Alexander the Grate: commitment

Transcript context

…What’s the most important thing I would learn? But I would learn about the restrooms, is what you’re saying. Well it depends on how you start. There’s a stratigraphy to the so-called homeless population. I rather refer to myself as an NFA: no fixed address. I’ll get to my rant in a bit. I knew it was coming. I left some of my stuff at my aunt’s house. In those days there were a couple of rescue missions downtown, and I heard of those. You ever heard of the radio programs, dramatized versions of this, out of Chicago, called Unshackled? They gave life stories of redemption of the Skid Row population and stuff. So I learned about the mission life from there. I knew there was a gospel mission. That was the Hilton of the missions downtown, which is still there. It’s a program for women or something there now. For $2 a night you get a double bunk, two sheets, a pillow, and a pillowcase on a 6-inch mattress. The Hilton of the missions, yeah. That’s for two bucks. I took about two or three nights with that. Then I found out about the free Central Union Mission, which was right here on Pennsylvania Avenue back then, before they moved on. They’re free, but you only get four nights a month. No sheets, a pillow, half the thickness of the mattress. So, you finish your time there, and then you discover the city’s shelters, which are mostly converted elementary schools they don’t need anymore. The Baltic and Mediterranean, I called them. So, you get a plain four-inch foam mattress with a FEMA disaster blanket — that’s what they called it. From FEMA?…

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