- [Interviewer] Milton, we're here.
That's the White House behind you.
- Right.
- [Interviewer] You're homeless.
Tell me about it.
- Uh well, it's an experience that's, you know,
that believe it or not, I think some people
should just try without having to be there
to see just what happens with people.
You know, sometimes you see people along the street begging,
"Do you have any change to spare?"
And you might say, "Oh, well, why don't you just get a job?"
But sometimes it's not that simple, you know?
You might have medical issues or some other issues
that won't allow you to just get up and go to work.
You may be, in some cases,
on some kind of federal assistance.
- [Interviewer] Yeah.
- But um-
- [Interviewer] And then plus you have to be hireable.
Like, you know, when I was 50 some odd, I got laid off,
and it was nearly impossible to get a job,
and then even if you get a job where are you gonna shower?
Where you're gonna, you know-
- Right.
- [Interviewer] Keep your stuff?
Because people steal it, or you bring it to work,
your boss knows you're homeless, and you're fired.
- Wow.
- [Interviewer] You know?
- Yeah, yeah, they kind of,
it's kind of difficult to be homeless.
One of the things, like you said, is that consistency
that you used to have, that certainty, you know?
You get up and go to work, but now
you may get up and find yourself saying,
well, you cannot sleep here.
You cannot stay here in this park.
You cannot do some of the things
that you have been doing.
So then you have to find another place to stay
even if it's just overnight.
That's one of the things that I think is kind of bad,
excuse me, of being homeless, that there's no certainty.
You know, everything is uncertain.
Everything is, wow, man, I don't know if I'm
gonna be able to do this today.
- [Interviewer] So and you're a veteran.
- Yes.
- [Interviewer] And you're out here
in front of the White House.
I mean, I don't even know if you think about that,
but you know, I've always felt here it's so ironic
that there's homeless people basically in the White House,
you know, whether it's Trump, Obama or Joe Biden,
right in their front yard.
- Right, right, and like you said, some of us are veterans.
Some of us have been, have fought in war.
Some of us have helped clear some of the natural disasters
up around the country that wasn't in a war.
But yeah, it's kind of complicated sometimes.
I've talked to some of the veterans,
I've seen some since I've been out,
and they kind of share some of the same stories.
Sometimes it's kind of sad to say,
well wow, here I am. You know,
a military service man,
and having trouble finding a place to stay,
having trouble finding food,
having trouble finding water,
having trouble finding soap.
- [Interviewer] Finding a bathroom.
- Yeah, the bathroom is even more complicated sometimes
than what you could ever imagine.
Say, wow, we don't have public restrooms here,
we don't have 'em. What are you gonna do?
I've seen people, it's terrible, run down the street,
and they can't get to a proper setting,
and before you know it, boom, they have lost their-
- [Interviewer] Yeah, people gotta go.
- Yeah, yeah.
- [Interviewer] That's one thing, humans gotta go.
We gotta, you know?
You said you only go in the shelters when the weather's bad,
'cause shelters are horrible places.
- Uh I, well, I think they have a great benefit, you know?
Because like I said, sometimes when it's real cold out,
and you don't care if it's not so great of a place to stay,
but what you do is say,
well, wow, this offers some sort of comfort
from the weather, some comfort from, you know,
running into people who, well, the fear factor, you know?
Man, I hope this guy's not gonna rob me.
I hope this gang is not going to beat me up.
I hope these police is not just gonna lock me up
because I am homeless.
You know, some people are homeless
not because they want to.
They, like you were saying,
I met some, they said, we've lost our jobs.
We have lost our income, we have -
not because we did anything wrong, but the job ran out.
You know, sometime the weather has beat people out of a job.
- [Interviewer] Yeah, you said you ended up homeless because
of a relationship, and then you're also because of your job.
- Right, right, right.
And I've seen people get back together
while they were uh, they had broken up while they-
- [Interviewer] Love is funny.
- Right, right.
- [Interviewer] Family's funny, complicated.
- Oh, wow.
- [Interviewer] Everybody thinks that, you know,
where's your family?
And sometimes family can cause homelessness.
- Yes, yes, yes, you can be,
man, just mind boggling about even a relationship.
Well, where you gonna sleep?
Here I am, so and so, so and so.
Some of the females will say, that I met that are homeless,
and some of the homeless veterans,
some of those females are homeless veterans,
female veterans.
- [Interviewer] There's more female veterans out here.
- And they complain sometimes about how difficult it is
to be a woman and then-
- [Interviewer] Be out here.
- Yeah. Experience some of the things that,
they have to experience and not have
the type of facilities
they think that would be helpful for a person
who has become homeless.
But getting back to the shelters, I don't think
the shelters are a bad place, but, you know,
you have all sorts of people there of all sorts
of nationalities, all sorts of income levels, and um,
you really have to watch your stuff, you know.
That's anywhere though, even in your own home.
- [Interviewer] Right.
- You would have to pay attention to how you -
- [Interviewer] But in the congregate shelter
with all these people around.
- Right. How you would secure your goods.
So um it's challenging.
That's what it is. You know.
And then sometimes the hope gets to the point,
oh, wow, man, I can't believe this.
I don't have any hope no more.
I don't want to go any further.
I've heard people say, well this is it.
I'm going to go ahead and, you know,
have my things turned into perhaps a state hospital
or some type of mental institution
because things are so challenging out here for me.
I can't compete anymore.
I'm afraid on every corner who's gonna attack me,
who's gonna rob me.
- [Interviewer] Yeah.
- I'm afraid to close my eyes out here, you know?
- [Interviewer] Well, you weren't, you were re-
I don't, I have a rule. I never wake anybody up.
And I saw you sleeping and -
- Right.
- [Interviewer] And I saw you get up.
You probably only laid down for a moment.
- Right, right.
- [Interviewer] And it's tough to sleep out here.
- Exactly.
- [Interviewer] Sleep deprivation is huge.
- Exactly. Exactly.
It's, like I said, it's a challenging thing
to have to deal with sometimes because, you know,
I've seen many people say we don't sleep at night.
We prefer to sleep during the day
because at night you're more vulnerable
to people taking your things.
You know, I hear people saying all the time,
well, I can't leave my stuff here.
Somebody's got it.
You know, it's a real tough thing.
And some of these people, like myself,
will have professional degrees where they,
their jobs, they had issues with their jobs.
- [Interviewer] Yeah.
- And now they no longer have a job.
- [Interviewer] So you went to college?
- Yes. Yes, sir.
- [Interviewer] What did you get your degree in?
- I got a bachelor's in political science.
Yes, sir. But I heard some interest in -
- [Interviewer] Wait, wait.
You have a degree in political science
and you're homeless across from the White House.
- I am homeless across from the White House.
- [Interviewer] Now that's ironic.
- Yes sir.
- [Interviewer] Oh my god.
And if you don't mind me asking,
how many years young are you?
- Uh 59.
- [Interviewer] 59?
- Yes sir. Yes sir.
- [Interviewer] You should be retiring soon
and this is no way for -
- Right, right.
- [Interviewer] And there is more elderly out here.
- Well, I still have six, six or more years to do that.
And I don't wanna spend those years out on the streets.
But it's like I said,
it's sometimes it's rewarding because like
a person like myself who was interested in art.
Remember I told you about the guy that was uh-
- [Interviewer] Doing paintings out there.
- Yeah. You see all sorts of paintings
that the different architectural structure
of different buildings. Say, wow.
I did not realize there were real faces
on some of these buildings that were
not just paint but a part of the building.
And you know, like I said, it's just some things
that you you can find that you wouldn't find,
if you were not homeless.
- [Interviewer] You make the best of it.
- Right. You have more time to-
- [Interviewer] Now you said you had housing.
You're working on housing. Somebody helping you?
- Uh yes, sir. I have a, I'm connected with a church.
A Catholic church that do Catholic charities.
- [Interviewer] Awesome.
- Yes, sir.
- [Interviewer] And they're trying to get you outta here?
- Yeah, we have a case manager working on, you know,
there's there's a whole bunch of us there
on almost a routine basis.
- [Interviewer] Wow.
- We get up, we go over there.
It's not a shelter, but it's like a day center.
- [Interviewer] Right, right.
- We can clean ourselves up, shower, shave,
and they'll give us lunch and, you know,
we can get out of the weather sometimes.
So it's a blessing to have that.
And I'm glad that, you know,
I was able to find a place like that.
God, he was -
- [Interviewer] Now, how long have you
been on the housing list?
- Uh well, I'm just recently getting on the housing list.
- [Interviewer] Hopefully it's short.
- Yes, yes, yes. But they're saying they haven't,
I've heard people say they've had difficulty.
- [Interviewer] Yeah. But that's the problem.
There's no housing
- Right, right, right.
So I don't know how long it's going to last.
But like I said, it's, you shouldn't
be real depressed about hearing about homeless
because they're real people, everyday folks. You know?
- [Interviewer] Well, yeah. Yeah.
- They're just like you.
You had a job, go eight hours at one point,
home and the weekend, you know. All of a sudden that's gone.
- [Interviewer] Well that's what people,
people will often watch these videos and they say,
well I don't have sympathy.
I'm not trying to get people to have sympathy.
I'm just trying to, the viewer to identify someplace
so that they take action to change policies
to get people such as yourself the housing unit.
- Right, right. And training.
That's gonna be a thing that I think would be very
helpful is to be able to get some sort of job training.
Even if it's a temporary job, but some sort
of way to gain some kinda income,
even if it's just on a daily basis where it's just
maybe an hour here or two hours there or whatever.
Because I've seen this and I experienced this myself.
Is that the money, you know,
it costs a little bit more to have to eat
in a restaurant every day if you have to or
eat in a, you know, there's no way to save anything.
- [Interviewer] Well, how do you survive?
How do you, are you getting any kind of benefits?
- Uh yes, yes. I get, I get some benefits
due to my veteran connection.
- [Interviewer] But it's just not enough for rent.
- No, no, no. Right.
- [Interviewer] What would you want people to know?
You know, you have tourists from all over the world here
coming to the White House
and they see you with your belongings.
What would you want them to know about homeless people
that they probably don't know?
- Uh that they just regular human beings, you know.
People have given us and including myself,
oh man, look like you could,
if you want to do better, you could do better.
But it's not always that simple, you know?
- [Interviewer] You need help.
You need help to do better.
- Yes, yes. You need a place.
You'd be surprised how much help you depend
upon on a daily basis. Somebody who, you know.
- [Interviewer] Nobody gets out, nobody gets off
the streets without a helping hand.
- Right.
- [Interviewer] And that's why we need to be that hand
to people.
So if you had three wishes, what would they be?
- Three wishes.
One, the first wish would be that
people would have a better understanding that
there is a such thing as trouble.
And if there is trouble, there should be some kind
of solution for that trouble.
And that would be the first wish
that I could find solutions to certain troubles
that I have or that there would troubles
that other people have that could be of great use.
- [Interviewer] Fix the world's troubles.
- Right. Well, not the, just the world.
But uh, just say our city, our community.
If you live in a community where you've seen people
who, like I did when I was much younger,
I would see people walking the streets.
I'd hand 'em coats.
Sometimes I'd hand them meals
or I even hand them money.
Uh you know, you say,
well I'm not gonna help you drink alcohol
or take your drugs.
But they're, like I said, they're regular people, man.
They're regular people and they have addiction problems.
And if you don't have money, what do you do?
- [Interviewer] Yeah.
- You know, you're out homeless,
you don't have nobody to talk to.
You cannot call anybody.
- [Interviewer] It's hard to do homeless sober.
- Right, right.
- [Interviewer] So you shouldn't judge, right?
- Right, right.
- [Interviewer] So wish number two?
- Wish number two would be, you know,
a lower price far as being able to wash your clothes.
Now, in my case,
I can wash my clothes at this
daycare center that I go to.
- [Interviewer] Right, right, right.
- But it's a long line.
- [Interviewer] Right.
- You know what I'm saying?
- [Interviewer] You gotta stand in line.
- Sometimes you have to stand there forever.
But there were more coin operated laundry machines
where you could go in
and it didn't charge you an arm and a leg.
Well, these are not great wishes like,
ah, man, somebody send me a hundred million dollars.
- [Interviewer] Yeah. You just want cheaper laundry.
- Just something regular, something normal,
something that people can use, you know,
on a day-to-day basis, the average person.
- [Interviewer] And wish number three.
- Wish number three is that, uh, wow.
There'd be more jobs for people.
You know, there'd be more jobs that you can reach
without having to have all this qualification.
You gotta have this knowledge and that knowledge
and this knowledge just to get things
that you need to survive.
- [Interviewer] 'Cause you'd work your way
outta homelessness if you could.
- Right, right. Many, many people would
say, well wow, uh you know, you could,
like this recent Coronavirus thing that came in,
I don't know if you heard about it, but-
- [Interviewer] I think everybody's heard about it by now.
- Yeah. But what happened was that many people
were not able to go back to their jobs.
And they ended up homeless.
- [Interviewer] Yeah. A lot of people did.
- They couldn't stay in their apartment.
They no longer had to pay the money to pay the rent
so they got evicted.
So some of these, I've talked
to some of those people and they said,
wow, man, you ain't, can't believe it.
I've lived here for such and such years,
number of years. My, all my family memories
are there and now I have to move
because I don't have the money to get out of there.
So how do you repair that?
You know, should you be repair?
- [Interviewer] Jobs for everybody.
- Should America offer any type of hope for someone
who lives here, who served here, who's worked here,
who has been a part of the community, and now boom.
- [Interviewer] Yep. Yep.
- Well I need a home or I need money.
Or, you know, how do you fix that?
- [Interviewer] Well those are great wishes.
So thank you very much for talking to me.
- Okay. Okay.