Street is a tough place to make a decent livingStreet is a tough place to make a decent living
By TANYA EISERER / Abilene Reporter News
Photo by Gerald Ewing/ARN
With nary a doctor or midwife in sight, Sherry Parker birthed her child in a pop-up tent on Lake Lewisville in 1991.
"Her daddy and the roommate were there," Parker said. "They weren't very much help to say the least."
Thunderstorms and tornados swept through the area five weeks later, knocking down Parker's tent and nearly killing her and the baby.
"I grabbed my baby and I grabbed her Mickey Mouse bank and got out of the tent," Parker said. "When it caved in, it was right where she had been laying."
Dripping wet and fearful for her newborn's life, Parker decided to give the child to her sister-in-law.
"I wasn't going to have my baby living on the street and being bit by fire ants," she said. "I guess I'm what you call a bad mother.
"It ain't that I don't love my kids, but if I can't take care of them, then I have family that will."
Parker lived on the streets for several years before moving into a tiny house in Abilene with three other homeless people.
Life on the streets
Life on the streets is difficult. Sometimes homeless people don't eat properly or bathe regularly. Sometimes they're beaten, robbed or killed. It's often a day-to-day struggle to survive.
Without an address, homeless individuals can't get food stamps or Social Security. Without an address, it's almost impossible to apply for a job, said Belinda Cook, executive director of Hope Haven, a local homeless shelter.
As difficult as living on the streets can be, it is home to the hard-core homeless person.
"That's their life. They're survivors," said Captain Edward Alonzo, head of the local Salvation Army. "They know the streets. I couldn't survive out there. They've learned the hard way."
Cook calls it an informal society with its own norms and unwritten laws.
"It's just another world," she said. "I've been astounded by the level of intelligence these people must have to learn to survive."
People come in and out of their lives, Cook added.
"They live in chaos. That's what they know," she said. "Their lives are very fluid. It's very tenuous. It's day to day."
Jose Castro had his own secluded hideaway in north Abilene, where he spent his nights on a bench constructed of a board and two large rocks.
"Welcome to my home," he said, as he showed off his little clearing littered by beer bottles. "I wish I had a broom."
"I spent two months in jail. When I came back, it was all messed up."
As he sprawled out on the wooden bench, Jose said he has slept there on many a summer night with only the sky as his blanket.
"It's easier to be homeless in the spring than in the winter," he noted. During the winter or in rain storms, homeless people often find shelter anywhere they can to escape the elements, he said.
Castro recently left his outdoor home to move into the same house Parker is now living in.
Street life
On the streets, drinking often becomes a way to pass the time, Parker said.
"You drink out of boredom. You drink large amounts in the wintertime to stay warm. You drink to forget," she said.
Being on the streets often turns into a vicious cycle that destroys a homeless person's physical and mental health.
"The first thing that goes is their hygiene," said Jim Sayre, a local businessman who has helped feed needy and homeless individuals. "As their personal hygiene degenerates, they lose the ability to be able to find employment because no matter how talented somebody is, nobody is going to hire them. They just get so far down."
Unstable living conditions and inclement weather often make homeless people more susceptible to respiratory infections and pneumonia, which puts them at risk for catching tuberculosis, said Hope Haven's Cook.
Homeless individuals also often don't seek medical attention until it reaches a critical stage, requiring emergency medical attention, Cook said.
Parker describes herself as a regular hospital patient.
"I'm a frequent flier. That's what the ambulance people call me because I keep getting hypothermia and pneumonia," she explained.
Many of the people who seek shelter at Hope Haven suffer from a number of contagious illness, including tuberculosis and hepatitis, Cook said.
However, Hope Haven does not admit people with contagious diseases, she added. Hope Haven will refer them to other agencies.
What worries Cook the most is the rapid spreading of a terminal form of hepatitis that many homeless people don't know they're carrying.
Hepatitis C is a "silent killer" that doesn't cause any noticeable symptoms until the person is near death, Cook said.
"The prisons aren't testing. The rehabs aren't testing. We're the only ones testing," she said. "Often, we have the dubious honor of telling people in so many words that they're dying. It spreads much the same way as AIDS. Some of these people are walking dead, and they don't even know it."
Bush Beaters
A homeless person may not have much in the way of possessions, but there are those who would seek to steal them. Homeless people call them the Bush Beaters.
Bush Beaters - typically other homeless or destitute people - will search bushes, under bridges or anywhere they think something might be hidden.
"If you stash something, the Bush Beaters steal it. They'll steal your backpack, sleeping bag," Parker said. "They'll steal anything that isn't nailed down."
Tom Yarborough, a homeless alcoholic who lives in an abandoned warehouse on the south side, has had more radios stolen than he can count.
"If he thinks you got anything, he'll steal it. He's a thief," Yarborough said of one Bush Beater in particular.
Bush Beaters strike while the person is not around, rummaging through meager possessions and taking what they want.
Homeless individuals also face the distinct possibility of being robbed, murdered, beaten or raped. Since they're outside society's mainstream, assaults and robberies often go unreported, according to the National Coalition for the Homeless.
"They're in their own little world," said Abilene police Det. Jay Hatcher. "There's always some bully who will come in on a train who will assault the others."
Police officers said they don't have too much trouble with homeless individuals.
"Generally, these transients are cooperative people," said Patrolman Greg Knight.
Abilene's homeless people agree.
"They wave at us," Parker said of the police. "They know we're basically harmless. As a rule, they don't bother us."
One one murder has been reported in the last decade among Abilene's transient population. In December 1987, a drifter's body was found in a shallow grave about 100 yards from the Hobo Jungle where he was murdered.
The throat of the victim, Charles Palmer, was slit from ear to ear by his common-law wife and another drifter, Hatcher said.
Women, particularly if they are by themselves, often face the most danger.
"It's very scary when you're on the street and all you've got is a backpack, a pillow and a sheet," Parker explained. "It's just too dangerous to be alone."
Women also have other difficulties.
"There are things like Tampax and toilet paper that you worry about constantly," Parker said.
Earning a living
Homeless people typically earn a living two ways: Dumpster diving and "working" a sign.
Dumpster diving for aluminum cans - though it doesn't pay much - usually puts a little money in their pockets. The money derived from aluminum recycling is typically enough to buy alcohol and tobacco and maybe a meal.
Many Dumpster divers work a predetermined route, trying to beat other can gatherers and the garbage truck.
"Bicycle Brenda," 41, who asked that her full name not be used, has been "working a sign," as she puts it, about seven to eight years.
She holds the sign that reads, "Unemployed Need Work, God Bless You," when she needs money. Her favorite spot is at South 14th and Sayles in the parking lot of the Butcher Block.
Brenda, who lives in a northside house that often doesn't have running water, said it's the best intersection in town.
"I try to catch people around lunch time. Then I'll take a break and come back to catch the 3 o'clock traffic," she said.
It's even better to work the sign on holidays because people are generally feeling more generous, Brenda said.
Holding her sign, Brenda constantly moves back and forth with the flow of traffic.
"Everybody's got their different ways of working a sign. Most of the people I know just stand in one spot," Brenda said.
She believes if passersby see her standing and not moving around, they'll think she doesn't want to really work.
'I always move around. When I'm doing that, they think that you really want to work. They know I'm really trying," she said.
In the past, Brenda has done yard work, painted houses, picked up trash and helped people move, she said.
"I've always worked for my money," she said.
Pointing to a cross a woman had given her, Brenda said Abilenians have been mostly kind and polite.
"There's been a few rude people," she said.
Brenda condemns people who hold a sign asking for work, but don't really want to work.
"It looks bad on me," she said.