideas I expressed were pertinent to our day-and-age. When I see somebody in a similar state of mind, having a bad day, ranting at the world, I understand that they might be completely overloaded.

I don’t know if this essay has clarified how I experience homeless, but I hope that it has spurred some insights and generated more compassion for folks stuck outside without toilets or human support. When you see somebody on the street acting up, they might not be permanently fried; they might simply be going through a rough life phase.

Being that humans still exist on Earth after the pollution of the last century, we might still be here in another hundred years. We ought to think more about our societal ethics regarding economic practices and we should feel empathy for people who, by circumstance or choice, live outside the officially sanctioned economic system.

— ssl —

Charles “Edward” Hunt is an artist who has lived in the St. Louis area for nearly 40 years. You can see some of his MetroLink sketches in this magazine (supplementstlouis.com/2020/09/25/a-gift-of-faces/).