A Homeless Point of View

It was the kind of autumn afternoon in Charlotte when the entire landscape, from one corner of the horizon to the other, was drenched in orange sunlight. A deep blue sky, uninterrupted by a single cloud, yielded only to the distilled blackness miles above.

Gravel crunched methodically underfoot as we followed worn steel rails, leaving a slow, drifting cloud of dry dust behind.  Tall grass, punching chest high up through the endless rows of railroad ties, swayed softly in the breeze. I knew we had to be close, but there was still no sign of Dale and Cleo’s place.

There was no mailbox with numbers to guide us. No driveway, telltale chimney smoke or power lines, even. We had no hints such as “white painted brick,” or “split level.” In fact, there was no roof or walls or any of that, as we were looking for a dwelling that, by design, is hard to find: a home with a million-dollar view of uptown Charlotte that hides in plain sight.
I was 20 feet from the campsite, and still completely puzzled as to where it might be, when Dale stepped out of the shadows and onto the track. The place was so well hidden that you could blink and easily stroll right past. Like a privacy screen for a computer monitor, looking at it from any angle except straight-on is fruitless. A thick tree canopy shielded the site from the air and was nearly as effective in concealing it on the ground as well.

“All guests must bring a 12-pack,” I learned only later, is Dale and Cleo’s No. 1 rule. Looking back, I’m thankful the case of bottled water and bus pass we brought didn’t get us off on the wrong foot.

Dale was good-natured and friendly, and he welcomed us over, smiling from behind his black leather hat. Between sips from a can of Milwaukee’s Best Light, the elfish little fellow with sparking blue eyes began to share a bit of his story.

“I was born in Kannapolis, but I’ve lived down here in Charlotte most all my life,” he offered, glancing past my shoulder, down the track. “I operated a printing press for over 20 years. Technology changed that business a lot.” Looking down, he said, “I was in the security business for over 10 years. That industry changed a lot, too, though.” His voice trailed off here, and we quickly shifted gears and looked around his campsite for a bit.

Dale and Cleo’s camp has been three years in the making, and it is impressive. A small series of landscaped gardens and raised beds built with railroad ties flank his sleeping quarters – a 6-by-6 cave he carved out by hand from beneath a 2-ton concrete slab. It’s a sort of deluxe spider hole of the type favored by wanted Middle Eastern dictators. A removable foam block serves as a trap door and hides him from the elements, among other things. A fireplace complete with chimney, cleverly crafted from bricks and scrap 2-by-4s, provides warmth on frigid nights. Incense smoke curled lazily through patches of sunlight as Dale described how items he’s collected over the years have been recycled into useful components of the campsite – a cooking area, utensils, a bench. Dale had even built a platform for Cleo’s tent, which would meet any building code.

A German shepherd puppy fought ferociously with my shoelace as I remembered to ask Dale why he was living here. For a guy with a degree in education from Mars Hill College, his answer was surprisingly concise:
“I love the freedom,” he stated without hesitation.

Cleo quickly echoed the sentiment.

In a previous life, Dale had worked as a security guard, and had run a printing press. For years, he had wives, kids…a mortgage. Now he braves wickedly cold nights, regular harassment from railroad detectives, and violence for the freedom his lifestyle offers.

“I consider myself a modern day pioneer,” he beams, “and she’s my Calamity Jane,” he continues, nodding toward his friend and neighbor, Cleo, who lived under a nearby bridge for over a decade until just recently setting up camp next to Dale.

“We’d be happy just to be left alone out here,” Cleo adds. “That’s all we really want.”

Dale and Cleo had repeatedly referred to Western themes and characters when describing their life by the train tracks, but as Dale spoke, it wasn’t Billy the Kid or Jesse James whom I envisioned.

It was Don Quixote.

National statistics indicate a noticeable increase in the percentage of college-educated homeless men in the past year.

The National Coalition for the Homeless contends that poverty, lack of affordable housing, domestic violence, decline in public assistance and increasingly, foreclosure are all culprits that push people toward life on the street.  The poor are essentially an illness, an accident or a paycheck away from living on the streets, and homelessness often results from a complex set of circumstances that requires people to choose between food, shelter and other basic needs. The group insists that only a concerted effort to ensure jobs that pay a living wage, adequate support for those who cannot work, affordable housing, and access to health care will bring an end to homelessness.

According to Carson Dean, executive director of the Men’s Shelter of Charlotte, as many as 40 percent of the homeless in Charlotte suffer from addiction disorders. Others have mental health issues or a combination of the two. Many are veterans of foreign wars who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder or other psychological conditions that go untreated. Homelessness often stems from a losing struggle with drugs or a mental breakdown, but just as often, plain bad luck or economic factors truly beyond their control are the reasons folks are driven into homelessness, Dean says.
“Even though less than half of the homeless in Charlotte are so because of drug addiction, it is still a very serious issue for us,” continued Dean.

Indeed, on a subsequent tour of other area campsites, all of which were just a short walk from Dale and Cleo’s place, the specter of crack cocaine could be felt looming in the leafy shadows. All of the places that our guide, Sylvester, had agreed to take us were practically at the foot of uptown’s skyline. They are passed by commuters every single day, but are so well hidden they would have been almost impossible to find without his help. Sylvester, who completed the program offered by the Men’s Shelter of Charlotte and is now employed there, had been homeless and entangled in a web of hopeless drug use in this same area for many years. By his own admission, he had smoked crack for nearly 30 years – hooked immediately upon taking his first hit at the age of 13.

“I was a welder for 11 years,” he offered. Explaining how he first ended up on the street, Sylvester said, “Then I lost my job, and it was just a downward spiral from there. I started running drugs for the dealers. Did a couple years in prison on a cocaine charge not long after that.”

We had walked along a trail for only a few minutes when we met Toronto.  He had lived at his campsite, which surprisingly was just a few feet from the outer fence of the Men’s Shelter, for several months, and was understandably guarded. After a few minutes, though, he warmed up and invited us into his dwelling. “Mr. Alfred’s not here, and he’ll be pissed off if he walks up and finds you guys here,” Toronto cautioned. Mr. Alfred was apparently head of the household, but wasn’t home at the time. The structure was little more than a tent constructed of black plastic sheeting lashed to tree branches above. A floor made of carpet scraps and mattresses had been soaked by days of relentless rain.  An old handicapped toilet device with a bucket of ammonia below served as the home’s bathroom.

“I had a pressure-washing business for a long time, and I worked all over North Carolina.” He briefly opened up, glancing around. “Then my old lady kicked me out.”

Toronto was fidgety and still visibly suspicious of us, but he was familiar with the location of many of the other campsite communities in the area and offered to help Sylvester show us around for the rest of the afternoon.

A narrow trail, cut through a densely wooded lot, led us to the next tent village, which was less than 100 feet away. It had some netting set up as a perimeter fence that closely resembled some that had recently gone missing from Toronto’s campsite. Sylvester was able to calm the brief spat that ensued but was unable to convince the camp’s residents that we and our camera meant no harm. We quickly walked along the path toward the next site.

The next small village of weathered tents and improvised fencing and chairs was tucked back in another wooded glen, again screened from view by dense tree cover. Clothing and empty bottles were randomly cast about, and the mosquitoes had no mercy. “You ever seen a chimney?” smiled Toronto, turning around with a burst of energy.
“Like a chimney chimney?” I asked, sure this was some sort of  trick question.

“Yeah – you know with bricks and smoke coming out and shit. A chimney. Come back down here tonight, and this whole place will be smoking like crazy.”
“You mean they’ll be smoking crack?” I asked, pretty sure the answer was yes.
“Hell yeah.”

Just then a horn beeped several times, and we all turned back to see a taxi pulled up to the trail’s entrance up at the street – the checkerboard pattern on the door unmistakable even through the trees.  Sylvester and Toronto quickly nodded that it was most likely someone looking to buy sex – evidently a cab driver in this case. It happens every day out here, they said dismissively, already heading toward the next campsite. It’s no big deal. The women live in the camp and they get high in the camp. They sell sex every day for as little as $5 to pay for their drug habits.

The horn beeped a few more times, but the only movement from any of the tents was a man who already had been suspiciously peering out at us the whole time. Toronto was certain the handful of women who live in the camp were already preoccupied with customers.  The horn beeped in vain twice more, and the driver finally gave up and drove away.
As the sun slipped off to the west, on we went all afternoon, from one site to another, none more than 100 feet apart from the next. It soon became evident that in a half-mile radius of the Urban Ministry Center and the Men’s Shelter, there were dozens of these sites – each a little different, but all serving the same purpose of basic shelter. We had inadvertently almost circled back to Dale and Cleo’s place, and I now realized that their camp was less like a wayward outpost on the Oregon Trail and more like just one of scores of houses clustered into a suburban neighborhood.

One camp had an entire village of buildings, complete with a walled entrance ramp, constructed entirely of shipping pallets. Others were more modest and weren’t much more than stumps surrounded by a sea of frosted beer bottles.

The Urban Ministry Center provides, among other services, a free meal every day to anyone who’s hungry. The Men’s Shelter provides men with a daily meal as well as shelter for nearly 300 homeless men every night.  Dale, Cleo, Sylvester and Toronto all quickly acknowledged that it’s no coincidence that there are so many campsites within a short walk of these uninterrupted daily sources of food.

Exposure to the elements can kill you, but starvation will kill you.
During our walk, I couldn’t help but think of Maslow’s human needs pyramid – the one we all learn about in high school. It’s that sort of prioritized list of human wants and needs. According to the pyramid, human beings’ most basic needs are food, water, clothing and sleep.  Once those are met, the next step up the pyramid, on the way toward self-actualization is a sense of security – the feeling of safety.

“Yeah, I’m scared all the time,” Toronto laughed nervously when I brought it up. “When you smoke, you’ll be thinking everyone wants to get you though.”

As if right on cue, a burly man emerged from the brush on the left side of the tracks, eyed the four of us for an uncomfortably long several minutes as we walked past, and disappeared to the other side of the tracks. Unfazed, Sylvester ambled along the track and continued talking.  I wasn’t able to comfortably turn my back and rejoin the conversation until the guy was out of sight.

“He’s right,” added Sylvester, “but most of the time, when you smoke crack, you’ll be afraid of everybody else. If you’re violent to begin with, you’ll be violent when you smoke. It ain’t the crack. A lot of people say that crack makes you violent, but that’s bullshit.”

That may be, but I had already heard a handful of heartbreaking tales of physical assault that day – more than enough to form my own opinion on the matter. A desperate addict recently approached Dale’s camp and gained his trust by feigning an injury. He attacked Dale, who is in his 50s and can’t weigh much more than 100 pounds. The second Dale turned his back to try to help the guy, he was pummeled on the head repeatedly with a scrap piece of molding. The guy badly wanted Dale’s bicycle and insisted he unlock it from a nearby tree.
Despite more relentless thrashing, Dale would not give up his bike.

Cleo served 81 days in jail recently for an altercation involving a knife and an undercover policeman.

Sylvester conceded that although his formidable size had discouraged many would-be attackers and thieves over the years, even he was no match for a group of robbers who took a baseball bat to his head in a struggle over his stash of crack cocaine. It wasn’t until some four days later, in a hospital bed, that he was finally able to even remember his name.

“A lot of these guys are Vietnam vets,” Sylvester continued, “and they’ll put traps all around their camps for protection.”

“You mean like booby traps?”

“Yep. They’ll dig out…

“Mr. Alfred has one of those things that’ll swing down out of the trees like Rambo has!” Toronto blurted out excitedly, cutting off Sylvester mid-sentence.

“The one in the movie ‘Rambo,’ with the sharpened stakes that swung down and stabbed the guy’s legs?” I asked in disbelief.

“Hell yeah.”  Toronto grinned. “Man that thing would fuck somebody up.”

“I’ve seen pits with sharpened sticks stuck in the bottom – you know, with the top covered with leaves and branches, so people fall in and get messed up,” Sylvester continued patiently, as he guided us along the railroad bridge over North Tryon Street. “When I was living out here, we’d always string up empty cans around our camp – you know, so they make noise when somebody walks up on you.”

Ultimately, all of these methods are just part of a quest for the feeling of security, and although some are a bit harsh, I can’t say I’m surprised. Security is next on the list after food and water, after all.

What is surprising is the number of people sleeping outside within sight of the two nonprofits’ facilities. Based on what I saw, I’d put their number well into the hundreds. The Men’s Shelter of Charlotte is full nearly every night, as is every other shelter in town, and yet that is still not enough housing for everyone sleeping outside. Not even close.
Sylvester seemed certain that campsite communities like this surround every facility like these that offer free food and services for the homeless across Charlotte. I’m sure this is also the case in towns and cities coast to coast.

The unseasonably warm afternoon was yielding to a seasonably cool fall evening, and our tour had come to a close. As the four of us emerged from the last stop on our trek – a giant wooded field of malt liquor bottles, so thick they covered the ground like snow – and back onto the Tryon Street sidewalk, a line of some 40 men had already formed. It was only 4 p.m., but they were already waiting for a bed at the shelter, the line growing by the minute.

They and a couple hundred more would be lucky enough to sleep indoors that night.

But an entire colony of troubled souls would instead be sleeping in the shadows.

~ Matt Kokenes