Homelessness
Can Sneak Up on Anyone: T.R.
McCoy
by Jason Grunspan
One of the problems with confronting homelessness is that when
those of us who are not homeless and never have been consider the issue, we
think of it as something that couldn’t be more distant from ourselves.
We see a ragged looking person sleeping under a tree by a parking lot,
think how awful it is and then shut it out of our mind until the next time we
are unavoidably faced with this uncomfortable situation.
When you perceive something as being distant, it’s much more difficult
to be affected by it.
I was talking to my friend T.R. McCoy recently.
As it turns out we attended the same university though he some years
before me. We discussed our common
proclivity for literature and philosophy. It
happens that we are both the oldest child in families that were raised in good
neighborhoods with middle class values. McCoy
comes from a big family and all his siblings have settled down with careers and
families.
His sister works for a phone company, one brother runs a
homeless shelter another is a janitor and army veteran, his youngest brother is
a big time drug dealer. When his
dad died, T.R. had to drop out of college to help his mother run the household
and help raise his youngest brother.
Eventually
he got a job driving a cab, which he held for almost twenty years.
It was a good job; a job that McCoy enjoyed.
It was a good way to meet people and he was able to use his public
relations skills. The only down
sides to the job were the long hours and occasional hold ups.
He was robbed at gunpoint on a few occasions and once while trying to
defend himself from a thug in the back seat, who had taken twenty-nine dollars
off him, was stabbed through the hand. These
incidents, although few and far between, were frightening, but T. R. did not let
them scare him off.
So, why is T.R. McCoy homeless?
When he lost his cab job due to an accident in which he was falsely
accused, he could not get another steady job.
He attributes this to the fact that he is now middle aged with bad feet
and legs and there has been no decent job training available.
If you’re not suited for heavy industrial labor and you haven’t
gotten any adequate job training, where does that leave you?
It left McCoy in a cleverly situated, hand-crafted tent he put
together with scraps He had always enjoyed the outdoors but for the past four or
five years his endurance has been tested. He
could take a job at McDonalds but what’s the point in making $4.25 an hour
with no benefits or health care, standing on bad legs and feet all day. It happens that T.R. knows
a lot of people in the area so he can often get a ride from a fellow cab driver,
stay with a relative or friend for a while when he needs to, but not wanting to
become a burden he continues to move on, working jobs when he can get them.
McCoy noted that when he’s homeless he must alter his
mindset in order to survive. One
philosophy that he incorporates while homeless is to make sure he doesn’t grow
attached to material objects, especially clothes which often can’t be cleaned
and have to be discarded. The
homeless, in order to receive the offerings of shelters, agencies and
individuals that help them must be continually on the move because these places
are spread out through the city. One
can only carry around so many objects, so if you happen to come across an item
that you can use in the future you must either find a place to store it or have
a real good hiding place.
When he is holding a job and has an opportunity to live in
housing McCoy has to make the adjustment back to mainstream society.
This has involved living with roommates who are unreasonable and
impossible to live with. The
continual, drastic changing from one lifestyle to another is not easy and a
large part of T.R.’s problems can be attributed to this dilemma.
As winter approaches McCoy’s tent will not be able to
withstand the snow and freezing weather. He
is looking for a job to get housing for the colder months.
A security job did not work out because he did not have a car, and now he is looking at telemarketing, a job
he’s done successfully in the past.
Like anyone T.R. McCoy has dreams and aspirations.
He would like to acquire enough money to get back his CDL (commercial
drivers license) and perhaps someday drive a semi truck.
But for now his desires and needs are of a much more basic and
rudimentary sort.
Like McCoy, I have also worked industrial and factory jobs.
Though I am young and in decent physical condition I usually don’t last
more than a few months on these jobs. If
I were twenty years older with bad legs, it wouldn’t even be an option.
Luckily, I’ll soon have a college degree and even if I become
unemployed for an extended period of time I have my family to fall back on.
I’ve had economic and social opportunities thrown at my doorstep my
whole life. At times they seem to
thrust themselves upon me though I was doing everything I could to shun what
ever fortune might be headed my way.
Is this what it comes down to? Chance,
or whoever’s been blessed with more opportunities?