BENTON HARBOR, MI — I want you to know how it feels to be homeless, sleeping up under a bridge, in vacant houses and doorways; and how it feels to never know who is coming. In the long, sleepless nights, you doze off in fear and without comfort. Street people always carry some kind of weapon out of fear—fear of enemies, fear of others who want their spots, fear of fear itself.
As the long night begins, the homeless ask the Lord to look over them while they sleep. It seems like days later the night finally ends. Thank God for daylight.
You wake up and look around, and you want water to drink and long to wash your face and body. Then the hunger sets in. You have no money, so you walk, looking for something to drink and a place to eat.
You see others on the street and ask them for change. Some help, others are just as poor as you. You know the stores take bottles and cans, so you start dumpster diving for those and anything else you can find. Some people see you and judge you. They have no idea of the hunger in your stomach or the threadbare clothes on your back.
The community says, “Get a job,” but who will hire a homeless person? Hire me! Even if I sleep in doorways at night, I will show up to work. I want to work. But I’m dirty, my clothes are dirty, my ID is long gone . . . who will hire me?
I am not homeless because I want to be. I am trying to survive this life. I’m not robbing or breaking into homes or killing anyone. I’m just trying to survive.
Homelessness is not an epidemic—not until it happens to you. Then suddenly, the invisible people on the streets become visible. When you had money, you didn’t see them.
Homeless people look for one another; they find and share food and love and care for each other. Most of all, homeless people are in touch with God. They know God in a way most normal folks don’t because God is all they have. He is there to shelter them in a storm, in fear, in sickness and in the long hours of hunger and loneliness.
Editor’s note: Like so many workers, Orlandis Cage became homeless after his job shut down. He later became handicapped after falling off three stories, making work difficult.
