Baby, you dead!   
Overcoming Homelessness      
   
   A woman named Detroit doesn't think many "experts" really speak for people like her. They usually think homelessness is a matter of the housing crisis.

   It's true that some people have a hard time staying housed. But, Detroit says lack of affordable housing in Los Angeles didn't make her homeless.

   "People fall into homelessness," she says, "when they lack something in one or two or all of these three things: spiritual, mental or physical health. Homelessness and housing are two separate issues." 

   For her, homelessness began with mental and spiritual issues. As a teenager she suffered from depression and suicidal thoughts. At 18, she voluntarily entered a mental hospital, which closed when funding was cut.

   "It's not true that most of us don't have anywhere to go," Detroit said. 

"It's just that we don't know where to go in our mind, 

where to go that's safe - safe from ourselves." 

   She had tried psychiatric hospitals, every drug she could get, and family members. "But I didn't try God." 

   Detroit remained in physical impoverishment for many years, until 12 years ago when, feeling her only hope was supernatural help, she cried to God." 

   Living on a sidewalk during a storm, she thought, "This is something for the spirit. My spirit is dead and my flesh is weak." That was the step she needed to overcome homelessness. 
 

"The spirit is like your heart," Detroit says, 

"and if your heart's not beating - baby, you dead!" 

WORLD magazine

      Jimmy

   [Pretty good thinking for someone supposedly with mental problems.]