I knew a guy in the late 90s who checked himself into jail every winter. He just didn’t have enough money to heat his home and buy food at the same time, and he was disabled and couldn’t land a job in construction no more, so that’s the only thing he found to stay alive.
When the snow started to come down, he’d go to our local minimart with a plastic gun. You know, like the really cheesy ones with a red cap at the muzzle, to make sure nobody would think it was real and gun him down my mistake, and to avoid getting a harsh sentence. He knew the store owner, since it was a small town and everybody knew each other.
He’d say hello, point the gun at him and gently say “Could you please call the police like last year?” The store owner used to try to talk him out of it, but he’d say “Don’t force me to make it real because I don’t wanna.”
Then the sheriff would show up - they knew each other too of course - and he would try to convince him this wasn’t a good idea. And the guy would say “Look, will you book me or not? Because if you don’t, you’ll come back next week to my place but with the coroner this time.”
So the sheriff would book him. And the judge, who knew exactly why he was there at the trial, would sentence him to 5 months - time enough to get out in spring.
After I left town, I heard he kept doing that for many years, until he got tired of being poor and committed suicide.
Well that story just got bleaker with each sentence
I lived in Austin, TX and used to know a homeless guy, Walter Dwight Green 1955, back in '98 that spent winters in jail for public intoxication for the same reasons.
Including name, in case anyone else knew him and wants to chat. He was originally from Kentucky.
I was a teenager at the time but I tried to help him as much as I could.
I had to leave town for a year, when I came back, I found out he froze to death in the winter I was gone.
Didn’t know your Walter, but a family member of mine was a corrections officer at a small town jail in Podunk Tennessee. 17k people in the whole county, and each winter the jail would triple their numbers for this exact reason. First snow’s coming, time to buy 50 bucks of booze and get lodging for the winter. Fucking horrible people have to do that. I’ve been desperate. Like, living in a shack with no plumbing, no electric, and by the grace of God and some clever shop lifting a propane heater to keep 4 of us warm in 110 square feet in -26 degrees level of desperate. I can’t imagine being so desperate as to willingly go to jail. Which just shows despite all that, how fucking lucky I am. I worked in commissary, family members have been jailers and cops. It’s better than freezing to death, of course, but no one should ever have to make that choice. Housing is a right, and our laws need to catch the fuck up with that.
God bless this pitiful country.
I know someone that got shot by the cops with one of those toy guns…
In older times you could ask any grocrey store and they’d direct you to a place in back where they give away their just-expired food. But now they’re salting their throwaways. ERs are supposed to not turn you away, and if they do it might justify stealing food.
Find out how the police respond to homeless people in your area (fellow transients will know). Some will help you out while others will be glad to assault you knowing no one will care.
Religious kitchens will force you to convert. In the old days, it was easier to play along, but I dont knownwhat the new methods of coercion are. They’re a lot more abusive and bigoted now.
ind out how the police respond to homeless people in your area
Just a reminder that the Supreme Court just recently affirmed that it is legal to punish people for being homeless.
Religious kitchens will force you to convert.
All what they say is a lie? /s
I think its funny (incredibly depressing) how disability doesnt scale with cost of living in your local area. Like my disabled mother makes about $1K a month off SSI and she lives in CA luckily with family.
She would be in this same situation if she had to move tomorrow. I aint doing much better but even working a job I dont make enough to rent here so we will have to find a way out together.
Were both those locations supposed to be CA?
Yeah my bad I was just trying to articulate that stuck feeling that most people have if they cant really afford to leave or stay. She would lose pretty much everything she ever owned if she had to leave.
We have to focus on mutual aid. Identity politics of either major party seems very much designed to be this way, and maybe of any party that makes it onto a ballot.
What about the ER? Get yourself checked in for a mental breakdown or the like, stay the night. It’s not like they will be able to collect on the bill if your income is measured in cents per day and your address is “under the overpass near that one busy intersection.”
As a realistic answer that hopefully no one needs, stealing food and shelter is probably more comfortable than prison. Just do that, and if you get caught then mission accomplished anyway.
How do you steal shelter? Squatting?
Find a camping store and steal a tent.
Dude living in a tent fucking sucks if you’re trying to hold a job and not on a distance hike. Even distance hiking it sucks, lean-to’s are absolutely preferred. But yea I guess it’s better than nothing
I’d argue it’s not the tent itself that sucks as much as the lack of access to things like toilet, shower, and electricity.
Punch a USPS driver… It’s a feddie to assault a federal worker… I would definitely reach out to some mutual aid groups first though. Prison isn’t very fun and I can’t imagine not very entertaining if you can’t read.
drugs are illegal and plentiful in the US. Purchase them and if not arrested stock up as an alternate option.
Other than being white, how can I make it from the arrest to prison alive?
mmm. thats a tough one, but either way. Problem solved.
Take grim comfort that police killing people is noteworthy enough to make the news, you’ll prolly be fine!
Traffic ticket, hearing, then insult the judge until contempt of court.
Shit, I would look at it another way. What other time in history could someone ask this. Its not like prisons in the fifties had wheelchair ramps.
wow america is really a mess of a country :(
unironically, dying is a ditch cold is probably safer than being in a prison/jail as a disabled person lmao.
Maybe you could clock into a ward or something? That’s probably a better option.
One does not simply clock into a ward
obviously not, but judging by some of the other comments, and the above post, that might be possible for this individual.
