DAVID AND URSULA
PHOTO BY RANDY BACON
DAVID AND URSULA’S STORY
[DAVID] On and off since I was about twelve years old, I have been on my own. My mom worked and my dad wasn’t around, he’s been gone since I was three. Basically I got led into a life of drugs there for a little bit, and met my wife eventually on down the road years later. Now I’m doing better but I lost my mom last year. It’s just been rough. Trying to get on my feet. I’ve been homeless four years now and hopefully, you know, I have hope and faith that it’s going to get better. It’s been getting better each day. It’s rough sometimes but we just take it like a grain of salt pretty much, we all got to stick together out here and become one in unity. If we help each other out and lift each other up and keep good spirits and show each other love, it’s going to change lives all across the world. That’s one thing I’ve always been about is changing lives and wanting to see people happy. That’s basically who I am. I’m a big teddy bear. My wife will say, like “You growl all you want to, but you’re just a big teddy bear”.
What really led to being homeless for me was that I got locked up in prison, and whenever I got out my mom had moved and I lost a place to live whenever I was here and then she died last year so it’s been rougher but I’m making it one day at a time. The hardest thing about being homeless is not knowing if you’re going to come home to your tent or wherever you’re staying and everything be there. But it don’t matter cause the main thing to me is as long as I got my wife and the people around me that are true to me and care and that are standing together as one and helping each other out, you know we can all change lives one way or the other. I just got to take it one day at a time. Life is a garden, dig it!
My dream honestly is to one day hopefully to be able to change lives, you know, I’ve always had a dream to be like a spokesperson and someone to go into the youth like in schools and stuff and catch the kids before they get into drugs and stuff like that. But they’re curious. They ain’t done them yet but they’re wondering, like what’s this going to be like? Hopefully my life story and other stories will change their mind and keep them on the right track. Maybe they won’t have to be like we who unfortunately became homeless. But we’re making it. We just got to stay strong and stay together as one. We’re going to make it to the end.
Live every day with hope and faith and a bright mindset of - it’s going to be a good day. I’m going to make it. We’re going to make it through this. This is our time to shine. This is our life. We’re all one, we just got to learn how to love, and be together and help each other, cause that’s what’s going to get us on in life. If we can stand together in unity, we can show this government, show these people out here, that think we’re nobody and think we’re just some trash on the side of the road that we are somebody. We are humans too. We breathe, we live, we walk, we talk just like they do. We’re humans too. Don’t judge us because you don’t know what our story is. You don’t know our lives. Don’t judge us. I don’t dress the best, I don’t look the best but you know what? I make the best of it. That’s all you can do.
[URSULA] It was fine growing up. I grew up and had a job, then I started losing my jobs. I went to California on a trip one time. I went to a Hippie commune with the nuns for about two months. That was before I started having my problems. My problems are difficulty dealing with my mental illness. I have really bad anxiety. I couldn’t really function that well working and had trouble keeping a job and couldn’t get another job. So I just started living here and there and it kind of just happened a little bit at a time until I finally just got comfortable living out here. I have been homeless on and off for three years. I am kind of losing track of time now. Homelessness is kind of not my choice..I can’t just get comfortable with this. I want to try to get to a better place. You should love another person regardless of their situation or how they treat you. The hardest thing about being homeless is that it’s mentally and physically degrading and you get weathered a lot because you are outside a lot. I am not any different than you are. Try living in my shoes for a week.