MEGAN WITH ERIC

PHOTO BY RANDY BACON

MEGAN’S STORY

WITH ERIC

The hardest part about being on the street is keeping warm. Keeping warm in the winter and keeping cool in the summer. Especially during a heat wave. One of the toughest things for me is being a woman, there’s always those creeps that want to pay you for sex and you have to fight that off all the time. Also, if you’re on the streets and you're a couple, it’s hard ‘cause you can’t afford your marriage license. There's a lot of shelters, yes, but the problem is that at the shelters you usually have to have proof of marriage to stay together. That’s one of the hardest things. Like if you get sick, you want your mate, your person, to be there with you. But you can’t, and that’s one of the hardest problems with couples around here. It's hard to stay in one place together.

It’s also hard in the winter especially if you have any type of prosthetics like I do. I have a prosthetic knee, several steel vertebrae, titanium steel rods on the front and back of both shins, both ankles, I have three steel plates attached to my jaw, my nose is rubber and titanium steel. The hardest part is that when you want to move, because with prosthetics you have to wait for it to re-lubricate when you wake up in the mornings or if you’re sitting too long, you just can’t move. And they wear down way way too easy if you’re homeless.

And also the police are really a big problem with the homeless right now. I mean it's really hard to find anywhere safe to sleep as it is. And when you’re sleeping in a tent, there's a problem with cops that don’t want you there, even if you have permission. At one point, Hellhound almost got arrested because his prosthetics would not let him move in time

Right now, I just need to get my birth certificate, so I can get my ID and from there, I want to go back to college, honestly. I want to go back and start working on my veterinarian degree like I’ve been trying to do. And maybe even our own place. Right now we’re staying with friends, we’re couch hopping, and it’s getting a little tiring.