Strangers In The Shadows...

My husband and I have always known that there were homeless people living in Minot, but we had no idea just how big of a problem it really was until we saw it ourselves last summer when we set out to find those who call the streets of Minot home. When we saw how big of a problem it was, we were completely blown away.

Our first encounter actually involved an abandoned flood home across the street from us. The person who had done a contract for deed had a rather big heart, and let several homeless people sleep in the home on mattresses. The home had no running water or electricity, but it was a safe haven from the elements for those who inhabited the home.

Our next encounter with the homeless was under the 3rd Street bridge, which is a popular location for those who have no where else to go. It was a younger couple from Ohio. They were train hoppers that come to Minot every summer to stay. They were a very friendly couple, and the stories of their travels were exciting.

The most heartbreaking encounter was with a group of elderly men staying in a clearing of trees by Eastwood Park. One of the gentlemen had been living in a tent in that location for the past ten years. He even slept there during the winter months. He was a Vietnam veteran that had nowhere else to go. He also had cancer. He told us about how he would stack the snow up around his tent like an igloo, and leave a small hole to enter and exit his tent. No matter how cold it was, this man tolerated these conditions because he had nowhere else to go.

There was another older fellow with him. He had lost his home when his wife became ill with Multiple Sclerosis. He took care of her as long as he could, but after a while when he could no longer care for her, he had to put her into a home. The medical bills mounted until he finally lost his house. While he was living in the street, he had two heart attacks as well as a bad case of pneumonia. One evening, we brought him and some other homeless people a hot meal. He ended up choking on it, and my husband had to give him the Heimlich maneuver. His breathing was so bad, we called an ambulance to take him to the hospital. Had we not been there while he was eating, he most certainly would have died. He was very ill, yet when we went to the hospital to check on his condition, the hospital had released him that night.

They also had a young man in his early 20's staying with them. He was not happy with his situation, but no one would hire him because he didn't have a permanent address or a place to clean up at. When we first met him, he had a wife with him. A few days later she stole what little he had left, and left him on his birthday. So he decided that he was going to leave Minot with a couple of hitch hikers. When they went to sleep under one of the underpasses for the evening, he awoken to one of the people he was with trying to strangle him in his sleep. So he returned to his camp with the older fellows.

These are just a few of the encounters that my husband and I had while bringing food and other needed supplies to our city's homeless. I think that what The Welcome Table and the Minot Homeless Coalition is doing is wonderful, but I don't think that it's enough. We need a permanent, year round shelter rather than just a winter shelter. We also need some sort of transition program to help people clean up and have a permanent address so that they can obtain a permanent job and rehabilitate themselves. I'd like to see the news outlets in town do an in depth story on the problem in Minot.

Stay tuned for another article from Minot's Darkside. Casting a light on issues that the city would rather sweep under the rug...