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By Karila-Monique Warner
On October 25th, my life changed. I had lost my home due to my own poor communication and self sabotaging behavior. I had been working as a teacher in various locations including teaching a version of the Circle’s games journalism program in the Bronx. Before adulthood, I had experienced homelessness and living in the shelter system but that was when I was with my parents. This time I had to navigate this all on my own. During my first night, I felt a little hopeless, I even got lost on my way to the shelter.
I had looked up the directions prior to arriving, but ended up at the wrong location because I didn’t bother to ask the monotone voice on the phone for the correct address. I had gone to the HRA office in the morning and after crying with the case worker while explaining my situation, she told me something that I have been carrying with me throughout this whole journey. “You’ll be okay and this isn’t the end of the world. Now is your time to do for you.” So in some ways, this isn’t about what I lost; instead I began to gain a new perspective into life.
My only experience with sheltering was in my youth and I remember watching my parents jump through many hoops before we were placed on 170th Street, which strangely enough was around the corner from my high school at the time. No one in high school knew I was homeless for a while. I kept it a secret because I was ashamed.
Now, at the age of 26, shame didn’t follow me this time around; in fact, I was open with the people in my circle so they could give me a little grace. I used to fear asking for help and as of late, I learned that sometimes you can reach out for help. The people in my life that have reached out to me to help me have been keeping me going.
I’ve met a few interesting people in my time at the shelter. They also have motivated me and made me realize I could get through this. I could go out there and get for myself. I even learned that I motivated a few people and they look up to me.
But how do you remain optimistic when the people around you are unmotivated and unfocused? How do you keep your head up when you can feel despair when you walk into a room? Several people in the shelter have asked me this and my response has always been: I know what I want and I won’t stop until I get it.
In the past, I made many mistakes because I was self-sabotaging, not saving a dime to pay bills and buying things before paying rent – or quitting job. I was so caught up in my declining mental health that I was ignoring the behavior of my roommates, and in doing so, I lost the respect of someone I looked up to. I know now that I will have to pay that person back tenfold for the six years they took care of me and allowed me to have that home. But losing my place taught me that I have to be self-reliant. I have to fight for myself. That includes taking responsibility. I can no longer blame others for my shortcomings. Any mistakes I make are mine and mine alone.
I started finding peace in my prayers and playing video games on my Nintendo Switch. For the Circle, I had the opportunity to write a review of Bayonetta Origins, a game I had been playing a lot of since I was in the shelter. I worked hard and even had enough coupons and points that I could purchase a game for 5 bucks. Nier Automata took control of me because in the journey to discover the unknown it helped me gain a certain level of focus. I understood that sometimes people aren’t what they seem and you have to fight for your ultimate goal, just like 2B, the android. Except my life was real.
Despite being woken up by the screaming and arguing from other women with their own individual problems, I wasn’t really angry. They would treat these places like their permanent housing and would disrupt the peace of others. I had heard several fights break out in the middle of the night because someone’s music was too loud or they spoke too loudly on the phone. A fight once broke out because two people who had problems outside of the shelter met up again at Franklin, the women’s shelter I was in, and they decided to rekindle their hatred for one another.
But there’s another side to this. Perhaps because of my teaching skills and the empathy I have, I became a bit of a mentor and guiding light to some of the women. They would come to me to ask about their process or even to just vent. I didn’t mind taking this role because I made a few friends as well. They saw me as someone that would never let my situation turn into something that would break me.
I was transferred to the Williams Avenue Women’s Shelter in Brooklyn 22 days after I arrived at Franklin. It was 2:45 a.m. I had fallen asleep on the bus and I was exhausted from a mixture of little food and my bipolar medication. I don’t even remember my check in; I just knew that once I got to this place, I was one step closer to getting my own place. I was placed in a room on the 3rd floor. That’s the place with TLC for people that need assistance with getting ready to secure their own housing.
TLC stands for Transitional Living Community and the house managers evaluate who is ready to secure their housing and who might need a more supportive environment. The dorms are made from remodeled classrooms that fit ten beds each. There are high white walls that separate each section of the dorm. While I was at Franklin, I likened this experience to prison because I was identified by bed number. At William’s TLC, I was identified by name. I was comforted when I saw that the workers saw I was trying my hardest to get my living situation right.
The housing specialist told me that I was different from the other women in my dorm. That I wasn’t mentally incapable or needed extra support. This is something else that motivated me. I really enjoy teaching. I don’t mind going to work every day, even on the hard days. I made friends with the people I work with; they even ask me how the shelter has been and listen to me when I am frustrated. They provided me with the space I needed to grow and welcomed me into the DREAM Highbridge Elementary School family.
Williams didn’t allow me to keep my game console with me, however. Without my Nintendo Switch to keep me occupied, I started re-reading Life of Pi. I hadn’t read it since high school. Back then I didn’t even give it a chance despite my love of reading and now I love the way Yann Patel told this story. Something in this tale that stuck out to me. I had a similar experience with life as Pi. It wasn’t the extraordinary circumstances, of course, but the similar drive to pursue a life that was my own; to carve out my own existence. A quote that really stuck out to me was, “To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.” I cannot doubt my choices no matter how risky they may seem to others.
I have to be self motivated; I can’t rely on others for that. I have appreciated everything anyone has ever given me from the people that birthed me to the ones that gave me a few bucks to eat. I would not be here without them, I would literally be dead. I admittedly cried my first night in the shelter on my own. But I didn’t let that define my stay. I wasn’t planning on staying long, I am planning on getting out.
Many people in shelters have long-standing mental health issues that they aren’t aware of. I have seen women that are so content with being in the shelter that they brag about being there for years. I couldn’t understand this logic, but I understand it now. If you can have someone take care of you and you don’t have to lift a finger, why would you leave that? But that wouldn’t be me.
Shelters give you the basics: a few linens, a pillow and simple hygiene tools. They don’t force you to shower, they don’t force you to work, and they don’t force you to see a caseworker. They’ll watch you self-destruct on your own and ship you off when you fail their unspoken tests. At Franklin, many of the staff members had a weird vendetta against the women staying there. This included having bad attitudes constantly and calling people in there “a dirty so and so.”
I helped a friend during her own transfer from the shelter, and when I wanted to confirm a staff member’s name when he gave us information, he immediately gave me an attitude. I was taken aback because I was the one keeping the group calm and prevented them from arguing with him. I was respectful and polite. Yet he treated me like a wild animal. This made me believe the staffers didn’t see the women there as people, and many of the women took that narrative as their own. I don’t blame them. If you hear something enough, eventually, you start to believe it.
I had no intention of staying in a shelter longer than two months. I planned to make sure I got everything I needed to secure my own housing before the end of 2023. Franklin was meant to make sure that no one there was comfortable; no reason to stay too long. Williams has people that have been here longer than some of the staff. Many of these women aren’t ready to be out in the world. My own dorm has a woman that would choose crack over the medication she needs to control her mental health problems. The case workers at Williams are far more considerate and think of each individual and what they need to secure their homes – even if that home is in the form of a supportive housing facility.
There are three things that I want to do once I have a home of my very own. Planning for this eventuality has been keeping me bright and optimistic about the future:
- I want to take a shower in my own bathroom,
- I want to sleep on the bare floor, free of furniture and other people,
- And I want to have a housewarming to bless the new home in which I will live.
I do want my own bed and furniture at some point. But I think in some weird sense I want to sleep in the empty apartment. I want that to sink in before I move big things in: my own apartment. It would be my first apartment that I found on my own, that I would be completely responsible for. Simply having the blessing of obtaining my own apartment and knowing it’s mine with my name on the lease is all that I want. No one can tell me how to decorate or how to make my money to pay my bills or destroy it without my permission. But I do look forward to hooking up my Switch in my new home and finishing Hogwarts Legacy. That’s a given.
Karila-Monique Warner has streamed games on Twitch for NYVGCC and is chief editor of the Bronx-based Tribes magazine.
