Homeless: Can you build a life from $25?

[karyn]

In a test of the American Dream, Adam Shepard started life from scratch with the clothes on his back and twenty-five dollars. Ten months later, he had an apartment, a car, and a small savings.
By Peter Smith | Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor



from the February 11, 2008 edition

Reporter Peter Smith talks with author Adam Shepard.

Alone on a dark gritty street, Adam Shepard searched for a homeless shelter. He had a gym bag, $25, and little else. A former college athlete with a bachelor's degree, Mr. Shepard had left a comfortable life with supportive parents in Raleigh, N.C. Now he was an outsider on the wrong side of the tracks in Charles*ton, S.C.

But Shepard's descent into poverty in the summer of 2006 was no accident. Shortly after graduating from Merrimack College in North Andover, Mass., he intentionally left his parents' home to test the vivacity of the American Dream. His goal: to have a furnished apartment, a car, and $2,500 in savings within a year.

To make his quest even more challenging, he decided not to use any of his previous contacts or mention his education.

During his first 70 days in Charleston, Shepard lived in a shelter and received food stamps. He also made new friends, finding work as a day laborer, which led to a steady job with a moving company.

Ten months into the experiment, he decided to quit after learning of an illness in his family. But by then he had moved into an apartment, bought a pickup truck, and had saved close to $5,000.

The effort, he says, was inspired after reading "Nickel and Dimed," in which author Barbara Ehrenreich takes on a series of low-paying jobs. Unlike Ms. Ehrenreich, who chronicled the difficulty of advancing beyond the ranks of the working poor, Shepard found he was able to successfully climb out of his self-imposed poverty.

He tells his story in "Scratch Beginnings: Me, $25, and the Search for the American Dream." The book, he says, is a testament to what ordinary Americans can achieve. On a recent trip to the Boston, he spoke about his experience:

Becoming a mover and living in a homeless shelter – that hadn't been part of your life before. How much did your lifestyle actually change?

Shepard: It changed dramatically. There were simple luxuries that I didn't afford myself. I had to make sacrifices to achieve the goals that I set out. One of those was eating out. I didn't have a cellphone. Especially in this day and age, that was a dramatic change for me.... I was getting by on chicken and Rice-A-Roni dinner and was happy. That's what I learned ... we lived [simply], but still we were happy.

But surely your background – you're privileged; you have an education and a family – made it much easier for you to achieve.

I didn't use my college education, credit history, or contacts [while in South Carolina]. But in real life, I had these lessons that I had learned. I don't think that played to my advantage. How much of a college education do you need to budget your money to a point that you're not spending frivolously, but you're instead putting your money in the bank?

Do you need a college education? I don't think so. To be honest with you, I think I was disadvantaged, because my thinking was inside of a box. I have the way that I lived [in North Carolina] – and to enter into this totally new world and acclimate to a different lifestyle, that was the challenge for me.

Still, there was that safety net. Were you ever tempted to tap your past work, education, or family networks?

I was never tempted. I had a credit card in my back pocket in case of an emergency. The rule was if I used the credit card then, "The project's over, I'm going home."

So what did you tell people when they asked what you were doing?

That was the only touchy part of my story. I had this great back story on how I was escaping my druggy mom and going to live with my alcoholic dad. Things just fell apart, and there I was at the homeless shelter. I really embellished this fabricated story and told it to anyone who would listen.

The interesting thing is that nobody really cared.... It wasn't so much as where we were coming from, it was where we were going.

Would your project have changed if you'd had child-care payments or been required to report to a probation officer? Wouldn't that have made it much harder?

The question isn't whether I would have been able to succeed. I think it's the attitude that I take in: "I've got child care. I've got a probation officer. I've got all these bills. Now what am I going to do? Am I going to continue to go out to eat and put rims on my Cadillac? Or am I going to make some things happen in my life...?" One guy, who arrived [at the shelter] on a Tuesday had been hit by a car on [the previous] Friday by a drunk driver. He was in a wheelchair. He was totally out of it. He was at the shelter. And I said, "Dude, your life is completely changed." And he said, "Yeah, you're right, but I'm getting the heck out of here." Then there was this other guy who could walk and everything was good in his life, but he was just kind of bumming around, begging on the street corner. To see the attitudes along the way, that is what my story is about.

You made it out of the shelter, got a job, and opened a bank account. Did you meet other people who had similar experiences?

Oh, absolutely. We don't need "Scratch Beginnings" to know that millions of Americans are creating a life for themselves from nothing.... Just as millions of Americans are not getting by. There are both ends of the spectrum.

To meet that guy [in the wheelchair] at the shelter, [makes you wonder] 'Can he get out and go to college and become a doctor?' Maybe, maybe not. I think he can set goals..... You can use your talents. That's why, from the beginning, I set very realistic goals: $2,500, a job, car. This isn't a "rags-to-riches million-dollar" story. This is very realistic. I truly believe, based on what I saw at the shelter ...that anyone can do that.

[Bikerpunk]

Most people who are homeless are crazy, addicted or both.

He was young and had energy and health on his side. Many homeless people don't.

He could just as easily have hurt himself on the job and not had any money to fix himself.

[Amelia G]

Hmmm, I do think a hot, athletic, young guy with a college education has a bit of an advantage that many people do not have, but I also know a hell of a lot of people with so much talent and looks and physical fitness and intelligence and even education and opportunities etc. who are just too lazy or too frightened to take care of themselves. Sometimes credit can be more of an issue for homelessness than income. For example, I've known a lot of strippers who made a lot of dough but ended up blowing it on hotel stays or having to be beholden to some weasel on the lease because no one wanted to rent to them on an honest application. Then again, strippers tend not to pay taxes, so maybe the universe's sense of fairness is just coming into play there.

I'm not sure that a rented apartment and four wheels and a savings account which could not withstand a family illness are exactly the American Dream. But that all certainly beats couch surfing or a homeless shelter.

I think it is too easy to dismiss the homeless as crazy and not take their problems seriously. Most people I know could get crazy person disability if they went through the process. I respect people actually trying to take care of themselves, even when it is hard. I know too many people who sponge off either the government or their friends or their family, take crazy meds, and refuse to work with any remotely sufficient regularity. Mind you, at Blue Blood, we can call in gothic on days we just can't get it together. But the idea is to do a bang up job on the good days to balance things out.

[Amelia G]

And who the hell is buying rims while they live in a homeless shelter? I feel like this guy wasn't paying attention during his study if he thinks that would describe anyone. You can buy rims to couch surf because people will put you up more readily if you seem cool, but to go to a homeless shelter? No way.

[Amelia G]

Not to mention that the food he talks about eating is okay for a short time when you are young and healthy, but that stuff is bad for you and shortens your life and damages your health long term.

[Bikerpunk]

I wasn't denigrating the homeless - I was saying that not all of them have it together enough to handle it to do the whole "life" thing.

[Morning Glory]

I don't know what world this guy is living in. I've been working since I was 16 and I have never made more than minimum wage because every job I've ever applied at wanted experience or a college degree or both. the only jobs that you can get without those things are retail jobs and the only experience I ever got was...minimum wage retail experience which allowed me to get other minimum wage retail jobs. I never saved up any money because the cost of living was usually more than I made and I was only able to afford it spending all my money and not going into debt because of cash received from relatives for birthdays and such.

I'm not trying to offer a sob story here, I'm just saying that to get where this guy got is not a huge achievement for a homeless person, it's a huge achievment for ANYONE. and I really don't believe the lie that only lazy people live in poverty. anyone who says that is usually rich and lazy and doesn't actually know any poor working people.

[Bacchus88]

morning glory
fedex or UPS.... both pay 10.00 hour you can work full time or part time. They even have Benefits,you can also advance fairly easy. It had work, loading and unload trailers, checking packages.I work for Fedex for awhile before I started my own company, I had no college degree. I still Advanced while 3 years I was Running my own loading area at age 21. Full Ben, coverage, paid 1 week vacation. It was 12 hour shirt, but 5 days week... I could not bet it at age 21, they were also wanting paid for college.

I have very good friend she started out work for fedex before college and work her way throught the ranks and now she Regional Major for the south east.

I would say rich and lazy for those get there riches from daddy! Those who have build companies sold them or still have them became rich because of Hard Work. I am trying to chase that dream even now.

[Cafe_Post_Mortem]

You know, this could have been a great story. It could have told how this guy learned about living on an extremely tight budget, under limited means, and how he was sharing this with people who did not have access to what he learned.

Instead it is the usual, the poor are poor because they deserve it crap.

Let's have a look at his advantages, shall we?

1) He is a tourist. Unlike most poor people, he can go home any time he wants to. This is evidenced by the fact that he did. He had an emergency credit card. He had a safety net. If I had a safety net, if the fear of survival is gone I could have quit my dead end job to find a better one, cause if I don't, the experiment is over. Otherwise you stay at your crap, underpaid abusive job because you need to eat. That is one Fucking Rich Brat point.

2) He had good credit. This is the difference between the $500 apartment and the crappier $800 apartment. This opens up more job choices. Credit runs your life. 2 FRB points

3) He had a bachelors degree. Odds are he had a good education. Knew how to make a budget. Common sense is really stuff other people taught you, not just crap you magically know. 3 FRB points.

I didn't use my college education, credit history, or contacts [while in South Carolina]. But in real life, I had these lessons that I had learned. I don't think that played to my advantage.

You can't unknow things, your credit history comes with you SS number so you use it every time you get a job, rent a home, buy a car or open a bank acount. Fuck it, 4 FRB points.

4) Well spoken fucking pretty rich brat. Amelia has already covered this. 5 FRB.

5) A chance to know when you will be poor. Something most don't get. 6 FRB.

You try, it's fun.

I am not saying it cannot be done by others, it has been by actual poor all of there life people. I am not saying there are not lessons he could teach people. He could do a lot of good teaching in poor highschools or jr highs. What I am saying is this guy did not do science, he ignored the advantages he had to make himself look good. If he actually had a drug addicted mother, no credit, no education and no safety net, do you think he would have done as well as he did?

Instead of being inspirational, this story makes me bitter.

[Bikerpunk]

It's a story in the Christian Science Monitor.

Go figure.

[One Eyed Cat]

This story just annoys me. I spent some time in never neverland. I know the natives from the tourists (I was neither as it turned out). This story is narcissistic kitsch.

JT

[funkatron]

But dude, some who wander aren't lost!

[Amelia G]

I've been thinking about this and I think the biggest anomaly in his situation is that the situation he was in could not feel like his real life to him. It is easy to eat crap food for a short time. But I know from personal experience that eventually that malnourishment starts being a problem.

It is easy to avoid buying anything other people might respond to -- i.e. rims, clothes, a presentable car, a meal out, a ticket to the movies, a drink in a bar, etc. -- if you plan to make absolutely no lasting relationships because you are not living your real life. Friends who have heard a guy lie about his background are not people he is trying to forge anything long-term with. He doesn't have to worry about making the right impression on the right woman's parents or on the right woman because he is not going to stay in that life.

Lastly and maybe most importantly, he is not trying to build a better life. I think most of us can tread water and maybe save a little until a disaster comes, but that isn't going to pay for a house or kids or education or healthcare or old age or even enough of a cushion to just be less stressed out.

I like that he is putting forth that it is possible for people in dire straits to improve their situation. I really wish he had expressed himself with more understanding though. The rims comment was so alien from comprehension that it honestly made me wonder if the whole thing isn't a total hoax.

[ForrestBlack]

I think the Spurlock approach to experiencing a problem first hand in order to better understand the problem is an interesting methodology. However, I think this guy did the assignment without learning the lesson. I'll try to dig up some of the more realistic and informative studies done be economics students outlining the common barriers blocking what should normally be opportunities for fiscal advancement from the bottom rungs of our society. I read one the other day outlining how in many areas it's a lot easier to get by on $25k a year than it is to get by on $32k and such. But yeah, I'm just not seeing some scraggly toothless Vietnam veteran pushing his chrome spinners around from soup line to cot. I think this kid listens to too much Bill O'Reilly.

[Morning Glory]

one thing that struck me was when he said "we lived simply, but we were happy." I think that's a huge factor in peoples success. If you chose to live poorly then you can be happy about it and optimistic about your chances. if you don't have a choice then you probably won't be very happy and you won't see it as "simple" you'll see it as "i'm fucked", and you will probably be pretty pessimistic about the outcome.

it's just like CPM said. most people maybe could but don't shoot for trying to get a better job out of fear that they will fail and they can't afford to risk not having a job.

also kind fo what amelia and others said, this takes into account that you are going to act entirely out of self-intrest and don't have a responsibilty to other people and things. If you do have that, then your chocies and your options are different.

[Cafe_Post_Mortem]

Rent a flat above a shop,
cut your hair and get a job.
Smoke some fags and play some pool,
pretend you never went to school.
But still you'll never get it right,
cos when you're laid in bed at night,
watching roaches climb the wall,
if you call your Dad he could stop it all.

You'll never live like common people,
you'll never do what common people do,
you'll never fail like common people,
you'll never watch your life slide out of view,
and dance and drink and screw,
because there's nothing else to do.

Like I said, he probably has some valuable lessons he took from this experience that could really help people in the situation he pretended to be in, but he just wrote a book and passed judgment. He decide that he is not poor because he is better than other people, and his luck in life has nothing to do with it.

Being poor is easy when you can quit any time.

But the point of tonight's midnight rant is I tried to read the book sample on amazon. It makes me hate this kid. He comes off as a self important ass.

[OliX]

Right state of mind and MOTIVATION is the key...

If you're hitting on sky (heaven) you'll fall back to earth but if you're hitting on stars you'll fall down on sky (heaven).

Anyway... nice story, puts optimism back in one... but, I wish they wrote it more realistic and put the factors about his motivation in the story.

[Mr Karl]

doing what he did is real fucking easy, now if he'd told the truth to people about why he was there, then it might have meant something

[Michelle Aston]

He had a normal well adjusted childhood and a psychological safety net. Most homeless never had that.

[Mr Karl]

fuck, this story makes me sick everytime I think about it

[OliX]

more for you

[TheDeathKnight]

I think his results are more useful if targeted towards middle-income people. Not homeless people. Homeless people are often mentally ill, or have other serious issues that make it hard for them to survive in a normal job that this kid would do fine at. But I do think that people do spend their money irresponsibly. But that's true of poor people, middle-class, and even rich people. Most people buy things they don't really need, and spend more than they should. But that's a universal problem. I just know that I have lived on $10/hr, in Los Angeles. Which is an expensive city to live in. But I had to have roommates, eat cheap food, and not spend much. At $10 an hour, I made $400 per week. After taxes was about $300. So I had about $1,200 per month. So two weeks pay covered my rent. The third week's pay covered my other bills. And the last week of the month I could actually save, or spend. So I was able to make progress. Now sure, if I had debts, or medical bills, or other expenses, it might have left me with very little money left over. But I know tons of people who live on much less, who have no car, take the bus to work, have debts, medical bills, and yet they still manage to have a decent life, a place to live, they have fun, go out once in a while, etc. So I think totally giving up and living on the street, is more of a mental choice, or a lifestyle choice. It's giving up. It's a way to escape from all those bills, responsibilities, etc.

[incog]

I think his results are more useful if targeted towards middle-income people. Not homeless people. Homeless people are often mentally ill, or have other serious issues that make it hard for them to survive in a normal job that this kid would do fine at. But I do think that people do spend their money irresponsibly. But that's true of poor people, middle-class, and even rich people. Most people buy things they don't really need, and spend more than they should. But that's a universal problem. I just know that I have lived on $10/hr, in Los Angeles. Which is an expensive city to live in. But I had to have roommates, eat cheap food, and not spend much. At $10 an hour, I made $400 per week. After taxes was about $300. So I had about $1,200 per month. So two weeks pay covered my rent. The third week's pay covered my other bills. And the last week of the month I could actually save, or spend. So I was able to make progress. Now sure, if I had debts, or medical bills, or other expenses, it might have left me with very little money left over. But I know tons of people who live on much less, who have no car, take the bus to work, have debts, medical bills, and yet they still manage to have a decent life, a place to live, they have fun, go out once in a while, etc. So I think totally giving up and living on the street, is more of a mental choice, or a lifestyle choice. It's giving up. It's a way to escape from all those bills, responsibilities, etc.

Good for you, man. I've seen some articles about this book talking like having roommates is some kind of failure. It seems like just good money management if the alternative is never going out or getting clothes or doing anything you enjoy. The problem is that the government will give someone who gives up a free place to stay at least for a while but they beat down someone who is working for $10 an hour in an expensive city like Los Angeles with taxes that make it much harder to get by much less save up for property or possible medical expenses. I only own a house because I got a big lump sum the second time my band was signed and I dumped it into getting a house and then had to go to tax court. I didn't want to be one of those guys who at fifty is still trying to convince girls he is cute enough to take care of. I didn't want VH1 doing some humiliation piece on me. There are people I thought of as contemporaries who I know ended up homeless when they stopped looking as cute but didn't have the skills for finding a place to pay rent or own. I've had years I made a lot and years I made next to nothing or was even in the red from expenses but the government taxes on just one year and does not average out the income over a number of years. This really fucks creative people. If I made nothing for two years and lived off kind women and credit cards and promises and I did not take any government assistance and then I get a big paycheck, I have people I owe and then maybe I have current expenses. If I worked on a project for three years, but I only get paid during one of them, I think it is part of a war on art to tax me like I make that every year when no musician does.

[Amelia G]

This guy's book sure had the world's briefest big buzzfest. Whatever happened to him?

[Wickedanima]

I don't know...

But buying RIMS for your CADDDY? Fuck him and the horse he rode in on.

[Rockwulf]

I don't know how I missed this thread the first time around. But I think the whole "rims on the caddy" comment wasn't meant to portray homeless people and the ones that really need it as much as the people that abuse the welfare and food stamp system.

In the past I've worked with some of these people and it was a daily struggle not to just grab them by their self-entitled throats and not stop squeezing. It's really frustrating when you're working alone and for every penny you can without asking for help or going on welfare, then you have to spend 8 or 10 hours a day with some asshole complaining about how he she wishes her check would come so she could get that pair of shoes to wear to the party that weekend.

[Amelia G]

I don't know how I missed this thread the first time around. But I think the whole "rims on the caddy" comment wasn't meant to portray homeless people and the ones that really need it as much as the people that abuse the welfare and food stamp system.

In the past I've worked with some of these people and it was a daily struggle not to just grab them by their self-entitled throats and not stop squeezing. It's really frustrating when you're working alone and for every penny you can without asking for help or going on welfare, then you have to spend 8 or 10 hours a day with some asshole complaining about how he she wishes her check would come so she could get that pair of shoes to wear to the party that weekend.

In the current economy, like everyone, I'm struggling to make everything work, doing without a lot of things and working much harder for the same dollar. And I was a workaholic to begin with, so me working harder is not a good thing.

Only I've had kind of a lot of people turn down little contract gigs I've offered them because small influxes of money would only decrease their benefits. Our system is fucked.

And of course I know a number of strippers and drug dealers and tattoo artists and piercers who all get paid in cash (sometimes a lot of cash) and collect government checks.

[Wickedanima]

Also, I understand using people who abuse the system as an example of frustration, but there are a shit-ton of people who the foodstamp/SSI/Welfare system is keeping poor and screwing with a thick donkey dick.

Abusers of the system are often somewhat clever people who have a 'talent' for grifting. They grift people, the government, whoever. That doesn't make them a massive example as to every person who's ever been on Government Cheese.

And secondly, I think his example was a snide, backhanded slap to poor people who should dare go and spend the extra money out of a paycheck to do something fucking pleasant, instead of saving every extra penny they get to make sure they have a savings account. Its a worthwhile thing to learn how to budget, and live in the bare world of self-denial.

I mean, he's cutting it down to the whole, "Being poor is your fault, just work harder you lazy poor-ass people" 'tude. Now if you agree with that bottom line, fine. But I personally don't.