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 Editors note: Out of Sight, out of Mind is a series in which Clark Curtis takes a closer look at homelessness in Washington. Speaking with those who have experienced it firsthand and managed to turn their lives around, those who currently struggle to find safe and permanent shelter, and what options are available locally for temporary housing. For privacy considerations, the interview was conducted with John Q.

For the last 18 months, John Q has been living and working at the Zion Men’s Shelter and Soup Kitchen. He had never been homeless before, but that all changed one afternoon here in Washington. “Things were going well for me,” said Q. “I had two campers and was living in one of them at my mother’s home in Aurora. I was mowing for a landscaping company. I had just purchased a truck but didn’t have the money to pay for any insurance. But I decided to drive the truck anyway, knowing I would get the insurance when I got my next paycheck. I got into a wreck in the Walmart parking lot and totaled my truck. I just sat there all day with my head on the steering wheel, crying, as I knew I was in big trouble. My truck was my only means of transportation to get back to my mother’s house where my trailer is and to help her as she has stage four lung cancer. So that is how I ended up here.”

For Q, his mowing job, which he has had for the last 18 years, is seasonal. He also works at the men’s shelter. But that still isn’t enough to make ends meet and get things turned around. “I pay $800 per month in child support, which after my monthly pay from the shelter leaves me just over a hundred dollars a month to survive on during the winter. It just isn’t enough to be able to save the money needed to get another truck or pay for a downpayment and first month’s rent on an apartment. Once you get down that hole, it seems like it is almost impossible to get out of it again without some sort of a blessing or a break or someone gifting you something. A lot of us, including myself, have a lot of pride and don’t want to be gifted anything. It is a vicious cycle and hard to get out of.”

Q said things are also compounded because the public misconceives the homeless. “People just normally stereotype you and assume that if you are homeless and out on the streets or living in a shelter, you are a bad person,” said Q. “You have to be a drug addict, or an alcoholic, or whatever label they want to put on us. There are cases of mental illness or drug or alcohol abuse. But people need to try and understand that these folks have a story and a past, which is often how they have ended up in the situation they are in. Abusive homes, growing up with alcoholic parents, or spousal abuse. It is hard for those who judge to see the other side because they have never been there before. It doesn’t matter how good of a person you are. You can look someone straight in the eye and shake their hand, and they still think you are a bad person.”

Q added that people need to try and understand the reality of it all. “Most people are just one paycheck away from being homeless, and it can happen to anybody. That means the same people who judge us and walk by and whisper or look at us in the store to make sure we aren’t stealing something could be in the same shape tomorrow if their paycheck or other means of financial support goes away. It is not always a gravy train with biscuit wheels out there.”

Without missing a beat, Q would estimate there are hundreds of homeless in the area as he too has seen and is living it. “They are in wooded areas, tent encampments, under bridges, crashing abandoned buildings, in cars, you name it,” said Q. “They tend to stay closer into town so they can have access to water and a bathroom. I know one couple who has been out in the woods for several months now, and the woman is nine months pregnant.”

Q said people will question that there are this many homeless because they never see that many. But Q pointed out that they want it that way. “A lot of folks aren’t comfortable staying in a shelter, so they choose to stay outside,” said Q. “They become reclusive as they have been judged and shunned so much and want to stay away from the public altogether. They become introverts, and it is hard for them to try and show their faces in public once again.”

There was about a week before Q became a resident at the men’s shelter that he was on the streets without a roof over his head. “I ended up on the streets after losing my truck,” said Q. “I went over to Greenville because there seemed to be more resources to help folks get back on their feet. However, I wound up sleeping in the woods behind an apartment complex. It was cold at the time, so I would go and find a clean trash bag in the parking lot of one of the nearby stores and crawl into it for the night, and that is how I slept.  During the day, I would go to one of the food banks and get some food. I finally reached out to Kieth Harris here at the shelter, and he got me in.”

Q would ask the public to try not to judge others who are homeless or unsheltered.  “Someone may be unshaven or look a little rough, but you don’t know what may have happened to them the day before. I have been in this shelter for a year and a half, and some of the best people I have ever met have walked through these doors. They are kind-hearted and will give you the shirt off their backs or the last cracker in their backpacks. For the most part, they are good people and just down on their luck.”