My First Night On A City Street

[alyceclover]

Will never forget it. Had already experienced sleeping in my car, which took a bit of getting used to. No car, tried the stay awake all night, sleep on the beach during the day, which might have worked if it wasn't the worst winter rainy season ever. Tried a couple of 'group sleeps' that were less safe than solo sleeps; so exhausted one early AM could not keep eyes open another minute, so curled up in a corner, thinking. "So this is what it's like to sleep on cold concrete. My family (that might have helped & didn't) sleeping in their nice warm beds in their nice warm homes. I can not believe I'm actually sleeping 'downtown' on a sidewalk. How can this be?" My bank nearby, the cybercafe, the main drag I used to drive on. Even the sidewalk I'd walked hundreds of time. Sleeping just behind the wall where Marie sat, homeless, I'd give without her asking, some "share change". "How is it that I'm now sleeping here, on a sidwwalk" is what went through my brain that first night (and many after)

Never slept in the park, a homeless lady recently stabbed to death by other homeless. A place to avoid, for me. Don't like bugs, so even a city sidewalk takes a bit of getting used to. Fear of getting found & in trouble kept me from trying people's backyards, and other 'safe' places.

Shelter's are horrid. Lice and fights and "the shelter hack". Heathier outdoors, and can run when the fighting starts.

[eatmorekale]

thanks for the book titles

[OneStep]

I've spent the night above a few bars in Duluth/Superior, MN. I grew up in the area and with all the sweet crags I became an adept climber. Buildings can be easy climbs but be sure you can get up top before you haul/toss your pack up there. Sometimes you can find a little overhang up there that can keep most of the rain off of you. Most of the buildings I've slept on have a layer of cobble-sized stones which aren't great beds. Luckily, the bars/resturaunts have dumpsters with carboard which are cumbersome to carry up but make a world of difference for comfort.

One mishap comes to mind when I decided to find a bed early one night. I tossed my pack up onto the back of a micro-brewry and I looked around. Being in the shadow of a sodium-light, I felt hidden enough to make my ascent. As I started to pull out a pad from my pack I heard a voice, "Hey! Get down here!" I pretended not to hear and sat still for a second. The voice called again, "If you're not down here in ten, I'm calling the police!" I left my pack for later retrieval (terrible idea but I didn't want any rent-a-cop poking through it). The manager of the building and a few tag-alongs were waiting for me. After a scolding, BSing and ID photo copy, I found myself banned from the premises for a month. Not a bad outcome, but it made the collection of my pack a bit nerve-wracking. It goes to show that civility and good judgement can get you off pretty easy.

Thanks to all for the pointers and suggestions. I'll be trying the streets for awhile.

Nate

[AlphaLyrae]

My sleeping place of choice would probably be rooftops. Easy to access if you know what you're doing (please, always be careful!); Rarely if never run into others and never get woken up being told you're not wanted around.

[Magnum]

If I enter a large city during the day, I will usually try to find a good hiding spot to return to that night. I have found big Universities have lots of places away from the mainstream and crime.

[KaBar]

Here in Houston, most of the "homeless resources" are in the downtown area--the SHAPE Center, Goodwill Industries, Bread and Fishes, Star of Hope Center, the Sally Ann Women and Children's Shelter and the Men's Shelter. Because all these do-gooders are concentrated downtown there are about ten zillion homeless guys, a lot of whom are mentally ill, down there all looking to get paid or get over. It's really nerve wracking to be down there at night on the street. My friend Stretch says "I am staying [i:d3ebc33a1e]out[/i:d3ebc33a1e] of downtown Houston. It is tramped out, completely tramped out."

I much prefer the outlying areas near a railyard. You are a sh!tload safer out in the woods away from a populated area than you are in the middle of a couple of thousand people that are all looking for some way to get over.

The first night I ever spent out on the street was at age 12 or so (1963), when my friend Dusty and I camped out near Kuhlman's Gully in Houston, about 50 yards from a well-known hobo jungle. It was behind the Fed-Mart store on Mykawa Road, near the T & NO junction just south of New South Yards on Griggs Road. (These streets all come together right there at New South Yards.) There was nobody in the jungle behind the Fed-Mart, but we knew better than to camp there, because there were adults coming through there all the time. We set up an Army surplus "pup tent" and built a fire to cook on. It did not occur to us that building a fire there might attract predators.
Dusty spent a lot of nights out away from home. His mother was a dead-drunk alcoholic, and whenever she would go off on him, he would take his pack and his gear and go camp out down by The Ditch (Kulman's Gully). I only camped with him when I was supposed to be spending the night at his house.
We caught crawdads in The Ditch, sometimes gigged frogs and tried to fish, but the only fish we ever caught were pathetically small mud cats that tasted like dirt. The crawdads, however, were pretty good. We put them in a coffee can full of fresh water for a day, then boiled them up in salt water and ate them like boiled shrimp. Our favorite campfire meal was always beans and franks with Fritos, though. And RC Cola to rink.

[lucky420]

edit: actually it was on a beach between some pedalos...

was pretty nice

[uliveandyouburn]

One time while sleeping behind some bushes at the base of the wachovia building in Roanoke VA, I was awoken by two drunk young women having a tearful conversation about an abusive boyfriend one of them had. I sat up over the bushes, thus startling them and asked them to carry on their loud conversation someplace else. I have since picked up the habit of taking a hammock on my freight hopping adventures rigging it in a tree. Parks are good places to stay if you can get up off the grass.

[sbdanny]

[quote:6b9bc72f39="OneStep"]I've spent the night above a few bars in Duluth/Superior, MN. I grew up in the area and with all the sweet crags I became an adept climber. Buildings can be easy climbs but be sure you can get up top before you haul/toss your pack up there. Sometimes you can find a little overhang up there that can keep most of the rain off of you. Most of the buildings I've slept on have a layer of cobble-sized stones which aren't great beds. Luckily, the bars/resturaunts have dumpsters with carboard which are cumbersome to carry up but make a world of difference for comfort.

One mishap comes to mind when I decided to find a bed early one night. I tossed my pack up onto the back of a micro-brewry and I looked around. Being in the shadow of a sodium-light, I felt hidden enough to make my ascent. As I started to pull out a pad from my pack I heard a voice, "Hey! Get down here!" I pretended not to hear and sat still for a second. The voice called again, "If you're not down here in ten, I'm calling the police!" I left my pack for later retrieval (terrible idea but I didn't want any rent-a-cop poking through it). The manager of the building and a few tag-alongs were waiting for me. After a scolding, BSing and ID photo copy, I found myself banned from the premises for a month. Not a bad outcome, but it made the collection of my pack a bit nerve-wracking. It goes to show that civility and good judgement can get you off pretty easy.

Thanks to all for the pointers and suggestions. I'll be trying the streets for awhile.

Nate[/quote:6b9bc72f39]

reminds me of this day down in san diego, me and a buddy found (seriously found.. not "found") a half gallon of vodka unopened, went around drinkin downtown for a few hours.. we wound up meeting some crusty skater kids and offered to drink with em. a few shots into our session, they said they knew a good rooftop to crash on so we said [MOD EDIT] it, and started walking. we come across this bar with three floors of apartments above it, jimmy the door open and climb out of a window onto the fire escape to get the last floor up, and started drinking. well i guess a bar bouncer saw us go up there and came up with 4 or 5 of their guys, so we stashed the bottle up there, they thought we were taggers but we told em we just came to crash out, but they gave us the boot anyway. we wound up gettin our bottle back in the morning in 100 degree weather, so it turned out alright, aside from the near boiling vodka the next day.

[MilkEyedMender]

I have to say, I would like to try the roof technique. Do most of you find fire escapes or what? I am heading out again soon and would really like to put the practice into action.

My most recent trip was from Seattle to Oakland through San Francisco and back to Seattle going up the 101. I can say, after sleeping on the streets during that trip I have a greater appreciation for the homeless in my own backyard. One night I "slept" behind a Denny's in Santa Rosa for maybe an hour. It was pretty cold (Maybe 28 degrees. This was in early January). I was too tired to take out my sleeping bag, so I found some bushes and just curled into the fetal position. One of the employees actually saw me, but was really nice and brought me a hot chocolate.

Another night I was in Ashland Oregon, and could not get rides for the life of me. The gas stations in that town are also very unfriendly about letting you ask for rides. I tried sleeping at a bus stop, but that was so cold. So, I found a hotel that looked abandoned and slept in some bushes in the front. That night I DID use my sleeping bag, and boy am I glad that I did. That night it got down to 20 degrees.

Sleeping on the street is definitely something that you just cannot understand until you do it, I believe.