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Paul Amschler
Seattle/Tacoma/homeless, WA
still married to a wonderful woman Who I have found out through good hard counseling that she was the abuser and not me. I am fighting with others to still to this day to protect her as she tries to 100% villionize me. If she wasn't afraid to let me stand up in the abuse sections for mens abuse.
Recent Activity
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Paul commented on the article |I think we need to look at the why of homeless ness. Why do people who think they are stressed through out with their kids or husbands or wives and boot them. Maybe mental ilness is a factor on both sides of the coin I won't say.
In my case I would have to say that my wife just thought I was Charlie Manson and had me removed from the house. That night I had chest pains and went to the hospital for 6 days. After getting out of the hospital (I was supposed to have a heart stent in a week and a half anyway) I had no where to go so I went to a shelter to heal up what they said had to be done but wouldn't do because I didn't have a home anymore. The same thing happened to a young Army vet who had 6 years in finished his B.S. and got sick lost his home moved into the shelter and is finishing his Masters now while at a shelter. These people need to be held accountable for what they do to others. I don't know how many stories I heard of the same type doing well get sick thrown out while in the hospital or another party is sick with a mental illness and blames you for everything wrong in the relationship, shelters are full.
Next Shelters need to be better staffed. They need staff people who give a darn about people all the time not when it is easy for them to do so. One shelter I was in had people smoking crack in the bathrooms after the dorm lights go out, shooting heroin there as well and bringing in Booze and drinking all night long. So more money for staff and staff training.
Food in the shelters is well, our dog ate better some nights, pasta, and bread just about every evening meal. No wonder those of us who have a small mental illness now have a bigger one due to poor nutrition. Yes there are groups out there that provie meals during the day but if you have a disability and can't walk up the hills your out of luck, and those that are in wheel chairs forget it.
A few weeks ago there was what most of the homeless called a Homeless Convention at Qwest Field where you could get a set of new clothes (maybe if you were there early enough 5am) and the doors opened at 9am.. hair cuts a shave coats and sleeping bags etc. was a made house by 10:30 pretty much every thing worth while was gone, and for a guy my size it was pretty much not there in the first place. I had a lot of stuff at my home before my wife went south so to speak now if things don't get better I guess half of everything is hers including her SSDI don't want to but I also want to live a few more years.
We need to have some kind of an outlet store type of store front open for the homeless pretty much year round. A lot of people in Seattle think the shelters are doing a good job but the pooper scop is the city is trying to close a few right now where will those folks go?
We need more people to get involved in the projects or start them and finish them. It is hard work and most people don't want a second job like this.
When Danetta and I worked on the Southwest Indian Reservations people would send there old clothes to use to give out same as here, but what they forget is to a rich person high heels and evening gowns don't quite cut it in the winter with out a really warm jacket. Practical stuff is what are needed.
You ask what can be done well this is a start. Be ready to fight City Hall tooth and nail because you will in most cities. I've been homeless now for almost 4 months and I have really learned what to do and what not to do in that short of time. Winter is coming and it is getting colder and soon the snows will start here and every night we have 5000 homeless on the streets of Seattle how many do you have in your city?
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Paul commented on the article |Well here in Seattle every time something like this hits the papers the police take a low profile for a few weeks then they come back with a vengeance. You should see the people men AND women who come back from a night in jail. Sweeps are a normal nightly event here I got luck and got rousted once because I had a 32 yr. old kid showing this old man how to survive on them.
As jobs become fewer and fewer there are going to be more homeless than we know what to do with which means more violance on the streets from the cops and then the gangs and the rich.
I had been abused for 7 years by my wife who keep telling me it was me but after talking to my P Doc and counselor I found out it wasn't me abusing her but her abusing me, transferring her abuse from previous men and her father on to me. Now out on the streets I still get abused almost every time I walk the streets I walk into into a store to buy food with my food card and get I over charged or asked to leave or even spit on people look at you as if you have some deadly sickness or are walking around holding your own head.
So the sweeps are just part of the city we live in. Is it right HECK no, should it Stop Heck yes will it I don't see it ever stopping 100% but we can't stop trying till the abuse stops!
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Paul commented on the article |Here in Seattle the facts are about the same. One of the shelters I was in had a Masters student living in it 6 year Army vet with no place he could afford after he got sick and spent three weeks in a hospital. Some of the illegals work day labor as well as the methadone folks who are trying to kick the heroin habit..
With a two year wait for housing and at least a 9 month wait for transitional housing there is a lot of people who just can't get off the streets.
The majority of homeless here aren't working well I guess you could call Panhandling working. Dever we'll cal him has been "banking" out in front of Macy's since Aug. making an avg of 200.00 a week. All cash money no taxes and he is one of many doing the same thing everyday.
I couldn't believe I was homeless when it happened I lost everything except what I could barely carry on my back (I have two bad shoulders and a plugged artery that needs fixing I carried the bruising on my shoulders for three weeks and still haven't had my heart fixed. WHY because I am homeless. I am staying in a safe place that my son found for me but I am still homeless and penny-less. So it isn't as easy as it seems to get off those mean streets.
If the people of Seattle knew how many homeless people walked amoung them downtown looking just like them they would be suprized. Every night there are 4500+ homeless people in Seattle a few work most don't.
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Paul commented on the article |
I have been homeless in Seattle for almost four months due to some unfortunate circamstances and stayed in tent city more than one night. It was ok but the police would harass and herang the people at all times of day and night. Where will these people go now they have pretty much closed down any place safe so there is the jungle which the na,me says it all. Muggings, murders, rapes, thefts ever thing goes on there.
I have seen on a few nights in a shelter where I could get into when the sweeps were going on people were coming in from Night Watch till 2am those nights you just don't sleep. The shelters aren't much of a shelter either just before I got out of Seattle there was a guy who had his throat slit with a box cutter by one of the shelter clients down on in another part of the building.
It was very scary on the streets of Seattle and tent city was a fairly safe place to stay now that is gone who knows.
One shelter I stayed in had the 20 year plus felons, one child molester, two rapests and only God knows what else living there. But it is worse out on the streets of Seattle.
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Paul signed the petition | -
Paul signed the petition | -
Paul commented on the article |The other night I watched a local homeless person that lives in the same shelter I do when I can get a bed in there wheel himself in totally beat to crap! He refused to talk about it but the blood that had hardened under his eye said tons to when it had happened.
Yes it would be nice to have housing to put homeless in but what about those who can't take care of themselves? There are just so many assisted living slots open in seattle and tacoma for those people who are in wheel chairs and or unable to care for themselves what about them?
We always think about the families and kids but there are tons of homeless single people out there who need protection as well.
A good set of laws set up to protect ALL homeless people that the local police will give a crap about will go a long ways. But the second part of that statement is important. the police must give a crap, more than making sure they are breathing and still kicking. A few nights ago the para-medics brought in a homeless person who was either drunk or high I don't know they took him into the shelter only to remove him in 15 minutes because the shelter wouldn't take him.
The system is broke it needs to be fixed and fixed right now before to many more people freeze to death out on the mean streets.
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Paul commented on the article |The facts given here are pretty good, endingn vetern homelessness is really one of the hardest issues today because there are so many out there from two different wars now. In the shelter where I stay most nights but not every night I have four V.N. vets and one is from the very begining of the war 1964/65, and then two or three from the present one.
One of the guy's had 15 and a half years in the corps before an IED blew up under his humvee in small ass town in IRQ 4 years ago. Yesterday was the anniversary of that day and the loss of his best friend. He has PTSD and didn't want to be around others who didn't understand, even though there were a few Viet Nam Vets who understood quite well! Way was this man in the shelter?
Because of failed policy of those in power to really take care of our wounded warriors and there families. These new wounds are different than other wars and aren't being addressed.
Next the other group of people are the homeless that are that way because of other family who are not quite right because they are not on meds or off the meds and think they are a OK. I am one of these. there should be mandatory counseling before anyone in a family whether it be a child, mother, father, or sister or brother that is living with you be put out on the streets. I think a lot of the problems could be solved with this remedy. NO it won't fix them all but it will fix more than enough of them or help to start to fix them.
Living in a shelter or out of one for the past month with no end in sight is a mind numbing life sucking event. When your 60 and just starting it, it is over whelming to say the least just watching some of the people and families lives that have been ruined because of shelter life is just to much. I have NEVER DONE drugs in my life but the thought of doing one of the more common drugs like herion is so appealing to me.....
Just in closing there is one older lady who is in the shelter because her sister just died from an infection which started when the Parks & Rec cleaning crews washed there feet with the acid for cleaning bricks with just for fun. Within two weeks her sister was dead now she wanders the halls of the shelter not speaking and just mumbling her sisters name. That is the state of Homelessness in our country.
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Paul commented on the article |
This may have a small impact in some parts of the country but here in Seattle I doubt if it would have any at all. Everyday at the shelter or where I sleep at night if I miss my bed check in someone comes in beat to crap because they are homeless. If you look homeless you are a target for violence.
When I became homeless I had less than 15 minutes to get enough things together to survive. My wife had been changing for at least 9 months and even posted that I was abusing her mentally but never physically and so out I went. I spent the next 5 days in the hospital due to heart pains, and they went ahead and did the angio gram on a part of my heart they planed to do on the 27 of July but they decided not to do it because I didn't have an adequate home to recoup so now I live on Nitro and hope.
The issues of more laws is moot until we enforce the ones we have already. When you are truly homeless the law doesn't cover you it protects those who live in houses and apartments, jobs, and loving families not us homeless. Those of us that are truly out there because of things beyond our control it is in human how we are treated.
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Paul commented on the article |Tent cities are really good if they are really run by homeless people who don't want anything of yours in exchange. You are asked to do security maybe 5 hours a month if your able or maybe help others get involved. BUT if the T.C. is corrupt you run the risk of loosing things like sleeping bags, or cooking equpiment maybe even some food if your not careful.
These are a great idea but hard to manage in a lot of ways.
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