(Photo of the author, David Alan Goldberg with friend, Caroline Brinegar, taken by mutual friend, Jacob Caldwell Yount, Charlotte, North Carolina, June, 2011.)

Of the past twenty-four years that I have been living as a legal, tax-paying resident of Charlotte, North Carolina, for the greater sum, sixteen of those years I have spent on the streets of Charlotte. Homeless. By no choice of my own.

True, in those years I have been in rental situations that have lasted two months to a year, but then, my finances run out as I struggle for more work if not for a decent back-up plan. Add on to that back in August of 2006, I was nearly killed in a collision as I was riding my bicycle “home” to a tent behind Area 15 in the Optimist Park neighborhood of Charlotte. It was in the evening, there were no witnesses, and the CPD misreported where the accident occurred. I sustained no broken bones, yet I was mangled enough that it took me one month to be able to walk again. Two months to get up the nerve to ride my bicycle again.

I still greatly suffer from injuries mostly to my hips and tailbone, sharp pains in my feet and shoulders. I can no longer hold on to a paying job that has nothing to do with drawing or painting. No more washing dishes standing on my feet for eight to ten hours. The only government subsidy that I receive is a food stamp/EBT card that affords me $200 a month groceries only. No cash. I am currently working on an SSI claim for back pay and a monthly check that will get me into an apartment. So, still, for right now, I have no where to lay my head at night.

From November until the end of March, local churches participate in the Room in the Inn program. Depending on the evening, there can be anywhere from 109 beds to 211 beds available. All of us have to stand outside the back entrance of the Urban Ministry Center in the elements, more often than not, freezing rain for two hours, while being yelled at by a police officer hired for intake and one of the representatives of Room in the Inn to “maintain order”. If you are a senior citizen or female, you get a bed every night for the duration of the season. First to eighth timers have a decent chance to get a bed. How many days are in the winter months? November, December, January, February, and even March which can be pretty damn cold for any individual fighting to maintain mental and physical health. I spent one night in the mens shelter over the past winter. Never again. Lights are on all night. The place reeks of something just this side of death. Guys are running around all hours of the night. Guys masturbating in their bunks. Lots of yelling and “carrying on”. One night of that insanity was all I could bear. I got maybe two hours of sleep.

People ask me, “DAG, where do you live?” or “DAG, where do you sleep?” My answer is always, “Anywhere that I can.” What that usually means is anywhere I feel the safest to nod off, as peacefully as possible, and within a fair distance of all the places that I frequent during the day. Usually, almost every night, that place is the atrium in the building where Amelie’s French Bakery is anchored. Amelie’s has no jurisdiction over the atrium, they share it with the other tenants of the building.This Tuesday morning, June 14th, about 6:00 A.M. was one of those times, yet again, when and where I nodded off sitting up in a chair. A fairly warm cup of Amelie’s coffee also sat upright on the table next to me. One moment, I was tethered between a foggy English forest that was suddenly invaded by a flying barracuda and a sliver of reality when I was verbally rattled awake by the dulcet tones of Genevieve, manager of Amelie’s. She yelled and screamed at me that I can never, ever sleep there, and that she was tired of seeing me there every day, asleep. I responded to her, saying, “Sorry, I am not hurting anyone. All I did was nod off.” “WHAT???” she screamed at me. I repeated myself as my stomach was tying itself into a knot. “Well, I am tired of you nodding off every day that I am here! There will not be another time! I will not warn you again!” She has done that to me several times before, as has Amelie’s co-owner Lyn, and custodian Warren, whose tactic is to come into the room, even when my eyes are wide open, and hollers, “WAKE UP, DAG!!!” in front of the other customers. Trust me, after sixteen years of chronic (i.e., not by my own choice) homelessness, I am quite used to being pushed into one corner after another, only to be hounded out of said corners by both the same people and the same kind of people. Essentially, the way that they went about it is all wrong. I was hurting no one. I was in no one person’s way. I was not obstructing the flow of business in any way.

So, immediately, I rode off on my bicycle. To a house where good friends are who allowed me to shower and change my clothes… and completely unexpected, naptime on the couch in the living room.

I have been thinking about this all day, as to what actions I should be taking. I have been teetering between deep prayer and exacting a voodoo curse (just kidding). If I could afford so much as a weekly room, I would be there already. As it stands, I can barely afford anything. There is no truly affordable housing in the City of Charlotte. Jobs are scarce. The economy sucks. People are scared. More people are forced into homelessness daily.

I thank you for reading this/hearing me out. I really needed to get this off my chest. Many of you already knew of my day to day battles and circumstances. To those of you who didn’t, now you know. Now, you know.

(Photo of same author at Buskapalooza taken by LunahZon Photography, downtown Charlotte, North Carolina, May, 2011)