Sleepless In St. Augustine: Homelessness and Injustice in the Nation’s Oldest City.
This is my second draft. If you guys are willing to read the whole thing, let me know where I can improve this. Thanks, Ryan.
It is hours before sunrise on Wednesday morning and I am awakened by two raccoons crawling all over me.
I rip my sleeping bag off my shivering body, bolt out of my makeshift bed underneath the 312 bridge and scream as though the heavens above needed to hear my cries. I am alone. I am terrified. I am in over my head.
While fellow classmates were drinking their afternoons away on the beach during Flagler College’s spring break, I was taking the week-long vacation to answer a question: What’s it like to be homeless in St. Augustine? What better way to answer that question than go homeless for four days and nights?
After all, St. Augustine has shelters to protect those without homes. We’re a popular vacation spot, home to a multitude of tourists from which homeless can surely beg for enough money to eat and maybe get a cheap motel every once in a while. And it’s a warm, coastal city and it doesn’t seem to get too terribly cold here either. How bad could it truly get?
I learned it can be bad. I learned it can break a person’s heart. I learned there’s so much more we can be doing if only we tried.
*****************************************
My experience started on a Monday evening. I had arranged to meet my host, Shamus, 41, at a gas station near his “home” underneath the 312 bridge.
Shamus is the epitome of what it means to be homeless in St. Augustine, a city he’s called home for the last four years. He’s a bald man with crooked teeth and a sunny disposition.
He, like many in St. Augustine’s homeless community, is a worldly man. He’s lived in or traveled to thirty-six states and fifteen countries.
He loves jumping into stories from his youth, something most homeless in St. Augustine are ready to do at a moment’s notice. He grew up in Pennsylvania, playing timpani drums in orchestras during high school. “I was invited to play in the Philadelphia Philharmonic for a summer,” he mentions as casually and wistfully as if he were describing the weather.
And like many in St. Augustine’s homeless community, he suffers from some sort of mental illness.
Shamus has been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. According to the New York Times, paranoid schizophrenia most commonly manifests itself in auditory hallucinations, paranoid or bizarre delusions or disorganized speech and thought.
“Something I just can’t stand is when the people in this town just don’t understand you,” Shamus said as we got down to his makeshift camp under the 312 bridge and started setting up my bed for my first night’s sleep. “People yell ‘Hey, go get a job! Make something of yourself!’ They don’t about me. It’s hard. It’s hard for me.”
In a recent survey of 100 students and 25 small-business owners in St. Johns County, over 35% said they believed that the homeless “chose” their condition, one student saying that “if they weren’t so lazy, maybe they could get a job and get out of where they are.”
“People think I’m just lazy,” Shamus said. “I yell back, ‘I’m not lazy! I’m not lazy!’ They don’t get it. They just don’t get it. People think I chose this. People think, ‘He must choose this life.’”
*****************************************
As I got to the gas station, Shamus said the first thing we should do is eat some dinner.
“Let’s get something to eat,” Shamus said as he peddled away on his bike.
“Where to,” I asked, trying to keep up on the beach cruiser I had brought for the week.
“I’m in the mood for chicken. Let’s go to KFC,” Shamus said with a grin creeping its way onto his face.
As we arrived at a nearby KFC restaurant, Shamus lifted the lid of the dumpster and jumped in.
“You chose a good night to start,” Shamus exclaimed.
“I’m not eating open containers of meat out of a dumpster,” I said.
“Then you’re going hungry,” he said.
“Can’t we go to a shelter downtown,” I inquired.
“Hell, no,” he said with a laugh. “There’s only room for a few of us there at night and they don’t open up to more unless it gets down to really cold temperatures.”
“Is there only one shelter in this whole town,” I asked worriedly.
“Yup,” he said. “We need more shelters, sure, but that doesn’t change the fact that if you want to eat, you’re going dumpster diving.”
“I’ll have some potatoes,” I conceded.
*****************************************
As we make our way to camp underneath the 312 bridge, the temperature is near-freezing with the wind chill taking it well into the twenties. Shamus has another bit of wisdom to impart upon me.
“Take off one of your shirts,” he said. “You’re going to sweat too much. You can’t sweat too much when it’s this cold.”
“Why wouldn’t I want to sweat too much,” I asked.
“You sweat too much in freezing cold and the sweat will freeze,” Shamus explained. “I had a friend come out to camp a few months ago and almost die because he bundled up too tight. He woke up in a layer of frozen sweat. He nearly died from hypothermia.”
I went to sleep with one less shirt on.
*****************************************
According to a 2007 survey by the Department of Children and Families and the Florida Coalition for the Homeless, there were an estimated 1,238 homeless in St. John’s County. Couple that with the fact that St. Augustine has only one true shelter for the homeless in the St. Francis House and you’ve got a lot of men and women braving the streets homeless, hungry, cold and tired.
“There’s really not a lot of relief for them,” Phil King, case manager of the St. Francis House, said. “We’re the only game in town and we have to serve thousands of people a year and with only a couple of full-time staff it can get truly overwhelming.”
“I was lucky enough to get a job as a server at Harry’s and that’s real fortunate for someone like me to get,” Jason, 31, said. “But I’ve got a shift tomorrow morning at 10:30 in the morning. At St. Francis [House] I can’t get a shower until at least 1:30 p.m. I need to smell good, but I need to get to my job. Do I show up smelling bad or do I not show up smelling good? There’s enough honest, hard-working people just struggling to survive that we can have another shelter or two.”
*****************************************
For the next two days, Shamus wanted to have me talk to people he thought could give me more insight into life on the St. Augustine streets. We biked over to the bridge at the intersection of U.S. 1 and King St. As we hopped over the metal guard railing and walked down the rocks, I was introduced to a half-dozen people who slept under a bridge no higher than two feet.
“When it rains, it floods,” Kimmy, 32, said. “We have to get our stuff on out of here or we’ll get washed by this here garbage water.”
“They’ve made it so that we’re like cockroaches. You can’t sleep on the bay front. You can’t even sleep on the grass. When the sun goes down, we hide away like little animals,” a man known as Dragon, 35, said. “The city’s made it so that you can’t sleep anywhere. You can’t sleep in the gazebo. We have to sleep where we piss. We lay our head down in our own filth. What else do you do when you can’t find something to shield the wind at night?”
*****************************************
There has been a progression of laws set forth by the city over the last three years specifically aimed at running the homeless out of town. No surprise as St. Augustine mayor Joe Boles was quoted in the Oct. 9 issue of Folio Weekly as calling the homeless “scary and creepy” and urging those at a City Commissioners meeting “to be compassionate, but [not] be crippled by that compassion.” Nearly two years ago, the city of St. Augustine made it illegal to sleep in the gazebo in the plaza downtown. Less than a year ago, the city outlawed sleeping in the square downtown from the hours of 2 – 6 a.m. Just recently, city law has made it illegal for the homeless to sleep anywhere at any time out in the open.
And because of the ordinances put in place by the city, the homeless in town are forced to set up camp miles from potential job opportunities.
“I had a job for a week or two, manual labor type stuff, but I had to set up camp miles from where my job was,” Dragon said. “I couldn’t make the trip every morning. They fired me. I’m sure if we could camp closer to town or if there were some sort of mass transportation in this town, I could have kept my job for a little bit longer. I might have even gotten off the streets and into some crappy housing.”
The laws put in place are doing nothing more than making it harder for these people to crawl out of the life they are so desperately living.
Perhaps mass transit is the answer. There are jobs available and people willing to work them, but because they’re forced to live under bridges where their sleep is continually interrupted by flooding, wild animals and other homeless intruders, they can’t make it to their jobs early in the morning.
*****************************************
When I got back to camp, I easily fell asleep from a long day of biking around the city.
Not thirty minutes later, I was startled awake by a crash just inside camp. Raccoons and possums were fighting just feet away, screaming and hissing loudly, gnashing their teeth, clawing ferociously at one another. More raccoons joined the fight and a host of possums sprinted out of the nearby brush. In all, a dozen wild, potentially-rabid animals fought all over the camp as I attempted to defend myself with whatever blankets I had nearby.
After a half hour of fighting, the sun had gone down and it was dark save the moonlight on the rising tide just outside of camp. A shadowy figure made its way down the rocks and into camp.
“Shamus,” I called out.
No answer.
“Shamus,” I exclaimed.
The figure cocked its head and stared at me intently. He formed his crooked mouth into a smile, muttered to himself about demons, devils and pitchforks, walked in circles and then slowly back up the rocks.
It was at this moment that I knew Shamus was telling the truth when he said that he did not choose this life. I was so scared. I was so alone. Just two days in and I knew I would never choose this. No one would choose this fear. No one would choose this vulnerability. No one would choose this isolation.
The ignorance of St. Augustine’s residents and business owners was, and still is, mind-blowing. There was no help from the people in charge. No shelters or government-backed food drives. How can our local leaders see what’s going on around us and choose indifference? How can you truly think someone would choose this if there was another option available?
*****************************************
In the morning, I made my way downtown and to St. George Street, the busiest street in St. Augustine and therefore the best chance to ask for some money and maybe buy some food and water. This was my first time panhandling without Shamus’ help.
As I made my way to a busy corner where I could park my bike and sit down, a woman was talking on her cell phone and ran directly into me.
“Sorry,” I said reflexively, not meaning it.
“Hey, you watch out for me, you hear me, boy” she exclaimed.
I could feel all of their eyes on me. Children pointed and giggled, men whispered to their wives, I heard one woman say into another’s ear, “They’re infesting this town.”
Dragon was right. They, we, are treated like cockroaches.
I had to get away. I had to ride my bike out of there. I went a mile down the road, sweating in the midday heat. I looked frantically for a water fountain or a public restroom to wash my face of the dirt and grime I had accumulated the previous days. But I couldn’t find a single public bathroom. Or water fountain.
“The only public restroom open twenty-four hours a day is the one at the Marina by the bay front,” Flagler senior Amy-Rose Simpson said. Simpson recently completed a dissertation on homelessness in St. Augustine for her degree in sociology at Flagler. “And water fountains are scarce as well. In a touristy city, you’d think there’d be more, but there’s not.”
According to the 2004 census, St. Augustine has a population just over 12,000. You’d think with thousands of tourists coming every week, and the only public restrooms in historic downtown closing at 5 p.m. daily there’d be more than one public restroom open all night. But there’s not.
“That’s an injustice not just to the homeless, but to all residents,” Simpson said.
*****************************************
“You’re the first person to ever want to come out to my camp if even for a few days,” Shamus said on the fourth night, holding back tears. “Don’t leave. Not yet.”
And just as Shamus started to cry, so did I. They were tears I never thought I’d shed. A part of me actually wanted to stay. A part of me wanted to look after Shamus forever.
“You’re the first person in a long time to show us any love,” he said.
Hopefully I’m not the last.
April 1st, 2008 at 10:17
Wow Ryan… I am, for lack of a better word, impressed. What a way to spend your spring break… and thank you for enlightening us.
April 1st, 2008 at 10:33
I’m at a loss for words.
Just over4 years ago was homeless for a few weeks. My daughters and I spent that time at a shelter for abused women. Luckily they helped me get back home, get counseling and today I own my own home, car and doing ok.
I think I’m going to cry now.
April 1st, 2008 at 11:16
This is really well done Ryan. I’m very impressed. I like the blend of the statistics and the story. I only wish that it was a bit longer… It was very good. I’m kind of curious though… what did you spend the better part of the day doing? You didn’t really elaborate on that.
I’d love to read more about this trip.
April 2nd, 2008 at 12:06
Wow.
First of all, so glad to hear you’re okay.
Very, very well written. As Alan said, I’d like to hear what your days (hour by hour, so to speak) were like. That aside, I’m just…wow.
Thank you.
April 2nd, 2008 at 12:07
That is incredible, Ryan. Next time the kids on campus here decide to do their “sleep outside in warm sleeping bags right outside the dorms with insulating cardboard boxes, etc. I ought to show them this and watch them slink away in humiliation.
You should get this published in a paper or something–because it’s too powerful to let it just be forgotten…
April 2nd, 2008 at 12:35
Alan and Katherine,
I prayed quite a bit. Read my Bible. Panhandled. Talked with other homeless. Talked with residents and business owners. Thought about my future in campus ministry (that’s right, campus ministry).
Why did I do it? I don’t mean to get too terribly preachy, but I don’t think God gives two shits about our talking anymore. We’ve got to go out and actually do it. We’ve got to show love. Stop talking about how we’re supposed to love and let’s just love. And love means sacrifice. It means putting yourself out there and not just planning it and writing it down in a binder and saying, “From 8 - 10:30 a.m. I’m going to love so-and-so.”
Let’s use our passions and talents to build up communities around us. You like journalism? Don’t make false idols out of athletes and call it sports journalism. Investigate some social injustice and write about it. You like the environment? Don’t do something useless like strap yourself to a tractor. Conserve Creation through practicing environmental law. You like building and construction? Don’t go and be a part of the creation of some nuclear plant. Go and build an orphanage. Or a well. Or a hospital. Or a home.
That’s about as much of my personal theology as I’m going to offer up.
April 2nd, 2008 at 2:50
You’re a much greater man than I ever though Ryan. Thank you for showing me that there are people who give a shit about the homeless.
April 2nd, 2008 at 12:49
Ryan,
I despise religion. More appropriately, I despise the hypocritical, two-faced, lying, self-absorbed scumbags who seem to dominate most religions and whom surround me in my mediocre mid-western town.
Having said that, I think your involvement with religion and campus ministry is great. I wish you were the rule and not the exception when it comes to faith. If I dealt with people like yourself, I think I’d have some faith myself. You seem bitter but honest and you call things as you see them without putting a sappy, sentimental spin on it. Based on my brief reading of your site, you sound like a much more decent human being than most I deal with on a daily basis. Based on the above post, you sound like a saint.
Thanks for the good works and the insight. You’re truly doing God’s work.
April 2nd, 2008 at 9:30
I live in a city of 700K and we have a large number of homeless and mass transit. And several shelters which charge a fee to stay the night which I believe is 6 bucks. The shelters are full to capacity and then some esp during the bad weather.
I think the prob with homeless services is much the same with correctional services. There are many factors that lead you to be homeless and each needs to be addressed differently. The shitzo homeless obviously needs therapy and access to a program that ensues he gets his daily meds taken. The drugaddict/alcoholic homeless needs addiction services. You can figure out other reasons for them being homeless. And the hard core homeless will have multiservice needs like a shitzo,alcoholic, heroin junkie homeless guy.
As a career server I have spent a few days to a few weeks without a place to stay so I can relate. I was able to use my brain to find nontypical places to stay to avoid the typical homeless experience. Like once I stayed on the drawbridge on the playground equipment of a church near a hospital. I was in the middle of black gang territory so it was not the safest place if I was caught but it beat an underpass with warring possums and raccoons.
fyi My dad told us as kids when times we tough on the farm they ate both types of warring beasts but I would avoid the possums as they are carrion eaters.
I also had a great homeless blog I found a link too but recently reformated my hard drive and lost it. I will send it to you when I find it again.
April 2nd, 2008 at 9:38
Wow…that was some powerful stuff, man. I would love to link to this post on my usual Friday lazy-ass post of random links, providing you wouldn’t mind. Let me know.
April 2nd, 2008 at 11:37
Thank you! This is the first time I have been to this site and I am really impressed! Bravo for you!
Have an AWESOME ONE!
Glo
April 2nd, 2008 at 11:50
Ryan, that post was absolutely incredible. Profound. I don’t know many people at my college who would do anything like that.
I think it’s perfect, with one small exception: when using the word “homeless”, use it as an adjective rather than a noun. Homeless are people, hopefully not defined by their condition.
April 3rd, 2008 at 2:52
there’s a sentence at the end of the twelth paragraph down that reads,”they don’t about me.”. you’re missing a ‘know’, i believe, in that sentence. everyone else has flaggelated you enough.
April 3rd, 2008 at 12:42
Bravo - excellent excellent
This needs to be published and seen and heard.
Thank you
April 3rd, 2008 at 3:14
Wow, Ryan, you have restored some of my faith in Christianity. “Whatsoever you do to the least of my people, that you do unto me” - my favorite part of your Bible - and so forgotten by many.
April 3rd, 2008 at 5:56
This is already a great story.
Should be published and known…
April 4th, 2008 at 1:14
[…] of this, I’ve gotten a lot of feedback. Thank you all for the suggestions. They’ve been duly […]
April 4th, 2008 at 8:41
A-Maze-Ing.
Ryan, you inspire me and give me hope in this world of chest beating Christians who think their badge of honor is worth so much that there is no need to treat the people around them with anything but disdain.
God bless you.
April 4th, 2008 at 11:20
Just curious. It’s not really stated but I’m guessing it’s implied but I got to know for sure. That picture above. Is that a picture of you or of Shamus?
This inquiring mind would like to know.
Later!
April 5th, 2008 at 10:07
That is incredible what you did. It only demonstrates the real need for more help for the homeless.
I live in a city that is a haven for the homeless. I have a cordial friendship with the ones I see daily on my walk to school, and then there are the ones who reject my offer of a slice of pizza or a cup of coffee because they would rather have the cash. It’s hard for me to tell who is really hungry and who just wants the cash for drugs, and I think a lot of the people in my city face the same issue, making it more difficult to sympathize with a handful of addicts.
But just a question–would you happen to know/have learned if some people just prefer cash instead of food?
April 5th, 2008 at 6:52
It’s my first time on this blog, and this entry was really touching.
I completed college in a town that had a great number of homeless people. You usually couldn’t take a trip to any fast food restaurant, gas station, or store around campus without being stopped by one of them requesting something. That being said, while I lived there I worked for the college cafeteria throughout my 4 years, and one of the things that bothered me the most was the massive amounts of food that were thrown in the trash every night after closing. No one was allowed to take anything home and the place was not allowed to donate it (as per corporation rules, apparently). Huge containers of soup, trays of pasta, meat, and dessert were all gone to waste because of some bureaucratic rule. I always wondered why there wasn’t some kind of program that could collect the food and give it to people who really need it, or why it was wrong for food to be donated but not to be thrown away. There is something wrong with wasting massive amounts of perfectly good food while some people starve just around the corner.
April 15th, 2008 at 3:39
Damn it. I am the only one here with a conflicting view. This happens to me often. Ok. Here goes. FUCK THE HOMELESS. This isn’t Indochina. This isn’t north africa. This isn’t fucking eastern bloc Europe. This is the United States of America. The land of milk and fucking honey. IF MEXICANS CAN CRAWL FROM FUCKING MAZATLAN AND PAZA RICA ON THEIR HANDS AND KNEES, GRUBBING ON DRY CRUSTY TORTILLAS AND STRUGGLING TO STAY ALIVE, THEN NOT JUST CHISEL OUT A SHIT EXISTENCE BUT PROSPER, FUCKING PROSPER, THEN WHAT THE SHIT IS WRONG WITH AMERICANS ON THE STREET?!?! And for the record I’m not some elitist jackoff who grew up with a silver spoon up my ass. I lived in ghettos and trailer parks until I got the chance to live on a military base for two years, then back to the goddamned trailer park. I was homeless for about six months. I bathed in public restrooms, slept on park benches, in the train station, the bus station, I lived on free samples from grocery stores for most of the time I was out there. Then I popped my head out of my ass and got my life together. It’s a choice, being a useless sack of shit homeless. They choose to be drunken shit-eating wastes. Fuck all of them.
THEY ARE TREATED LIKE COCKROACHES BECAUSE THEY ARE COCKROACHES!!
April 27th, 2008 at 4:02
Ryan,
Very nice post. You are inspiring. Clutterfish - I respect that you feel differently, but a large majority of the people who are homeless are also mentally ill. Not to make excuses for those that are lazy (and there are some) - but a good number of these people just can’t function in normal society.
April 28th, 2008 at 3:23
Hello Ryan, my names Drew. I’M ORIGINALLY FROM ST.AUGUSTINE FLORIDA. LIVED THERE OVER 20 YEARS. I NOW LIVE IN BERKELEY CA. woops caps…… sorry…. I am also a waiter. I was reading another waiter blog and came across your site randomly from there link. So I was excited to see what your blog was about, it seems from the short time I have looked over the site, you write mostly about severing at restaurants. But this post about homelessness was a great read. Growing up in St.Augustine seeing homeless people was not something to unfamiliar. it was just something you accepted as part of the society. Its been almost 7 years sense I moved away from SA and moved to Ca. The change in homeless people wasn’t much different in people per sa, just in volume. The bay area has thousands of homeless, its crazy. I think it had something to do with Ragan as Governor of Cal before he was president. He closed most of the mental hospitals and flooded the streets with people that had no were to go and were legally insane. Not sure if thats totally true, but its worth looking into if your interested.
Anyways I wanted to thank you for writing this blog. Growing up in a small town like SA you are somewhat sheltered to the reality of the world. It was comforting to know as a kid you lived in a relatively safe piece of the world. SA is a great place to live, and i’ll always love it. But as aI get older, I can now look at it objectively. It’s just like any other small town USA. It has its problems not just with the homeless ppl but with racial issues that go way back. Thanks for keeping me tied to my city. Its nice to read of SA even if it’s bad. The truth is all I’m looking for.
Thanks again. Talk to ya soon.
May 3rd, 2008 at 9:16
I was homeless for 5 years. When it was good it was really good & when it was bad it was REAL bad. To the idiot above who says that “homeless are cockroaches etc.” the predominate homeless, the REAL homeless. I’m not talking the fucking rich kids who act homeless & “spange” you, the real old guys? Yeah. Most of them fought for this “land of milk & honey” most are Vietnam Vets & if you can fucking live through the shit they lived through unscathed I salute you. Beyond the vets are the mentalliy ill. It wasn’t just California that closed the mental hospitals it was America, all of it. Somewhere on this wide web is an article from the head of homeless talking about how they actually route these people too sunnier places so they don’t die. There is NOWHERE to put the mentally ill anymore. Educate yourself asshole, read some medical blogs and you might see how we deal with the mentally ill. Fuck your land of milk & honey. I take care of these people. Why don’t YOU do something to help out instead of fucking critisizing a bunch of people with no way to defend themselves.
Good article by the way. Sorry I got heated about out lovable commentator up there it just pisses me off when people don’t know the whole picture.
May 8th, 2008 at 12:04
I don’t know what to say. This really tore my heart to pieces. In San Antonio I think we have maybe three shelters, but people can still sleep in the open, at least thats what I’ve seen. I just wish there was something that everone can do. Please keep an eye on your friend, and bless you for doing this so that all can see.
May 8th, 2008 at 5:34
Multiply this by every city in the world, and you may be near what the homeless situation really is.
I live in London, where a studio flat will cost you £150,000 or more, and where “affordable housing” is for is you are a nurse, policeman or fireman (or other job deemed necessary but not necessary enough to pay the person more money). I say “affordable” cos I couldn’t see how my kids could afford it!
And yet we spend money on socks for our iPods, throw away food (a recent study showed that 35% of the average food shop was binned) and make it illegal to sleep rough. Let’s kick people when they are down.
Nice one, society. Nice one.
June 11th, 2008 at 1:35
fuck your vietnam vets, haggard, seriously. my family is military for six generations, almost 180 years of military service in every theater of combat known to man. not one of us, nor any of the men and women we’ve served with, ended up begging on the streets. that’s a bullshit copout. unscathed, hell no, but none of us pussed out of our lives and decided, yes asshole, DECIDED to give up. my grandfather was tortured for three weeks by the japanese in a prison campand he went on to own four successful businesses over the course of the next sixty years, not to mention being the rock upon which our entire family is built. 4 children, 11 grandchildren, and now 20 great grandchildren. you find me a man who suffered more than that, yet still accomplished so much and i’ll find you a flying monkey to make love to. also, i have the same attitude towards the mentally handicapped that i have towards retards, if you can’t contribute to this society in some meaningful way, then fucking die. i don’t give a shit about you, i don’t want to hear your shitpoke stories, just make sure the next thing you do is step your useless ass out into highway traffic.
by the way, since you’re such a fan of these pussy ass vietnam fucks, you might wish to retract your statement about “fuck this land of milk and honey”. they fought for it right? aren’t you shitting on their sacrifice? haven’t you removed your head from your ass yet? I’m not going to waste my time helping a bunch of lazy, crazy shits who are too fucked up to help themselves. where’s a good solid natural disaster to wipe these fucks out?
peace. (of shit)
July 10th, 2008 at 8:57
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