According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, a report in 2017 revealed that there are over 554,000 homeless people in the United States.
Over 34% of this number makes up women and children, with the amount of displaced people in the West Coast increasingly rising at alarming rates. When people think of homelessness, immediately the mind may go to those who are living on the streets, dirty, unemployed, suffering from mental illness, or substance abuse; however, this is not the only face of homelessness in our country.
Our homeless population includes people who are seemingly able-bodied and sound of mind, who are just unable to hold down a job or exist in corporate and conventional spaces. These people are creatives, artists, free spirits, gifted minds, and entrepreneurs who often operate from a space of passion that rejects any level of capitalistic control. Oftentimes, these individuals are accused of being lazy, prideful, unmotivated, broke, and destitute.
The emotional, mental, cultural, economical, and energetic effects on these individuals are detrimental, and disempowering to say the least.
As someone who currently faces this very scary reality, I know that it is hard to find someone that can understand your inability to fit in certain modes without judgement or projection. I recently left NY after being screwed out of $1,900 by my landlord, and left homeless. Before moving to the West Coast, I spent weeks going back and forth from couch to crash pad because I had nowhere to live. I almost slept at the Port Authority one night and shared a bed with my father a few nights. With the weather being too cold in New York at this time of year, I knew that I could not survive the winter in this way.
Many people in my life, don't understand why I don't just go back to bartending like I have been for years. It becomes so exasperating to explain to people who cannot understand that my spirit will no longer allow me to do things that it is not aligned with.
I am currently living in a hostel, where I am struggling to keep my bed every week. I have considered the idea of an LA shelter just to save money until I can secure a viable income. The reason I felt inspired to write this piece was because I felt judged by one of my roommates in the same living arrangements as me who told me I was being "prideful" for not doing what I used to. That triggered my memory of freezing to death behind that bar in a corset, fishnets, and booty shorts, fighting off gross advances of sleazy men trying to get me back to their hotel room after my shift every single day.
This read will share some encouraging words of practical and emotional advice for those who will need it most, in a world where sticking to your ultimate truth pigeonholes you as a "bum."
1. First Thing First:
If you are facing immediate displacement, find shelter right away. Surely due to your free-spirited nature, pride and ego has already been checked at the door. Ask friends and family for a couch or spare room to crash in. If you don't have that option, there are also low cost hostel-type accommodations with crashpad beds starting as low as $15 a night in some states. You can find them on Airbnb. If your financial situation is more dire, call 211 for resources. Get inside, warm, and safe.
2. Get Some Government Cheese:
If you haven't done so already, utilize every resource your state has to offer in EBT, cash assistance, and health care. In some states, you will be able to take home food stamps the same day, as well as emergency cash assistance. There are some programs that will get you into "transitional living," and pay for all or part of your accommodations, depending on your situation.
3. Ask for Help:
Don't be afraid to ask for help. If you need cash, just to get through the next week, do not be above asking for it directly. Post your plight on Facebook groups that support women or artists specifically. Asking for advice might get you some leads to not only jobs and housing, but may also move someone to donate to your situation. I posted my situation to a woman's group on Facebook and was offered donations that helped me pay for another week at the hostel.
4. Try Crowdfunding:
You could start a campaign on platforms like GoFundMe to share with your family and friends. You would be surprised who could help you and these platforms also allow for strangers to get involved.
5. Travel Light:
If you are going to be moving around, take with you only what you need. Free yourself of excess belongings. If you can afford it, put the big things in storage. If you don't have that in your budget, sell anything that is worth money that you absolutely don't need. It is all material. If you let it go, the universe will eventually return that blessing threefold.
6. Securing Supplemental Income:
It is likely that your passions, art, or entrepreneurial business is not paying all of the bills. It is also likely that you engage in whatever that is because, on an energetic level, your mind, body, and spirit rejects working a "regular" job where you hustle to contribute to someone else's dream whilst being disrespected, underappreciated, overworked, and underpaid. Find an industry that you can stomach with the understanding that even that is temporary, but ALWAYS stay true to yourself and listen to your gut. Use this income to stay housed and invest in your passion.
7. Use Social Apps For Temporary Work:
Apps like Postmates, Taskrabbit, Uber/Lyft, and Rover (Dog Walking) can bring in some cash. If you have a license, Lyft will give you a free car to start driving. There are also freelancers sites where you can put your creative proficiencies to work. Try websites like Upwork and Fiverr. There are also a bunch of private and closed groups on Facebook that make up a network of creative and artistic people. "Inspired Women of Los Angeles" is a group that I am in.
8. Don't Beat Yourself Up:
Know that you have untied and deactivated a lot of societal conditioning. Many of us have been taught that in order to be successful, we have to follow one modality upwards. That same route leaves so many people unhappy and unfulfilled by the end of 50 years of their working lives. Pat yourself on the back for freeing your spirit and living from your heart center guided by intuition. Don't measure your external success and worth with the same measuring stick of someone who punches the clock everyday.
9. Use Meditation to Soothe Your Soul:
Going against the grain of social norms can be hard, but don't lose hope. Use meditation and positive affirmations to keep your spirits up, your mind grounded, and your morale afloat. Giving yourself daily pep talks will help you deal with feelings of inadequacy or failure.
10. Don't Worry, This is Temporary:
Keep writing, keep creating, keep doing whatever it is you do. Don't let your circumstances spoil your spirit to the point that you give up on your purpose. Stand your ground. Continue to find inspiration.
You are the master, the creator of your energetic reality. If you create it from fear, reality will respond accordingly. If you create it from trust and surrender, you will receive everything you desire and more.
- How to Survive Being Homeless | Mental Floss ›
- 10 Survival Tricks Learned from Homeless People ›
- How to Be Homeless: Short Guide for Survival ›
- 10 Survival Tricks Learned from the Homeless - Primal Survivor ›
- 11 Survival Tricks Learned from Homeless People - Ask a Prepper ›
- Homeless Survival : Practical Tips And Advice Derived From ... ›
- 16 Homeless Survival Tips For How To Survive On The Streets - SF ... ›
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A life coach by the name of Thomas Leonard once said that “Clarity affords focus” and, believe you me, when it comes to dealing with other human beings, if you don’t get clear on where you stand when it comes to your interactions with them, you can very easily find yourself “focusing too much” on those who don’t deserve it and too little on those who absolutely do. And y’all, this lil’ PSA couldn’t be more relevant than when it comes to what I call “casual friendships.”
Let’s dig — and for some of us, dig our way out of — what it means to have a casual friend, so that you can get clear on if you really need those in your life…and if so…why?
Article continues after the video.
It Can’t Be Said Enough: Always Remember What “Casual” Means
GiphyThere’s a reason why I decided to share two videos by mental health coach Isaiah Frizzle at the top and bottom of this article. It’s because a lot of what he shares in both of them complements a piece that I wrote for the platform last year entitled, “This Is Just What Purposeful Relationships Look Like.”
It’s the author M. Scott Peck who once said, “Until you value yourself, you won't value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it” and please believe that the older (and hopefully more mature) you get, the more you tend to see just how valuable — and fleeting — time is; and that is what plays a huge role in motivating you want to only involve yourself with people, places, things and ideas that will honor your time — and when something is casual? In my opinion, it’s highly debatable that it’s worth much of your months, days, hours, or even too many of your minutes.
The main reason why is addressed in an article that I wrote back in the day entitled, “We Should Really Rethink The Term 'Casual Sex.'” The gist? When it comes to relationships, “casual” is certainly not a favorite word of mine because I know what it means. Have mercy — why would you want to invest your time, energy, and emotions into something that is, by definition, apathetic, indifferent, careless, lacking emotional intimacy, and/or is without purpose?
I don’t know about y’all but that sounds like a complete and total crap shoot to me — especially if you are going to go so far as to consider this type of dynamic a true friendship (check out “Ever Wonder If A Friend Is Just...Not That Into You?,” “6 Signs You're About To Make A Huge Mistake In Making Them A Close Friend,” “5 Signs Of A Toxic Friendship That Is Secretly Poisoning Your Life,” “12 Friend Facts That Might Cause You To Rethink (Some Of) Your Own,” and “Less & Less Of Us Have Close Friends These Days. Why Is That?” ).
To me, when you decide to call someone “friend,” it means that they are loyal, reliable, consistent, trustworthy and willing to be there to support you to the very best of their ability — even if it’s inconvenient to do so sometimes (check out “Life Taught Me That True Friendships Are 'Inconvenient'”). How in the world can you expect that from something that has the word “casual” in it?
And you know what? That actually segues into my next point about casual friendships pretty darn well.
Ponder the Purpose “Casual Friends” Serve in Your Life
GiphyA couple of years ago, Verywell Mind published an article entitled, “How the 4 Types of Friendship Fit Into Your Life.” The four that it listed were acquaintances (which I actually don’t consider to be friends; check out “6 Differences Between A Close Acquaintance And An Actual Friend”), casual friends, close friends, and lifelong friends. After reading the piece, I think they consider casual friends to be the “pleasure” friends that I mentioned in the article, “According To Aristotle, We Need ‘Utility’, ‘Pleasure’ & ‘Good’ Friends.”
And although I certainly get that, I think my “cause for pause” is calling those people “friends” when they probably should be called something like an associate or possibly even a buddy instead. Why do I feel this way? Well, I’ve shared in other articles that I think social media has jacked up vocabulary words and their true meaning on a billion different levels.
Take “friend,” for example. Facebook had us out here calling everyone we connected to on their platform “friends” when some of them, we’ve never even spoken to before — and I personally think that influenced, affected and perhaps even infected our psyche to the point where we will call folks, both online and off, “friend” even when they haven’t earned it and/or who possibly don’t deserve it.
That said, do I think that we all could use lighthearted interactions that don’t go very deep and are filled with not much more than fun? Sure. However, if we were to move this over into a sexual thing — those types of people would probably be called a sneaky link, and there is nothing significant or substantial about ‘em. In fact, if anything pretty much automatically comes with an expiration date, sneaky links would have to be it.
And that’s kind of the point that I’m trying to make about a casual friend — so long as you know that the word “casual” is being used to describe them, while you may enjoy the people who fit that bill, they aren’t really anything that you can or even should fully rely on. Instead, take them for what they are and don’t really expect much more than that. Otherwise, you could be in for some profound levels of disappointment. And who wants that?
Final point.
How a Casual Friend Can Become a Huge Red Flag
GiphyI’m telling you, y’all gonna quit clowning Tubi. LOL. To me, the best way to describe it is it’s the Cricket of current streaming apps. What I mean by that is, back when Cricket (the cell phone service) first came out, people, like me, who used it service got incessantly clowned because it was seen as a bootleg provider. Now it’s owned by AT&T, and as someone who has rocked with them since I was in my 20s, I don’t have one regret for doing so. Cricket has always been good to me, chile.
And Tubi? Well, when you get a chance, check out CNBC’s article, “CEO at 33, Tubi’s Anjali Sud on success hacks she learned at Amazon, IAC on way to top of Fox streaming” — take note of the moves the streaming app is making and the quality of programming that is transpiring in real time.
Anyway, I find myself bringing up Tubi more and more in my content because it helps to amplify some of the points that I like to make. This time, it’s a movie that’s (currently) on there calledRight Man, Wrong Woman. If you haven’t seen it before, I don’t want to give too much of the film away. What I will say is that the main female character, she had a casual friend and then she had a close friend.
That casual friend—the one who liked to kick it all of the time—was a lot of fun; however, dealing with her came with a ton of semi-unforeseen consequences. Meanwhile, the close friend? She’s what the Aristotle article (that I mentioned earlier) would call the “good friend” because she tried her best to hold her friend accountable.
And really, it shouldn’t be a shock that the casual friend turned out to be a plum trip because if someone is loads of entertainment and pleasure and yet they are indifferent towards you, they make careless decisions around you and/or they don’t really make known the purpose for you being in their life other than to pass some time — where really do you and that person have to go past drinks after work or dinner on a rooftop restaurant from time to time? And if that is all that the two of you are doing, again, why are they deserving of the word “friend”?
Hmph and don’t get me started on the lack of reciprocity that typically transpires when it comes to dealing with people like this because, while they won’t mind you spending your coins on them, taking their calls in the middle of the night or listening to all of their issues — when it comes time for them to show up for you, they very well may gaslight you into thinking that you are being dramatic, clingy or “doing the most.” Why? Well, it’s mostly because the two of you never really established what the hell the both of you are to one another.
And so, while you’re somewhere taking them seriously, they are out here seeing you casually, and as much as it might hurt to hear, that doesn’t automatically or necessarily make them a bad person. You shouldn’t expect much where no clarity is involved. After all, casual is just that: CASUAL.
____
I’m hoping that you can now see why I entitled this piece in the way that I did. It’s because a red flag is pretty much a warning, and to me, a casual friend is about as big of an oxymoron (again, to me) as casual sex is. Friends and sex are both too intimate to be seen or treated casually. Oh, but if you step out and take that risk, you could find yourself getting far more involved than the other individual ever wanted to go, because casual is how things have always been. “Friend” was simply to get you more mentally and emotionally invested. SMDH.
American columnist Walter Winchell once said, “A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out.” A wise person once said, “One good friendship will outlive forty average loves." Former President Ulysses S. Grant once said, “The friend in my adversity I shall always cherish most. I can better trust those who helped to relieve the gloom of my dark hours than those who are so ready to enjoy with me the sunshine of my prosperity.” Does any of this sound casual to you? Yeah, me neither.
Again, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t have people in your life who aren’t on deep levels. I’m just saying that you might want to consider putting them into another category than friend, because what friends do for people? There ain’t nothin’ even remotely casual about it, sis. Not even a lil’ bit.
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