The Lunch I Couldn’t Go To
Someone invited me for fish and chips this morning.
I wanted to go.
The people inviting me weren’t offering charity. They know me. They knew me before I became homeless. They know my work, my photography, my radio background, my advocacy. It was simply friends asking if I’d like to have lunch with them.
I declined.
Not because I didn’t have the money.
Not because I didn’t want to go.
I wanted to.
I couldn’t.
That answer surprises people.
After all, what stops someone from putting on clean clothes and going to lunch?
The answer isn’t simply homelessness.
It’s logistics.
People imagine homelessness as owning almost nothing.
The reality is often the opposite.
You own everything you need to survive.
You simply have nowhere for it to live.
Most people have closets.
Kitchen cupboards.
Bathroom cabinets.
Dressers.
Laundry baskets.
A garage.
A vehicle.
A refrigerator.
A freezer.
A bedside table.
A junk drawer.
A place where ordinary life quietly exists.
I still own many of those ordinary things.
They’re sitting in a U-Haul storage locker from when I lost my apartment.
Clothes.
Electronics.
Kitchen utensils.
Pots and pans.
Small appliances.
Things that used to belong in a home.
I can’t have them here.
There isn’t room.
There isn’t secure storage.
So they remain in storage while I live with only the bare minimum.
Here, I have:
A locker.
Two plastic storage bins that don’t lock.
A wheelchair.
A bed.
That’s my house.
The wheelchair actually makes life easier.
Ironically, it also makes surviving homelessness possible.
It’s my Sherpa.
My shopping cart.
My moving truck.
My pantry.
My closet.
My filing cabinet.
My emergency preparedness kit.
It’s everything a home used to be, condensed into one chair.
Without it I’d be in even worse shape.
But everything I need rides on it.
Water.
Food.
Medication.
Electronics.
Rain gear.
Warm clothing.
Medical supplies.
Paperwork.
Charging equipment.
Everything.
Every litre of water.
Every sweatshirt.
Every charger.
Every towel.
Every grocery item.
Every pound changes how the chair pushes, turns, tips and stops.
It changes how my body works.
The photographs show reusable bags nested inside larger reusable bags.
That isn’t clutter.
It’s organization forced into a system that was never designed to exist.
Those bags contain what most people spread throughout an entire home.
When I need something near the bottom, I don’t simply open a cupboard.
I reach behind myself.
Twist my torso.
Lift heavy bags over my shoulder.
Hold them awkwardly.
Try not to drop anything.
Then rebuild the pile.
Again.
And again.
And again.
I’ve started calling it the locker avalanche.
Every locker visit becomes an excavation.
Every excavation becomes a repile.
Every repile becomes another chance to strain my neck, shoulders and hands.
I’m beginning to think that’s one reason my right arm hurts more.
I’m right-handed.
That’s the arm doing most of the lifting.
Not once.
Hundreds of times.
Then come the security searches.
Imagine going through an airport checkpoint every time you wanted a breath of fresh air.
Not because anyone thinks you’re dangerous.
Because that’s simply the procedure.
Every time I leave the shelter and come back, my bags may be opened.
Things are moved.
Things are inspected.
Things are handled.
Then I rebuild the system all over again.
Another repile.
Another lift.
Another awkward reach.
Another twist of my neck and back.
Every time I want fresh air.
Every time I want a little sunshine.
Every time I want to vape.
Every time I return.
Another reminder that my entire life is portable because it has to be.
People often ask,
“Why don’t you just leave some things behind?”
Where?
The refrigerator I don’t have?
The dresser?
The closet?
The kitchen cupboard?
The bathroom cabinet?
The garage?
Everything I own has to exist somewhere.
If it isn’t on my wheelchair…
it’s either in a locker I can’t always access…
or vulnerable.
The locker isn’t available overnight.
From 11 p.m. until 7 a.m. I can’t access it.
So the bed becomes storage.
Everything valuable stays with me.
Everything I might need stays with me.
If I need the washroom…
it comes with me.
If I need a shower…
it comes with me.
If I need laundry…
it comes with me.
The bathroom creates another layer.
It isn’t my bathroom.
It’s everyone’s.
Sometimes the accessible shower is occupied by people who could use another one.
Sometimes a toilet has overflowed.
Often there’s standing water on the floor.
Sometimes I’m trying to keep clean clothes from touching a dirty floor while changing inside a room that isn’t really clean.
There isn’t another room.
There isn’t privacy.
There isn’t a bedroom.
There isn’t a dressing room.
Even deciding to shower isn’t simple.
People assume you simply decide to shower.
Not here.
Hot water depends on timing.
Maybe someone is using one washing machine.
Maybe both.
Maybe the commercial dishwasher is running after lunch.
Maybe staff are catching up on dishes.
None of that is anyone’s fault.
Nobody knows I’m waiting for hot water.
This isn’t a purpose-built shelter.
It’s an old warehouse trying to function as one.
Then there’s laundry.
Today I wanted to accept that lunch invitation.
Before I could leave I would have needed to:
Try on the new shorts.
If they fit, wash the clothes I was wearing.
Hope the hot water wasn’t already being used.
Wait for the washer.
Wait for the dryer.
Rebuild my wheelchair.
Reload everything.
Shower.
Get dressed.
Hope nothing disappeared.
Only then could I leave.
Lunch would have been over.
People also say,
“Just save some food.”
I can’t.
There isn’t a refrigerator.
There isn’t safe food storage.
Once food is opened it generally has to be eaten…
thrown away…
or risk making me sick.
That changes every grocery decision.
Every meal.
Every dollar.
My wardrobe isn’t excessive.
It’s tiny.
Two pairs of shorts.
One pair of sweatpants.
One pair of jeans.
Two pairs of socks.
Two mesh shorts that double as briefs.
One pair of low-cut hiking shoes.
One pair of Dollarama Crocs.
That’s essentially my clothing inventory.
When one outfit is in the laundry…
I’m wearing the other.
I sleep in my clothes.
Because there isn’t anywhere to change into pajamas.
A shirt is required.
Shorts are required.
So I sleep in the clothes I’ll wear tomorrow.
I wake up in them.
Eventually they smell like it.
Eventually I look like I slept in my clothes.
Because I did.
People don’t see logistics.
They see outcomes.
They see someone who “doesn’t take care of themselves.”
Those aren’t the same thing.
It affects how other people see me.
Eventually…
it affects how I see myself.
I’ve lost roughly six hundred dollars’ worth of belongings in less than a month.
Not one expensive thing.
Little things.
Charging cables.
Clothes.
Keys.
A headlamp.
Insulin pods that were worthless to anyone except me.
Small things.
Over and over.
Around me I watch people lose phones.
Cash.
Medication.
Bikes.
Drugs.
Sometimes while asleep.
Sometimes while unconscious from illegal drugs.
Sometimes while deeply sedated from prescribed psychiatric medications.
Theft here isn’t always violence.
Often it’s opportunity.
Often it’s survival.
I don’t celebrate it.
I don’t excuse it.
But pretending those realities don’t exist won’t stop them.
This is what homelessness looks like after the headlines end.
This is the part that’s usually glossed over.
Not dramatic scenes.
Not television stereotypes.
It’s declining lunch because the logistics of becoming presentable take hours.
It’s carrying your entire life on a wheelchair because there is nowhere else to put it.
It’s rebuilding the same pile dozens of times every week.
It’s sleeping in your clothes because there isn’t anywhere to change.
It’s planning showers around industrial dishwashers.
It’s eating all your food because there is nowhere to refrigerate it.
It’s organizing every possession around theft, rules, timing, security searches and the physical limits of your own body.
Then hearing someone ask,
“Why are you carrying so much stuff?”
Because there isn’t anywhere else to put my life.
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