Think homelessness is something that happens to bad people? Abusers? Poor people? Could never happen to you because you have a steady income, an education, money in the bank? Stop and think for a minute. If you lost your income today, how long could you live on what you have in the bank? Where would you go? Who do you have for help? Could you simply get a job tomorrow and pick up where you left off?
My next interview hit home hard. "Carl" is a big man, over 6 feet tall with a deep voice and very sad eyes. I could tell he was hurting the first time we met just by looking at his face. He was dressed in clean jeans, work boots and a clean plaid shirt. He was unshaven, but not your "typical" homeless person. His story knocked the reality square in my face.
***Carl, tell me about your childhood.
I was born in XXX, Florida. Grew up in XXX, Florida. All my life. My parents were chicken farmers. Not ordinary chicken farmers. I mean, we had like 150,000 at a time. And that’s were I grew up at.
***What were your parents like?
They were okay, strict but good. My dad was a good father, he was an education freak and but all in all it... I had a good childhood. I went to xxx Elementary, xxx Middle School, and xxx High School. I graduated there. I went to University of Florida. I received a Master’s degree in Civil Engineering. I am a licensed civil engineer now. I am also a licensed contractor. I probably won’t go any further than that. I am 50. I thought at one time, back you know, back when the living was good about maybe trying to do a PHD. I could teach with a Master’s but I this thing that happened to me, honestly, it really knocked the wind out of me.
*** Tell me what happened?
I owned a company. We did all commercial work. Worked over the whole state of FL. In 2008 when the economy headed down I had three major developers file bankruptcy on me. It cost my company about 4.5 million dollars to get out of it. Whenever I did that and it was that kind of a blow and we were in an economy that I could not gain work to recover because there was no work and we were also in a situation with the bank where they had closed the door to small business people. They did not want to talk about it. It started a downward spiral there in 2008. I tried to hang on. I cut my crews back. I was working 15-18 hours a day, 7 days a week. I did it until it liked to kill me. I was working all those hours and worrying and trying to hold on to keep the door open. In 2009 I was sitting in my office and I thought I had heartburn. I went to the doctor. The doctor rushed me to the ER, and when I was in the ER I had a massive heart attack. I was in a coma for 36 days. While I was in the coma they opened it up and did 6 bypasses. When I woke up out of the coma, it was a Monday morning. On Wednesday I had one of my employees pick me up in a truck and I went back to work and I tried to hold on. I was doing everything I could to hold on and it was about to kill me. It just kept going down and down and like I said before we were just in an economy where you just could not recovery. And so I had 3 homes. I lost them. I had a business. I lost it. Vehicles. I had 26 trucks. I lost them. I lost EVERYTHING I had. I lost everything I had. It just cost me everything I could scrape to get out. I had a 25k$ retainer attorney and the only thing they could tell me was these people are protected under federal law. You cannot even ask for your money. It is gone. There is no getting it back. Normally the bank will back you up. Normally, you pick up jobs and you slowly recover. From 2008 to now the banks do not want to hear from you if you are a small business and there is no work out there. So, there is no recovery right now. Or- there is recovery but not that kind. So, I lost everything I had. I lost it down to everything. I lost everything. When I got through, I was walking the street in Jacksonville. I had 40$ in my pocket. I was by the bus station. I got a ticket to Orlando. Got off at the bus station (in Orlando). Walked down the road at XXX( a really bad part of town) and I walked down the road and I was thinking oh my God if this is Orlando they need to shut Orlando down. I was in a bad neighborhood. I stayed on (that road) for 4 days underneath the overpass in the bushes with the crack heads.
I have a wife and a 4-year-old little boy. Whenever the Lexus went and the unlimited credit cards went, she went with them. So on top of everything else, now I’m heartbroken. I never drank. I’ve never done drugs. I’ve only been smoking for about 3 weeks. I’m trying to get used to it. You know, I stayed on (that road) for them days. You kind of had to try to maybe sleep in a restaurant during the day because at night out there... People do not realize it but when you lay down in the bushes at night you have to stay awake because the rats get on you. So, I did that for 4 days and I finally got to the point where I said, well, what I am going to do is, I am going to go across here, I got about 5$ in my pocket. I am going to go across to this auto parts store, and I am going to get me a gallon of antifreeze and I am going to sit out in the bushes tonight and I am going to drink it.
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