I am a zombie today. I slept so well Monday night plus the lovely nap at the park on Tuesday morning. Last night was the complete opposite.
I did not get lottoed out of the site as I had last week. Idiot that I am, I was happy about that. I got on my pad and listened to children race around the room until after 9 pm. They finally turned off the lights, and children started screaming. Yahoo, isn't this fun?
Between the screamers, coughers, nose-blowers and other extraneous noises, there was no sleep to be had. It went on and on. Somewhere between 9 and 10:30, one of the families who had caused others to be lottoed out left for the night. A couple of the women - especially one who had gotten lottoed out in the past because of this family, took umbrage. She was PISSED. That went on awhile...
I checked my watch at 10:30 and about midnight and after 1 am. Then I fell asleep until 4. When I woke up, two more families were gone... Someone told me they left at around 2. One of these families had set up 3 pads in a corner, enclosed by 9 chairs covered by sheets. The other had 3 or 4 pads, no chairs. Between them, they'd taken up 1/3 of the room.
When I got up at 4 that was all she wrote. At 6, I grabbed a sack lunch and & headed out to the PADS center for a shower and Employment group. The counselor brought poster board and magazines and glue so we could make vision boards.
Mine has work at a cool place, dogs and a bed.
The cool part: the two families that left early have been here... One was just the mom, the other was the whole family, including 3 whining and screaming girls. What fun.
And that's the news from one of the homeless at the PADS center in Wheaton, Illinois.
© 2015 sheddhead – not to be used without written consent of the author, unless quoting portions of this diary on DailyKos, with links back to the original quotation