I would appreciate it if you would stop making jokes about me on your show. In addition to how unreasonable the conglomerate's behavior toward me is, the lobby is supposed to close at 9:00 p.m. Everyone who has a bed is supposed to go upstairs at that time; then, the people who don't have beds are able to start the process of getting the cots, mats, sheets, blankets and pillows that they need to be able to get to sleep as soon as they can. This is important, because when you sleep in the lobby, you have to get up at 4:15 a.m.
The staff are letting guests who have beds stay up to watch Empire. Everyone who has to sleep in the lobby has to wait until the show is over to be able to get to sleep. Tonight, it was 9:30 p.m. before the sheets, blankets and pillows were given to the guests who have to sleep in the lobby. I had to ask several times to be able to get the mat that I put on the floor and sleep on; when I did ask, the staffperson who opened the door to the closet where the mats get thrown every morning, without being washed after having been on the floor overnight, was rude to me.
I don't have a problem with people being able to watch a television show that they like; I have a problem with staff negligence toward the people who have to sleep in the lobby.
I usually sleep on this side of the lobby because it's quieter; of course, there's no way to stop the noise of the television or of the many people who are in the lobby watching television.
There is also a female guest who likes to sleep on this side of the lobby and cough at me a lot. It could be that she's angry because she works and yet has to sleep in the lobby. There are only 10 beds at a time saved for women who work; everyone else who works outside the shelter's work or training programs has to wait to get a saved bed until a working women who has a bed moves out of the shelter or is placed in the transitional program at the shelter where she has to pay 30% of her income, do a chore every day in addition to keeping her part of the shared sleeping area clean, sleep in the same general area as some of the women in the emergency (lottery) beds and continue to be told what to do. Although people in the transitional programs get a later curfew and can stay at the shelter during the day, there are a lot of people who don't want to pay to live like that.
Most of the time, I don't care if someone calls me a rat. I think that "rat" is what people who are doing something wrong like to call someone who doesn't want them to do whatever the wrong thing is and who tells someone who ought to be able to stop it. I also like to think of the times when I ask for help getting abuse stopped as "Asking for help before I lose my temper," rather than as being a rat. Also, people who think of rats as being sly creatures that slink around because they're scared have never seen a large rat nonchalantly rummaging in a garbage can in the Boston Public Garden. Those rats are not scared; neither are the squirrels. I try not to bring food into the Boston Public Garden because the squirrels think that I brought it for them and they're not about to give me a tip for it.
I don't much want to tell the people above the supervisors who are letting people watch Empire that it's happening, and I probably won't. Shelter life tends to prevent people from having a lot of fun or personal choices, and being able to watch a television show that you like is something that people who have never been homeless probably take for granted. That I'm not going to directly tell people above the supervisors about it doesn't mean that they won't hear about it; someone else will probably tell them. I suppose it could be that permission was already given for it to happen. I don't know.
Also, a lot of people who work at shelters read my blogs. They know that I'm not lying or delusional about people who deliberately cough at me, whether they admit that they know it or not.
I don't know for sure that someone would beat me up for writing about people watching Empire if their ability to watch the show gets discontinued. I do know that there are probably homeless people who would love to have something about the show pertain to them, if it didn't degrade them, identify them to abusers whom they've fled, or otherwise make their lives more difficult.
Copyright L. Kochman, November 18, 2015 @ 10:40 p.m.
