The Night I Was Homeless in SLC - Sam Loveland

           It was 10:30pm, and South Rio Grande Street was alive with activity. The corner there was the gathering place of the city’s homeless population. It’s the kind of place I would have purposely evaded on any normal night, the sort of dark corner that people cross the street expressly to avoid. Tonight though, I was headed straight for it.

            With my heart pounding in my chest, I tried my best to stay true to character. I was wearing some tattered sweatpants and a couple of mismatched jackets I bought at a thrift store the day before. I had rolled around in the mud of our front yard before leaving to add some detail to my disguise. I faked a limp in my right leg, which added greatly to my look but made it painfully slow to move anywhere. And last of all I carried a blanket and an empty water bottle in a white trash bag.

            The trash bag was a dumb idea. (Nobody uses a trash bag. You either have an old backpack, gym bag, or shopping cart.) Nonetheless, I quietly shuffled in among the group, keeping my head down and avoiding eye contact at all costs. Around me, I saw a circus of characters go by. Colorful wardrobes, eccentric hair and beards, a variety of strange smells. I found a spot against the wall, squatted down, and listened.

            “Hey sorry but, can I have two drags of your cig?” I heard somebody ask politely. He was denied the favor.

            I watched a man dive headfirst into a trash can and then pop out saying, “Anybody seen an iHome? Come on, let’s be honest, anybody seen an iHome?”

No more than five minutes passed of this before things got really interesting. Squad cars suddenly appeared. Out of my peripherals I counted at least five, lights flashing white and blue. My heart began to race again. The officers came out and their leader began shouting orders.

“All right, you all can’t stay here. Let’s go!”

At first the homeless herd’s reaction was slow. Most continued their aimless wandering too and fro. When anyone resisted, verbally or otherwise, the cops were there. I saw two officers turn the corner and return with a man between them, handcuffed. At this point, I realized it was time to move out.

Not wanting to leave far from the shelter I was trying to enter, I decided to make a round of the block. When I came back, I saw the officers clearing out the last of the squatters. They appeared to be trying to revive somebody from his drugged unconsciousness. What I admired most was that there was nothing violent about it all. It was very calm. In fact, it seemed to me to be almost a normal occurrence. As if this round up was some sort of nightly ritual.

After asking a few people I found out where the men’s shelter was. Around back. As I made my way there, I realized I had come to into the darkest, shadiest alley I’d ever been in my life. It seemed to be the setting from a movie. Grim figures in small groups spoke in hushed voices. Smokers and druggies all over. I saw a man standing still, looking emptily forward, and twitching. On my way to the back door I had to avoid a couple piles of fresh vomit. My senses were overloading. It was at this point that I saw one of the strangest things yet.

Near the back door, I noticed a man who was different from the rest. He carried a large gym bag, and on it was a blanket neatly folded. His body language gave me the feeling of someone very confident. He was relaxed, calm, with a big smile on his face. He was conversing with another man, about how he was planning on going to somebody’s house for the night. His style seemed so out of place to me. He might not have become homeless by choice, but he sure seemed to have embraced it.

In the end, I made it as far as the staircase before heading home. I realized they were registering everybody who entered the shelter. I knew that if I went any further, things might get complicated.

On the train ride home, I reflected on my experience. What I gained was a new appreciation for the variety of homeless people. You have the quiet ones, the loud ones, the drugged ones, and even the “lifestyle” ones. You have the nightly arrival of the cops and the nightly opening of the doors to the shelters. I heard more profanity in two hours than I had in maybe a year previous. But I also heard singing. And laughing. And conversation between friends. I guess you could say that life goes on, however bleak the situation.

I came home that night with a newfound appreciation for my blessings. For having a home to come to. A bed that was my own. A family. A hot shower. Even just a cold glass of chocolate milk. Everything seemed at once vivid to me.

Moral of the story: stay in school kids.