Got my bunk bed assembled and took pillows and blankets from the car I used to live in and hot damn, pass the spam, I'm ready! I'm ready for $350 a month luxury living in my General Population homeless veterans shelter warehouse room. Classy, ain't it!
That's Anthony's urine-stained U.S. Vets issued mattress in the lower right hand corner of the picture. I met Anthony downstairs while we were in the same quad in 209. He was in the three-man room 209A while I was in three-man room 209C. Down there, twelve fresh-from-the-street bums (aka homeless U.S. military veterans) share the same toilet, shower, sink and common room. Up here, it will only be eight of us sharing the tiny latrine.
I'm a Viet Nam vet. Anthony is a Kuwait vet. I came from cracker country. Anthony from the Cleveland ghetto. Our friendship was as promising as an Edsel dealership on Three Mile Island, but we clicked. We are both Three Percenters. At this homeless veterans shelter, 70 percent of the population is recovering drug or booze addicts, 20 percent are felons fresh from prisons, 7 percent are psychos or guys too far behind in child support payments and 3 percent are 'others'. I'm proud to be a Three Percenter.
So when we both graduated the V.I.P. bootcamp for bums on the same day, we applied to the General Population property manager to get a room together. Otherwise, we might get paired up with some asshole stumblebum or worse: a Gomer.
A Gomer is a guy who has been in the same little homeless shelter room for five to ten years or longer. They have some sort of disability pension, so they don't work. They just stay in their rooms, being absorbed into the furniture like mold or barnacles.
They're like zombies. Like the walking dead. We see them once in a while in the chow hall, grabbing their food onto makeshift cardboard trays for retreat back into their black holes. Anthony and I wanted no part of living with a Gomer, so we're rooming together: for mental health reasons.
Tags: Department of Veteran Affairs, bunk bed, homeless, veterans shelter, homeless shelter, veterans programs, per diem, general population, U.S. Vets, urine-stained mattress, dorm room, dormer, U.S. military, Viet Nam, Kuwait, cracker, ghetto, Edsel, Three Mile Island, Cleveland, recovering drug addicts, felons, back child support, three percenters, Veterans In Progress, Gomers, zombies, walking dead, chow hall, black hole, mental health, bums, transients, vagabonds, hobo, tramps, panhandlers, vagrants, indigents, jarvis, marquisdejolieThat's Anthony's urine-stained U.S. Vets issued mattress in the lower right hand corner of the picture. I met Anthony downstairs while we were in the same quad in 209. He was in the three-man room 209A while I was in three-man room 209C. Down there, twelve fresh-from-the-street bums (aka homeless U.S. military veterans) share the same toilet, shower, sink and common room. Up here, it will only be eight of us sharing the tiny latrine.
I'm a Viet Nam vet. Anthony is a Kuwait vet. I came from cracker country. Anthony from the Cleveland ghetto. Our friendship was as promising as an Edsel dealership on Three Mile Island, but we clicked. We are both Three Percenters. At this homeless veterans shelter, 70 percent of the population is recovering drug or booze addicts, 20 percent are felons fresh from prisons, 7 percent are psychos or guys too far behind in child support payments and 3 percent are 'others'. I'm proud to be a Three Percenter.
So when we both graduated the V.I.P. bootcamp for bums on the same day, we applied to the General Population property manager to get a room together. Otherwise, we might get paired up with some asshole stumblebum or worse: a Gomer.
A Gomer is a guy who has been in the same little homeless shelter room for five to ten years or longer. They have some sort of disability pension, so they don't work. They just stay in their rooms, being absorbed into the furniture like mold or barnacles.
They're like zombies. Like the walking dead. We see them once in a while in the chow hall, grabbing their food onto makeshift cardboard trays for retreat back into their black holes. Anthony and I wanted no part of living with a Gomer, so we're rooming together: for mental health reasons.
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