After staying with a friend over the weekend I am back at the Harvard Square shelter for a one night bed. Just looking forward to a couple of grilled cheese sandwiches and hopefully a good night of sleep. I am really tired and now I fear I caught a cold.
Days like Monday are tough when you are outside most of the day. It was just cold and raw and the day just dragged on. I kill time having coffee in Au Bon Pain or Starbucks on Church St or the Harvard Coop cafe reading. Luckily somebody always throws the NY Times away in the coffee shops so that kills time.
Still checking every morning for a long term bed...just seems like nothing is moving in the system.
I will be honest it does wear me down.
While waiting to call at 9:30 I met another person bouncing around. I got in and he didn't. He won't go to Boston and sleep and what he winds up doing boggles the mind.
He takes the subway to South Station and buys a ticket to Foxwoods for $26 ( he panhandles and sells Spare Change the homeless newspaper). Now for that $26 he can sleep 2 hours to Connecticut and then the casino gives him $25 back in coupons for 2 "free" bets and the 'all you can eat buffet'. Then later in the morning he comes back to Boston and the vicious circle starts again. It sounds nuts but that is what people do to survive.
Anyhow I can not wait until Saturday morning when I can re-apply for a 2 week bed here at Harvard. Again for those who have offered support thank you from the bottom of my heart.
More tomorrow
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3 comments:
Wired magazine online has reviews of 3 laptops under $500. I immediately thought of you.
http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2007/12/review-round-up.html
But just a word of warning - none of those run Windows - 2 of them run Linux instead.
hey there-
i struggled with housing for years in boston- in 9 years i lived in 14 places with bouts of street, couches, and occasional cahil 4 stays(i used to suffer from PTSD which i am thankfully much better from now). I live in a cheaper city now, and i realize how much the crazy insane housing prices have really destroyed everything good about cambridge or boston anyhow. . . . .
i found schools helpful. you have to look all scrubbed and shit to get away with that, but if you can find a safe place to ferret yr stuff away during the evening its sort of pull-off-able. harvard is fulla doors if you look sureptitiously. . . .
my friends were also often homeless. we all used to just get low income memberships at the YMCA,using afalse address forwarded to a PO box. DON'T tell them you're homeless, or they won't let you in- tell them you are Low Income, fill out teh form or whatever, but DON'T tell 'em you dont' have aplace. . . . anyhow, spend the day at the library, and the night at the tasty. . . . get a hot shower at the Y. but of course the tasty is gone. . . . .
there's the secret subway station. just outside the harvard square subway station, down the tracks a bit(so you have to go in AFTER the trains stop) there's an OLD disused station platform from the seventies or something. if you press your nose to the glass of the train, you can see it as the train rounds the curve on its way into the modern harvard square t stop. and people clearly sleep in there when it gets real cold. . . . .
there are a couple of abaondoned places in central square still you might be able to squat. there's a storefront at the corner of broadway and norfolk. and there's a couple houses, too in that neighborhood that are too wrecked for anyone to buy 'em, look around. its going to get cold. . . . . . my buddy steve had a friend who put him up in his basement. someone migth rent you their basement for cheap. . .. . . everyone is cash starved there- well except all the rich people. . . ..
i also found several of the area churches to be full of nooks and crannies. . . .which i slept in on occasion.
lastly, i'd say office space is going alot cheaper than housing right now. you might want to look into office spaces, little tiny ones. . ... . . in huge buildings that aren't well monitered. . . . i knew a couple folks who got away with that for pretty long periods of time.
anyhow, being homeless is the absolute Pits. . .everyone i knew there before i left was living four to a one bedroom apartment.
there was an art gallery there that used to help poeple out, but i think it shut down, i dont' know what happened to it. . . . . they helped out my friend with a basement to crash in a few years ago after he lost his rent controled apartment. . . .. but things like that are no longer in that area really. . . .
oh! one more thing. food not bombs. they used to serve six meals a week when i lived there- and if you go alot and offer to help clean dishes with them, they might hook you up. they had a house they lived in together, it was a real dive, but its better than nothing. . . . a bunch of snobby college kids seemed to have taken it over, but some of the older folks who used to do it still might be around. . . . .
good luck to you love-
the passing stranger
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