Class gives vet insight into homelessness

Posted Aug 18, 2011 by Lindsay Peterson

Updated Aug 18, 2011 at 11:11 AM

As a child in Louisiana, Patrick Walker, knew of people who lived on the street, but they were called bums, not homeless. His elders warned him to steer clear of them.

Walker went on to spend 20 years in the U.S. Navy, seeing homeless people here and there but never getting very close.

That changed this summer at USF Sarasota-Manatee.

Walker, 49 and retired from the military, is aiming for a second career in social services. He knew he had some things to learn, so he took a class called “Ending Homelessness,” and he wound up face to face with the very people he’d been taught to avoid.

He worked with the Suncoast Partnership to End Homelessness, going to shelters to interview the visitors for a needs survey.

One talk with a young man really stuck. The man said he knew people looked at him and thought “just go get a job.” But so many parts of his life were out of whack.

“I have no car, no clothes, no money, no food, no ID. Where do I start?” he asked.

Walker had been one of those people who thought “why can’t you just get a job,” when he saw a homeless person on the street. Now, he says, he knows why. He got a glimpse of what it’s like to feel like you’re at the bottom of a big pile of problems, with no idea of how to climb out.

He plans to graduate next Spring and expects that lesson to stay with him for a long time after.