Atlanta's Cast of Homeless Characters (foreclosed, credit, how much)

[koko339]

Having lived here for a number of years, the sad fact is that you get used to seeing a certain set of presumably homeless people intown.

Virginia Highland has the old white guy with a ton of stuff living on the bench in front of Highland Hardware.

The Ansley Mall area has the old black man with the crazy bald/dread situation.

Boulevard/Ponce has a multitude but I think the most famous is the really short guy dancing with a Big Gulp cup.

Anyone know their stories?

[silvermouse5150]

The old dude with bald and dread situation, does he have what seems like an abnormally large head? And lots of grey hair?
I used to see him all the time downtown. I wonder if he has moved to the the Ansley Mall area?

There is a short bald asian dude roaming downtown and woodruff park area I see often. I once saw him sitting down and hitting on some young gal with a fed-ex shirt on, his game must have been working, cause she was laughing and not looking to move away.

[midtown mile girl]

The old dude with bald and dreads I have seen around ansley mall. There seem to be quite a few panhandlers popping up along peachtree in midtown.
There is a woman that sits on a bench on peachtree street across from the Jones Day building that has been there for about a year. She has a bunch of blue bags around her.
I no longer see the old woman in buckhead who stood on the sidewalk and screamed.

[Plokivos]

I live in "DC". And this is my story.

A homeless man. Young guy, with shiny blue eyes, maybe a cocky 30 something, still demanding things on the side walk, not knowing this world doesn't pay out because you demand it, as I first thought. Maybe he could of been someone who appears on those infomercials, or someone who can be on MTV award shows, as I thought.

I ask him if he tried to reach out to Veterans Affairs (VA), and he said he did. He thinks I'm a weirdo, so **** it, I invite him to get some drinks nearby. We go to Clydes and I get him drunk, and I'm drunk too. The bartender is awesome. I spill about 300 or so with this homeless person. I get him some food to go and all that good stuff that people who's full of **** does.

We go outside and I ask him, "what the **** happened?" because I'm curious, because I should of been there. Maybe I should of been there to help him. But more importantly, I'm curious. I'm not a good person in this way, but I'm a good person knowing how to see the bigger picture so this doesn't exist in our society.

He finally opens up without being so hard nuk ****ing street ******* he needs to be.

Something like 6 months after he could no longer use his legs, he was let out of the system. His sister was taking care of him, but it was too much burden for his sister and her husband and two kids. So he left. He was on the street. He can't get anything to ease the pain.

The government, and the system has completely, by law, destroyed him after he has served our country. No job will hire him because when they ran his background check, it came out "bad" because he had a bad history.

He even showed me his tattoos, and how it was right to serve the country at that time. I didn't believe him. I didn't believe him until I saw that tattoo, and I knew he wasn't lying because I knew that tattoo, and where it was. Because I've seen this tattoo before from a friend. At this point, I was sad. Then he told me more thing about how much society was screwed up.

At the end of the night, he looked cold, and I felt like a ****ing *******. I took off of my Polo shirt and gave it to him. He was only wearing a very thin black t-shirt and he was going to sleep at the Metro.

I didn't even know he had false legs beneath his jeans. I just thought it was just the war injury about how awkwardly he walked. I just didn't ask about it.a

And here is me, giving him a ****ing shirt... what an idiot.

He was a homeless person, after serving this country. And I was the person who made good money, and had the freedom to wonder about what I should do next with my easy life.

I felt sick, then I threw up in front of the National Portrait Museum.

____


There was this one guy who was sitting near a tree by the bar that everyone who use to go (Liberty Tavern), and I gave him a $50 to tell me about his story, and he said, his wife died of cancer, and he had to pay for all that and he lost all of his savings and money trying to save his wife, but she died anyway. He said, the hospital bill after his wife died was so much that his house foreclosed thus ruining his credit and he was fired from his work for missing so many days to see his wife in the hospital.

He was just there, sitting there, not being pushy, or yelling, just a 50 something guy begging for change, so he can eat to survive or drink to help with his alcoholism.

I don't believe the homeless people. They'll just make up stories. And I don't trust them. The only reason I gave him the money was to make myself feel better.

But it literally tore me apart later. I think it was because it took me a while to actually assess the situation and look his name up online to realize that what he was telling me was true. And he was right to tell me everything about him, because at that point, what do you have to lose?
____


I have more from Atlanta. That one guy from Varsities when I was having a car meet with my buddies. Oh god... I never want to revisit that again.