Every day in Southern Delaware, I work in the trenches and on the front lines of poverty, fear, homelessness, loneliness, isolation, addiction and mental illness.
People ask me about what I am seeing and experiencing out here on the front lines. In my opinion, there are the “roofless” and then there are the “homeless.” Being roofless means living rough. You are living outside with no cover. It also means most times…..ROOT-less with little or no ties, living away from the grid of detection and accountability. Another expression I use is “they are living off the grid.”
Being roofless mostly means living in active addiction and/or enduring an untreated mental illness. Living roofless is extremely exhausting, very fluid, dangerous, dark and unpredictable. It also costs about $10 a day to be roofless because of the needed supplies and provisions that you normally would NOT buy if you had a hard roof overhead. Many of the roofless are also smokers so you can add at least another six or more dollars to the $10 dollars a day cost of being roofless. Living roofless is also ruthless. It is brutal. If you are chronically roofless living outside, then you will die 25 years earlier than the average person who lives inside.
Now, what does homeless mean?
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DelMarVa's Premier Source for News, Opinion, Analysis, and Human Interest Contact Publisher Joe Albero at alberobutzo@wmconnect.com or 410-430-5349
6 comments:
hmm, all homeless are drunks or junkies? that's what he said. that's not true. who every wrote this rubbish is an idiot.
"You are a low wage earner and you are working on your recovery and your sobriety."
Homeless is simply a part of a bus driver's day in OC. We aren't union like the cops or firefighters and we don't hold the responsibility to enforce any vagrancy laws like the cops might be tasked with. Open the door, listen to them, and let them on unless there are any important officials around to instruct you what to do differently. Generally, the "homeless" are better behaved than many of the visitors.
Sounds like so much double talk to me.
Lots of double talk.....
Editor’s Note: Jim Martin is the director of the A.C.E. Peer Resource Center in Seaford. He can be reached at 302-858-8556 or Jimmymartin767@gmail.com.
I don't know what A.C.E. is or what the qualifications are for a director there but he doesn't sound well informed.
i thought the title said roofies and homeless. LOL
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