- [Mark] Steven.
- Yes.
- [Mark] You're homeless.
- Yes, I am. - [Mark] Tell me about it.
- Well,
about 10 years ago,
I was living with my girl,
hanging out with my girlfriend, and I became homeless.
I had a lifestyle problem, which was drugs, addiction.
And that started my homelessness.
I lived in a tent
in, in the alley behind some buildings.
And what we would do is we would,
you know, we built our tent basically out of tarps
and everything.
And the lifestyle was that we would have buckets
for our bathroom needs,
we'd have to get jugs of water and go to the water machine
to get water for our washing up and stuff like that,
and we used, we used little portable stoves
to heat up our food and everything.
At night, we used flashlights
or lantern lights for our lighting
so that we could see at night.
This lifestyle is hard
because every convenience that you have,
you have to work, like, twice as hard to make it happen.
And during that time,
I had gone through several illnesses
while I was out there.
I had a series of congestive heart failures.
I finally found out I have COPD
and high blood pressure,
stuff like that.
This, being out there,
you don't get chance to have your health.
You don't take very much good care of your health.
You may get an appointment and days go by,
and you don't recognize what day it is,
and you'll miss your appointment.
So your health is,
you know, the issue of the,
the health team coming out really helps a whole lot.
- [Mark] You're living in a tent.
- Yeah-huh.
- [Mark] Going to the bathroom in buckets.
- Yeah.
- [Mark] How are you surviving?
- Well, you're surviving off of GR.
You know, some of us might be fortunate enough
to have retirement.
But it doesn't stretch because you're, you know,
you're out there in that environment,
and the lifestyle environment can take all your money.
- [Mark] People don't understand
that poverty's expensive,
I mean, you don't have refrigeration, you know, it's,
- Right, right. - [Mark] to keep food.
- Yeah, your food preservation is, is rough.
Some days, you might get some ice and keep some food
for maybe all that day and half the next.
- [Mark] And was there no help
to get out?
- Well, people come by
to try to get you housing,
but the follow-up was hard.
It's not as, as, like it is now.
Then there's also people that are in homelessness
that if they were to follow that help,
they had to be under certain rules and regulations,
which is hard for a lot of people to follow.
- [Mark] People don't understand that, you know, the,
the, everybody has rules,
but some of, like, the shelter rules are kick you out
at seven in the morning,
- That's what they were like. - [Mark] And then, you know,
you're, you're in, even the environment you're in now,
you have all kinds of, you know,
I like to say it's,
it smells like feet and butts.
- Right. - [Mark] You know,
the congregate shelter, and, you know,
I mean, you're in a better situation here
because of your health.
But the typical homeless services, the rules,
you know, regular people would never follow either.
- Yeah, the,
let's see, you mentioned something that's really important.
Back, a while back, since I was out 10 years, for 10 years,
when the shelters were operating, yeah,
they were kicking you out at six o'clock.
They were allowing you back at six,
but you had to be in line at three.
- [Mark] Right.
- So if you were trying to improve yourself,
you had a small window of time to try to do that,
and it was really just discouraging.
- [Mark] And there's no guarantee
you're even gonna get a bed, you stand in line at three,
and it might be full up at six,
now you've wasted the whole day
where you could have been out,
you know, going to the doctor or going to get a job
or going to do something other than stand in line.
- Yeah.
Now that, that, that was prevalent downtown, I didn't,
I didn't,
my area of operation wasn't downtown,
and I know downtown is hard.
But my operation was in the neighborhood.
Whereas downtown may have more services
that people can't go to that want to apply themselves,
so I don't really know how, what,
what problems they may have encountered during it,
but I know the people out in the neighborhoods
have their own set of, of problems, and,
out, out and about, out in the outlining areas of downtown,
might have your own, to have your own set of problems
when it comes to help and services.
The help generally has to come to them,
and outreach workers, volunteers, and stuff like that.
And the follow-up is catch,
catch one when catch can,
you know, because, you know, when you're homeless,
you're out and about trying
to scuffle up some kind of comfort, food,
or whatever you're doing on that day.
- [Mark] What would you want housed people to know
about homelessness that they don't understand?
- Some people, all right,
all right, they want to cry about drug addiction.
They need to learn what drug,
that drug addiction is a disease,
and that a lot of times, it's a disease, and that the people
that are preyed upon are, are emotionally
or mentally disturbed.
You know, they really need to know the underlying forces
that, to help,
help those situations of emotional and mental disturbance.
Then there's other people that once they get out, they're,
there, there's a learning curve for coping skills,
and they're out there for a while,
and that it's not easy because just to go to the bathroom,
you have to go get some water, you got to get a bucket,
you had to put, put a bag in a bucket,
and then you have to go to, you got to find someplace
where you're,
where you can come to go to the bathroom
and don't feel embarrassed.
You know.
Then you had the people that prey on to homeless.
They come in and they prey on them.
They bully them,
and stuff like that.
Then when the homes try to get out on their feet
and step out of their tent or whatever,
there's no alarm system to hold their,
for their possessions to be secure.
So they're facing a lot of challenges
to come out to mainstream society.
- [Mark] People don't understand,
at least for me and Moni is,
you know, we, we got into drugs to escape pain.
- Right.
- [Mark] And then there's a point
where drugs take over, when I was on the streets,
I needed drugs more than I needed air.
- Right.
- [Mark] If I, 'cause otherwise, I'd get dope sick,
if I get dope sick, then I'm vulnerable, if I'm vulnerable,
I'm gonna be beat up in the park.
- Well, the thing of it is, is whether you're on the drugs
that are hardcore or whether you're on drugs
that simply make you feel better,
the thing of it is, is so depressing, in the streets,
that the only recreation you have is drugs.
- [Mark] Yeah, it's an escape.
- Yeah.
- [Mark] So we're here today
with USC Street Medicine. - Yes.
- [Mark] How did you first meet this,
these wonderful people?
- Well, I'm getting seen, now, I can't remember,
I just remember them coming out.
You know, they came out, they caught me at a good time.
- [Mark] So you were first in the hospital.
- No, I, I didn't meet them in a hospital,
I met them on the street,
I mean, did I? - [Mark] Oh, okay.
(Mark laughing)
- Excuse me.
- [Mark] It doesn't exactly matter how,
it's that you didn't, that you did meet them.
- Yeah.
And David coming around, checking my vitals,
making sure my medication's right,
trying to get me to get a primary
and trying to get, you know, complete examinations
so to find out what's wrong with me.
And,
you know, I've done that,
I've become sweetly reasonable to do that lately.
And you know, I've, I'm having problems now with my health,
and I, I, they need more teams like this around.
They need more teams like this around
because there's a lot of people on the street,
just the approach of the people,
it's hard for them because they are not trusting.
They think that probably the medical team is the FBI trying
to get them for their drug use.
But that's far from the truth, the people,
they got health issues, and I've seen many people pass
in my, in a homeless community
because they weren't being properly,
their medical issues weren't being properly addressed.
- [Mark] If you don't mind me asking,
how, how old are you?
- I'm 70 years old.
- [Mark] And you're out on the street, 70, I mean,
you're in a shelter now.
- Right. - [Mark] So what,
what health issues are they helping you with?
- Well, right now, I got,
I think I got terminal cancer.
And they're trying to help make me feel better.
You know, had I got it taken care of earlier,
before the pandemic,
I might've been able to catch it earlier.
I don't want nobody else to suffer this way.
I don't want to see nobody, you know,
the only thing I try to teach the team is, you know,
just because somebody,
you approach somebody and they act
like they don't want to be bothered,
it's just that you got to develop a way
of talking to him and give him a card and tell him, look,
if you feel sicker, and you call us, we can help.
- [Mark] So you actually wanted to tell your story.
- Yes, I do.
- [Mark] And why is that?
- Because, like I said, I've seen a lot of people pass,
good people pass,
and all, they needed help, they needed help,
and I'm not no doctor, I can help them, you know.
And it's hard, you know.
You know, just because we're homeless
doesn't mean we don't have a heart.
- [Mark] And now you're in a, a shelter
that's just for,
because of COVID and because of your health.
- Yeah.
Well, and the shelter is not because of my health.
Right now,
they're afraid because they're not equipped
to deal with my health.
So I might have to find other means to,
to deal with, else I'm gonna be homeless again.
- [Mark] Oh my gosh.
At 70 with terminal cancer, homeless again.
- So.
So, you know, I'm not taking it,
you know, that sadly,
because I know I have good people looking out for me,
you know.
And I know that they're not gonna let me be on the street
for some reason or other,
but I- - [Mark] And it's like,
this is a good group of people.
- Right, perfect.
- [Mark] And I'm honored that you allowed us
to help tell your story.
- [Steven] Yeah.
- [Mark] If you had three wishes, what would they be?
- Well, of course, it'd be to go back in time, but no,
three wishes?
I just want to see my children again before, you know,
I want to see my children.
I want to see that the group, this group addresses the issue
of medical needs of the homeless, and,
and I'm not just saying that just to say it,
'cause, like, I had a lot of friends pass,
and it, and it hurts.
And if I had one other wish, I'd like to hit, what was it,
to hit the lottery.
Yeah, that's about it.
- [Mark] Well, thank you very much for talking to me.
- Yeah.
(contemplative music)