Dave is 46 and spends most nights behind a CVS
Pharmacy. When I met him he was hanging
out on the asphalt in a parking lot behind Chipotle on Alta Arden.
He wears an old, well-worn, blue Adidas sweatshirt that is
inside out. Dave sports a full and wild beard.
“The hardest thing about this, this living out here is
private property,” Dave says while smoking a menthol cigarette “You have to leave if they ask you and
everyone owns everything. It can be
hard.”
Dave suffers from schizophrenia and leg pains. While we’re talking he gets up and stretches
occasionally, but for the most part he says that not using them is what helps
the discomfort the most.
“I have schizophrenia or at least that’s what they call it,
I’m not sure what I would call it,” Dave says.
“I guess I would call it hearing voices.
It’s caused some issues, but I think that there could be some worse
things.”
Dave isn’t the type to complain about his situation and when
I ask him about what most people complain about (cops, food, shelter and so on)
he shrugs each off.
“The cops don’t care about us unless we bother businesses,
so I don’t bother businesses,” Dave says. “When it rains I sleep underneath one
of the overhangs and I get meals from the Catholic Church on El Camino or,
sometimes, Loaves and Fishes downtown.”
It’s hard for Dave to make it downtown and he prefers to
stay in the area northeast of the Arden Fair Mall.
“I guess I came to this place naturally,” he says. “I used to work with my friend about a mile
away from here and I must have bought thousands of cups of coffee at the 76
station there.”
It’s hard to get Dave to talk about himself and when I ask
questions about where he’s from or what his life has been like I receive fairly
vague answers. What I learn is that Dave
lived in Michigan at some point in his life and he has been in Sacramento for
at least 26 years. He worked for 25
years before he found himself homeless.
I am not clear why Dave is homeless. During the time we talk he touches on his
schizophrenia and mentions that he drank heavily for quite a while.
“I find myself with the narcotics sometimes, I’m not loaded
right now,” He states clearly and in a very matter of fact tone. “I quit drinking about a year and half ago, I
used to be into that quite a lot… It wasn’t good for me, it just helped to make
everything more quiet.”
When I finish talking to Dave the impression that I’m left
with is that he might feel some regrets about where he is, but overall he seems
happy and functional. He says that there
aren’t a lot of things that he finds himself in need of.
The biggest question that he avoids outright is when I ask
him about where he sees himself in the future.
When I pose the question he gets quiet and starts to talk about the
large Bank of America building that is across the street from us.
Regardless of Dave’s future plans his situation and brief
story are interesting and helpful to illuminate the issue that is homelessness
and the people who inhabit that label.
