“Get out.”
“What?”
“You heard me. Get out!”
These were the last words Erica heard from her boyfriend before she found herself homeless.
Erica has been homeless for three months now and came to get help at Friday’s PHC.
“I need to get a birth certificate because I laminated mine and I guess you’re not supposed to do that,” said Erica.
Without an adequate birth certificate, Erica was unable to obtain a Colorado driver’s license, which made it difficult to secure employment.
“It didn’t matter about no IDs or a job because I was with him,” said Erica with a toss of her head and a tug on the purple baseball cap atop her bandanna-covered head. Erica moved to Denver to be with her boyfriend and lived with him for two years. She said she knew things were going bad between them but she did not realize how bad until he kicked her out.
“I guess that was the first time you could consider me actually homeless but I didn’t sleep on a street or anything. I stayed at a friends’ house but people don’t want you staying with them all the time,” said Erica with her gaze focused on her dirty sneakers.
If Erica can’t find a place for the night with friends, she calls local shelters to see if any beds are available. If there are none she sleeps on the ground behind churches.
“People don’t mess around at a church, but you always sleep with one eye open,” said Erica. She does not carry much around with her but what Erica does always carry is a list of all the local shelters and their phone numbers. Erica frequents The Gathering Place, Denver’s only daytime drop-in center for women and children experiencing homelessness or poverty. There, she can eat up to two meals and a snack each day, utilize phones and computers or even take a nap in a small private room.
Erica took the bus from the shelter to DU. Her goal to acquire a birth certificate was achieved at the ID station. She was also able to create a resume and receive training on how to dress for and conduct herself at an interview. She interviewed with one potential employer and applied for two jobs. She also applied for health care and received bus tokens to be able to get to the interviews scheduled for next week.
By the end of the day, Erica still wanted to visit more stations to obtain food stamps and get a haircut but she had to catch the bus back to The Gathering Place by 2 p.m.
