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In late 92, I heard from my girlfriend in LA that things were going badly for her.....and she was on the verge of suicide. I begged and pleaded and cajoled my way into an early discharge from the army in Feb 93. When I got back, she perked right up, got a job, etc.....
Unfortunately.... I couldn't stay with her for longer than two weeks because of rules on her lease and her landlady lived next door. I had no money because I had been sending it to her. Part of the money had been meant to pay my storage fees, but was not used for that, so everything I had owned before the army was gone. Unemployment was 14%, so there were no jobs.
I lived in the park, made a deal with the guy that ran the local community pool to take showers in there every day, and used the soap that I would find lying around to clean myself and my clothes. I would hang my clothes on the fence to dry. I would go to local churches to get food, or wait for the hand out trucks each night on certain street corners. I never ONCE begged for money to eat.
I would dig through the trash for the want ads.... walk miles to go to apply for jobs. (I would hide my duffel bag in the dumpster behind a building before going up for the interview).
After 2 months I finally got a job, then got into a center, then a crappy weekly hotel in Hollywood, then worked my way up and out.
2 months after that, I became supervisor, and had the power to hire people, I went back to the park to offer jobs to all the guys that I knew there. All they had to do was show up. Out of the 20 or 25 guys that I offered jobs too, not ONE SINGLE PERSON SHOWED UP.
I've never given money to the homeless after that.
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