I used to think the hardest part about homelessness was not having a home. My assumption was that the worst part of it all had to be sleeping outside, and once someone simply gained access to a place to live it would help them “get back on their feet” again.

The hardest part about being homeless isn’t not having a home.

I don’t even think it’s sleeping outside. It’s that the deck to get out is not stacked in your favor.  That’s why temporary homelessness can often turn into a much more permanent sense of hopelessness.

A climb off the streets is challenging, complex, and branches are few and far between. As I mentioned recently when processing a vision for a Different Kind of Ministry, few things transform someone’s life the way immersing yourself into their situation can.

And in my experience this immersion has a way of quickly leading you into a surprisingly complex and complicated web.

“Do you want to grab coffee?”

She wasn’t that close of a friend, and had been somewhat distant in the past.

Thank God (literally) when we slow down and pay attention, our own needs and schedules aren’t the only factors considered in how we should spend our time. He is love, so love is the Priority.

My friend needed more than a cup of coffee; she was in a crisis. She explained how her husband was mentally ill and needed to pick-up his medication from the State. But the medication had been less important than more pressing needs over the past two months, and the lack of chemical consistency was starting to show itself in scary ways.

She wasn’t allowed to communicate with anyone but him. She wasn’t even permitted to leave the tent without him.

After we talked it was clear they needed to find housing, that she had a deep desire to regain custody of her children, and that her husband needed medication.  I asked of the three issues, which one do you think is most important for us to address first? She immediately replied, “the third one.”

So we spent the day tackling problem #3.

I thought this would clearly be the easiest to accomplish of the three, and would simply involve me driving to a pharmacy and providing them the necessary prescription money. Nope.

The medication was through the State, which meant there was only one hospital that could give us what we needed. So we drove 20 minutes together through traffic to an overcrowded Medical Center, where we waited for an hour in line. I assumed what we were waiting in line for was the prescription. Wrong again. What we were waiting for was the opportunity to talk with someone who would ask financial qualification questions, so we could be admitted into another room filled with people in chairs. We then waited in that next room for another hour.

As we sat there I began making mental notes of how difficult it would have been for my friends to accomplish this day on their own, even from just a financial perspective. Parking was $10 and bus fare would have been the same. There were no shelters in this part of town so unless they ate at a restaurant, which would have cost even more than the prescription, they would have had to go all day without eating.

A woman from the Medical Center insisted that in order to receive free prescription fills through the State, we needed to have a letter with us that “would have been mailed to the place of residence.” My friends had no choice but to explain to her in front of the others that their residence was a tent located in a deserted railroad site. The woman asked that I vouch for them, which felt like it communicated my word was worth more than theirs. Were they too tired, too smelly, too poor, or too inarticulate to speak on their own behalf? This made me sad.

Homelessness really does start to feel like a deck of cards. And it’s heavy.

Eventually the doctor approved the prescription to be filled, which we were told would take 3-4 hours based on demand. I needed some fresh air and suggested that while we wait, we grab some lunch and visit local shelters to see if any had openings. None did. They all had waiting lists several months out, were completely full, or had programs we didn’t qualify for (all male/female shelters don’t accept married couples).

This was an exhausting day but I was still holding it together until: we returned for the prescription and the doctor asked for my friend’s ID.

I watched as my friend reached into his bag and pulled out – no joke – a deck of cards.

He silently grabbed the top “card” off the deck from inside the box: his Driver’s License.

It was then and there that hot tears started to well up in my eyes. As if everything these people were facing wasn’t enough, they had to hide their IDs in a place of seemingly little value in case they got jumped.

The doctor reviewed the ID and give it back to my friend, who quickly placed it back into the deck.

Speechless.

This experience is etched in my mind. It’s a painful reminder for me of the many layers of homelessness. There are so many more things to fight and fear when homeless than just sleeping outside…probably even more than 52.