Our Homeless Experience part 3: Water.

in #homelessexperience7 years ago (edited)

Seems like the easiest thing in the world to get, water. It comes out of your tap, stores give it away at fountain, even resturants do not charge for a tall glass of it.

You'd think, with our bodies being made up of 60% water, and our brains and hearts being more than 70% water, that it would be considered a substance so necessary for human life, it would be a human right.

Some do not agree.

"Declaring water a right is extreme. Water is a foodstuff best valued and distributed as a part of the free market."

-Peter Brabeck, former CEO at Nestle'.

He's still a Chairman there.

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We live alongside one of the largest freshwater lakes on Earth. 10% of all the planets freshwater is in that lake.

But don't think you can just drink from it. A couple of years ago a German shipping company was caught dumping refuse into the lake.

And Trump has cut funding to the Great Lakes Restoration, an initiative to clean up the pollution left by ahem previous generations.

But I digress.

Back to the point

What does water have to do with homelessness?

The answer is, pretty much everything.

I was personally fortunate enough to have an R.V. as our safe space. So, we needed water for the dogs and us to drink, cooking, cleaning and washing up. Especially in hot summer months.

We did not have a place to hook up and use the water system on the camper, and the previous owner warned me not to use the onboard tank as it will leak.

So all of those needs had to be met externally, including a means to cool down. Minnesota is an emo state. One day it will be 40° and the next it's 90° with a chance of tornadoes.

We spent a lot of time in the lakes, keeping ourselves and the dogs cool. I taught the kids to use sand to scrub their skin clean. Haha, our skin was so soft last summer!

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I would purchase ten one gallon bottles of water every couple of days. Certain grocery stores will let you refill them for a large discount, .39 cents each.

These we would fill our plastic drink cups with, cook rice and macaronie and even take rudimentary showers.

It felt criminal, hiding behind the camper in the middle of the night so as not to get caught washing my child's hair.

Getting the water itself was an ordeal. The maintenance guy for the shopping center the grocer was in would come and park right next to my camper and wait for me to come back out and leave.

Does that sound paranoid? I'd agree if it had happened once, or twice or maybe even half a dozen times. But it was every. Single. Time.

That wasn't the only type of harassment from him, but he is a blog all to himself.

Another issue, with no running water, was that I had no working potty on board with three little kids.

Yikes.

Our city has a large homeless population, and I'm sure you've all seen these signs now and then...

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In our city they're everywhere. And the persons working at such establishments cannot be pursuaded, even by a five-year-old with this face, frantically doing the potty dance with tears in her eyes.

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We became well known by the staff of Walmart, which was terribly embarassing, but we lived through that shame.

When the kids started school I had to tell them I had no address to give, and they responded by offering us their showers. Oh, to take a hot shower again! So simple, and so fucking vital. I cried, the kindness was so welcome.

So please, if you think about it, bring water to your local foodshelf. Every once in a rare while the foodshelf here would have some. Two 20 oz bottles per family.

You have no idea how much peace of mind you will bring to a family in need.

If you made it this far, thank you. 💜

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Water is absolutely a human right. These CEOs saying otherwise and making huge profit by running our lakes dry should be charged with crimes against humanity. I have to say, being poor makes us resourceful- I speak from experience.

Any decent city should have easy access to free drinking water, plenty of garbage bins, free toilets and cheap showers - not only for the poor, but for everyone. Even when being filthy rich, one does need to do the number one and number two from time to time, and it's not always convenient to combine it with a cup of coffee or a snack. (I do tend both to drink too much and eat too much, when what I really want is just electricity, toilet, drinking water, a place to sit or stand with my laptop and wireless network).

Some people do need to see the toilet more frequently than others. Personally I do tend to get problems if I drink too much coffee or tea, sometimes I start feeling the needs for a new visit only 15 minutes after last time I was peeing.

For a period, my son had some kind of health problem, he needed to pee very frequently, sometimes as often as every 15th minute. Luckily it's relatively easy for a 5yr old boy to just pee almost wherever, but taking the metro was often a challenge ... and I do remember being at the central station, I was so angry when I saw they had increased the price for a toilet visit, from 10 NOK to 20 NOK. The toilets are for free on the trains, on the central station it is frequently possible to jump onboard a train, see the toilet quickly, and jump off again before the train moves.

I read in the newspaper about one guy that had severe chronic stomach problems, it was such a handicap for him, his whole life was ruined due to his frequent needs to see the toilet. He basically had no choice other than to stay at home. Last time he tried doing something with his kids he ended up shitting on himself while standing in a toilet queue :-(

Anyway, I do understand that it's not easy to run free toilets. Toilets do need cleaning and maintenance. There are differences between people that are "just" homeless and real bums - unfortunately it seems like some people deliberately do what they can to sabotage. I think we had an experiment with free toilets in Oslo, and unfortunately it did not work out :-(

Cultures are different, in parts of China all toilets are public, and it does work out relatively well. That is, as long as the toilets are without seats - once they install toilets with seats there are plenty of people that rather want to stand on the ring while doing their stuff instead of sitting on it :-(

A Porta-Potti should be simple and easy to use, and clones of the original Porta-Potti are cheaply available.

Of course they do need to be emptied ... and preferably not in the lake :p

At least it should be possible to dump it in the forest, or even in a regular toilet. With a water toilet and a waste tank I suppose one probably has to pay to empty it?

I'd recommend fixing or replacing the water tank in your camper. One can buy flexible plastic tanks, they can fit almost anywhere and are easy to install.

Thank you for the reminder to bring water to the food bank as well. Reading this makes me so happy that you are getting the new place. <3
Water is a right...it is so sad how we are destroying it:( I am sorry you ever felt shame for needing help, I wish everyone could have empathy. Xoxo

i go to fast food places a lot to get my water. it plays a big part to my diet. stay strong and thanks for sharing this post i enjoyed it.

My heart broke as you described your children being denied the right to use the restroom. I'm so very happy that you and your children will soon have a roof over your head and space to call your own. You've been through a lot mama, keep your head up, you're doing great! 💞

Water is life. It's everything. Keep the faith @hickorymack. Praying for you and your kids to be always safe day and night.

I never realized that the food banks don’t receive water. I’ll remember to bring some next time I do a drop. Praying for you guys.

You just planted 4.70 tree(s)!


Thanks to @khackett

We have planted already 6181.35 trees
out of 1,000,000


Let's save and restore Abongphen Highland Forest
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Plant trees with @treeplanter and get paid for it!
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@martin.mikes coordinator of @kedjom-keku
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keep your spam out of articles! Write an own article instead!

Edit: I am sorry for my bad mistake. This is not spam, but me a s**** beginner. Peace! :)

Hi hi! This isn't spam. I used an upvote bot to give @hickorymack an extra vote from me. How about you buzz off and leave this poor woman alone. Your comments are highly inappropriate.
And my flags are bigger than yours. 🙃

Ok lady. It was my fault. And now you have censored my post: https://steemit.com/photography/@kelte/let-s-take-a-rest-buddy The picture of my pets is no longer visible. I have made a mistake, flagging what I meant to be spam. Now I am disappointed of this whole thing and will do as you like: I will "leave this poor woman" and you alone and will unfollow her. Thanks again for censorship, hhackett. You showed me, how easy censorship is at steemit, if one has enough bucks.

I had already removed my flag before you commented. I also upvoted another post of yours that I really liked. Not trying to be a hard ass friend, it's just been a long day and I wasn't in the mood for this. Be sure to fully read and understand what you see on here, and ask questions if you don't. We're all human and we all make mistakes. 🤷

Thank you so much, lady! You are very nice. It was completely my fault! I have learned a lot from you already! Thank you! :)

ok, I am very sorry. I am a beginner and made a mistake. I have upvoted your comment. Me beginner also wanted to help the author. Maybe my other comments were inappropriate, but that is just an opinion. Peace, khackett! Thanks, I'm learning from you.

and treeplanter also got my upvote, although my beginners voting-power is down at 63%. Can you recommend reading on steemit best practice? Is it good for the authors earnings, if there are many comments for an article? Does it matter at all?

I don't believe it matters how many comments there are on a post.
If your voting power is at 63%, let it rest for a while. It recharges slowly over time. Ideally, you don't want to dip below 80% vp in a day so that by the next day you're at 100% again. Hope that helps. 🙂

Thanks, i know that already, but can't help but upvote some authors. Thanks for reply! I am really very sorry about my stupid mistake. And will stay away from this steemit platform for a while.

Now now, don't do that! Everyone is welcome here, I didn't mean to scare you off. I was cranky earlier. bitmoji200978686.png

Wow! you are so nice. Forgive me! It was my mistake. Thank you so much for your kind reply! :)

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