A house in the park.

"Roxy, look at the other dogs! Roxy! Look Roxy, look at the other dogs Roxy. Ohhhh look another friendly dog, Roxy!"

This is just one of the many people I have encountered around Glenmere Park. This one was an older lady with elastic waistband jeans. Just one of many people in the elite elastic waistband club. As utterly obnoxious as this one was, talking to her well-groomed pug as though it was a human infant, hearing her speak this was slightly endearing.

Endearing because the park takes on a different role at night.

During the day you can find more traditional park users. Runners. Joggers. Cyclists. Dog walkers. At night though, it becomes something strange. It becomes something that many people in this town are as ignorant to as talking to a dog as if it was a human being. It becomes secretive homelessness. How do I know? For a minute there, I was one of 'em.

My transition to being a VISTA with no real place to stay was a long time coming. I found my apartment in Greeley sight-unseen. I found it on Craigslist. I corresponded with my future landlord through e-mail while I still lived in Milwaukee and she painted a happy picture. Young students, living together. Cheap rent. Seemed pretty good.

It couldn't have been more far from the truth. It wasn't an apartment. It was a flop house. A goddamn rooming house. A goddamn rooming house for people who could only afford $280 a month. The cheap rent somehow justified the depravity I dealt with in that place. The nude meth abuse. The wild parties populated by high school students. The drunk driver who crashed his van into a tree in the back yard, while the police stormed through the house chasing after the guy. Finding a tenant after a suicide attempt in the bathroom. Hearing one tenant beat the everliving f*ck out of his dog for two days. Witnessing the exploitation one tenant instilled on a mentally disabled man, and his subsequent beating with a 2x4. Following the beating the mentally disabled man's truck had been shot at by what I can only guess would be a .22 calaber round... and all this punctuated by loads of funderful gang activity.

I left after the shooting.

Storing my posessions and my dog at my girlfriends house, I had a few options on places to store myself. One place was on a friends futon. Another place was with my girlfriend. The third place was a storage shed. I used all these places.

The shed was the most interesting. After brief negotiations with the currant residents, who happened to be mice, a UN style non-binding resolution was drafted which allowed me to sleep in my sleeping bag balanced on card tables. The mice were allowed to do whatever they wanted in their floor based settlements. This lasted for a little while, until I invited my dog to stay with me. This preemptive dog on mouse agression quickly ended my rodent troubles. Staying in a storage shed also gave me time to do alot of wandering around.

While wasting time I made some very interesting and wholly depressing observations. I observed that the area around Glenmere park is ideal for living in your car. Why would this be? Well, its a particularly nice area. A nice area means that not as many police need to be patrolling the streets. Its also near UNC. The majority of students own cars, and park them on the street. If there are a lot of cars consistantly parked on the street it is very easy to park your car among them and remain undisturbed.

Toward the end of the school year I took a walk abound Glenmere park. I counted seven vehicals with people sleeping in them in one go. That was the most I found, but everytime I looked it was differend cars and different people. Sometimes it was just one guy. A few times it was a young couple. Most times it was a small family.

There are families sleeping in their cars around Glenmere park, and most people here are as ignorant of the situation as an old lady babbling to a toy dog. So take a walk around town. Walk down a side street. Look into cars as if you are a punk looking to jack a car stereo. Think about what you saw when you get back to your bed.

Think about what the hell you are going to do about it.

Gain more insight from others...
http://open.salon.com/blog/david_cox/2009/06/15/cooking_in_a_coffee_pot