Sleeping

Trying to find a place to sleep at night is always a challenge as a homeless person. There are many things that you have to consider when you are ready to go to sleep at night.

First of all the weather, you certainly want to find a spot that will provide a certain amount of cover from rain, if it suddenly starts raining at 2am. I was the victim of getting soaked in the middle of the night more times than I care to think about. The only problem finding a place that has cover, 9 out of 10 times you are trespassing and are sleeping on a porch or near a vacant building. The vacant building option was my choice for a long time, I had a place that was dark and covered and thankfully the police didn't drive by it every night looking to find a homeless person to pick on.

Secondly, you need a place where you feel safe. Alot of people say there's safety in numbers when it comes to sleeping at night on the street. I never felt comfortable sleeping with a large group of people around me. Alot of times you were stuck in a group of drinkers, smokers, or just plain loud assholes who would stay up most of the night doing the activities I just mentioned. So I simply would sleep by myself in a quite dark place. I knew that I was vulnerable to someone walking up on me and beating the shit out of me or worse. But my logic was, if I was in a large group sleeping the same thing could happen there also, and besides who says that just because you're in a large group that someone in that group is going to help you if some dumbshit decides to walk up and beat the shit out of you?

Another thing you need to consider when looking for a place at night, you want to stay out of the view of the police if at all possible. The police in most citys especially Fort Lauderdale, have a reputation for fucking with the homeless in the middle of the night. For some reason they get off waking people up at 2-3am and giving them a bunch of shit for sleeping. Hell, they even fuck with you when you are sleeping under a tree in daylight. I guess they feel that homeless men and women are without need of sleep and to them sleeping is a huge crime. I was woke up many night by cops that felt they needed to fuck with someone. And the dumbest thing about it, the first thing they ask you as soon as they wake you, "What you doing?". I was sleeping officer, but I guess its time for me to get up now and start the day. Thanks alot.

Finally, you want a place where you don't have to walk 10 miles to go to sleep each night and then have to walk that distance to go back into the downtown area. It's hard enough walking around all day, but then to have to walk a huge distance at night, that's a real bummer. I was fortunate to have a bike most of my time on the street, so I was able to travel easier, but for a lot of homeless walking is all they have and when you are burned out from all the daytime walking, you sure don't want to have to walk forever to get to a place to sleep at night.

Sleep tight my homeless friends.