Friday, Jan. 15, 2010

Letter to the Editor: Do you know how it is to be homeless?

My name is Keith Snow. I am writing this to the people just to make them aware that I know how it is to be homeless. I myself have experienced this in my life.

When I was a teenager I ran away with various friends and got in trouble, having to go house to house with this friend and that friend, not always being able to shower. I had very poor hygiene and sometimes not eating it wasn't all what I thought it would be. I was influenced by other kids and peer pressured in to a lot of stuff and got into big trouble. My parents where looking for me and finally they found me and I was punished and put on restriction. Sometimes we think our families don't love us and that our friends are the ones that care about us. But our families really do love us. Sometimes we have friends that do care but a lot of the time they don't and being bad and doing whatever you want and not following rules isn't really cool at all. Then I got older. I was 18 and I did it again! So I got a backpack with clothes, the stuff I thought I would need - toothpaste toothbrush, deodorant, sleeping bag - and I got on my mountain bike thinking I was ready to go on my own. But I didn't realize how dangerous it was once I got out into the real world. I had my little money that I saved up thinking that's all I needed to survive. But it wasn't that easy, I had went to a friend's house seeing if maybe they could help. I ended up staying in a shelter for a couple nights but that didn't work either, so I went to an abandon fort for a couple more days. It didn't help that the weather conditions where not good it was raining so I got wet. Then I found a spot under a bridge in Sacramento on La Macha along the freeway. There's three tunnels under the bridge I stayed in the third tunnel and that was my shelter for a couple days. I had parked my mountain bike at the abandon fort.

Then the worst night of my life happened. I heard some guys coming. They where yelling and talking crazy, it was one of the scariest things in my life. They came up to me and where talking to each other saying "who's this guy laying here." Then they grabbed my backpack and opened it. They grabbed my flash light that I had in there and they started beating me with the flashlight and they were saying "he's just a homeless guy, lets kill him." They ended up beating me to a pulp. I was bleeding all over. They had thrown a glass bottle at me and cut my arm. They thought I was dead so they left. They took my backpack, but I found one shirt that was left and I used that to wrap my arm where I was cut to stop some bleeding.

I waited there scared until daylight and I found out they had stole my bike out of the fort. So here I was homeless with no where to go. I decided to go home all dirty and beat up. I'm walking down the street in my neighborhood with all my friends seeing me this way. It was so shameful and embarrassing, I begged to my parents for mercy to please let me come back home, it took a lot of pride away. But that's when I grew up! Later I ended up getting two jobs and got on my feet and I learned about independence and learned to be on my own.

This experience, no where to go, cold, empty and hungry. It's a horrible feeling. I just want the people to know we all need help. If you see someone in your city who needs help don't be afraid to help them.

Keith Snow

Los Baños