When a person becomes homeless, they have been through a long and arduous process that is physically demanding, emotionally grueling, mentally exhausting, and completely demoralizing, not to mention most specifically, dehumanizing.

When a person becomes homeless, is not so much the individual has “given up” or isn't “trying hard enough”, but the “system” we live with, ie capitalism, will crush you like a bug if you don't have the money or loads of insurance to handle any curve ball life might throw at you, at any given moment.

It's a process I call Economic Strangulation, and a single event can set in motion a cascade of unfortunate events that quickly spiral out of one's control, because one doesn't have any control of the “economic system” they have to contend with, but most importantly, really don't have any say it how the “system” is operated. “That's just our corporate policy sir”...

The rules of the “system” are formulated by these very same corporations through organizations like A.L.E.C. at the national level, and the State Policy Network at the state level. Model bills are developed, vetted and handed off to our so called elected representatives, who then try to get them passed and enacted into law. And none of it is to our favor.

Just consider, the Gilens & Page study,

"Economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence."

A short version of my experience. (without the expletives, )

When I bought my house in September of 2000, I had a good job as a director of my own department, one in which the company I worked for had hunted me down, hired me and built a department around my particular skills and expertise in Capitol Asset Management to service their existing clients and allow me, with their resources (#1 company in Texas in their market), to go after my own clients. My department was producing higher (record) profit margins than any other revenue generating department within the company.

When I made my first house payment, the mortgage company dinged my credit, which was “stellar” at the time, “the payment was late getting to them”. They didn't care my mortgage was sold 3 times before the 1st 30 days were up, and I sent my payment in 3 times, to 3 different mortgage companies, but their “processing” was what held everything up. What “caused” the delay in payment didn't matter.

The first two mortgage companies both cashed my checks, applied my payment, then un-wound those transactions, and then refunded my money, and did it all via snail mail. Then I would have to deposit the funds (a check) back into my bank, which would want to hold the money for another 5 to 10 “business days” ie two more weeks, which drew the processing time out further, insuring when ever I made my payment, didn't matter.

The most insidious part was, I didn't find out about that the mortgage company had dinged my credit for months. It was only when I started getting all these credit card notices about changes to my interest rates, credit limits, additional fees, additional penalties for being over your credit limit etc. Minimum payments went from like $25-$50 to $300 or more.

“Sir we have the right to periodically review your credit with us, and based on our findings we've determine that your current financial status is not within our requirements, therefore as per blah blah blah, fine print, blah blah blah, back of contract page 3, blah blah blah, written in invisible ink, it is stated quite clearly, we can raise your interest rates!

Boom, from 9.8% to 24.3%. And there's nothing you can do. Unless of course you can afford a $500 per hour pit bull attorney, for months, billing 50-100 hrs a month.

I really didn't understand how one's credit rating worked as a “signal” to other “creditors” that something is up. It's like a flag that only your creditors can see, and if it goes up, so do all your creditor's interests rates.

Believe me. I tried over and over, in vain, to contact every creditor and explain how my 1st house payment was late. You see, the “logic”, is that if someone is late on their 1st house payment, they MUST be a bad credit risk. And that's the “justification” they use. No other circumstance matters. “I'm sorry sir, that's just our corporate policy”.

Either you spend money on an attorney, or take it on the chin, and move on.

It took two years of “fighting tooth and nail” to get that “ding” off my credit. But the damage was already done. I went from having a credit score over 800 to the high 500's. It's never recovered.

And all of it it perfectly “legal”.

This is just one “event”, in a long process that has been apart of the Economic Strangulation that has lead to my current state of homelessness. Well, living for the last 3 years in a music rehearsal studio, about 200 square ft of space, with my cat Gigi.

Of course 9/11, SARS, the Anthrax scare all happened, the market for my services contracted severely, a “confluence of factors”, I had to find work in a completely different industry, and did pretty ok financially for a while, staying above water, keeping my house, keeping my head down.

Heck, we would be reading all night the shear volume of unfortunate events I've traversed since then. (Mother-in-law dies, brother dies, writer's strikes, cat dies, family member screws one financially, foreclosure, hospitalization near death, wife gets cancer, gets cured of cancer, then dies from cancer, get notified by a stranger via txt message about mother's death, blah blah blah....)

This September, it will have been 20 years since I bought my first, and I guess, my only house. I was dating the woman I would marry just 5 months later. (The minister that married us was named "Jim Morrison") The house a 1,750 sqft, 3 Bedroom, 2 car garage, 9-1/2 ft. deep diving pool, and neighbors that didn't mind the band rehearsing in the garage on weeknights, and Brazilian rosewood floors, with floor to ceiling bookcases along an entire wall. I had a killer job, and boss to go above and beyond for, nice salary, great medical benefits, and played guitar in a rock band, heck, to me, it was heaven. The “American Dream” if you will.

Current Status = Economic Purgatory awaiting the Climate Apocalypse

My credit score has improved a little and a few things will fall off in August I think...

Obviously my experience to homelessness is different than many others, but underlying all of it, is this “process” of Economic Strangulation. Once you're credit is “dinged”, it cascades out from there like a “bad credit” virus.