Neil Tiberius Hayes from the Poverello Center

When I first began speaking with Neil in the Poverello Center, I was convinced he was a volunteer or worked there in some capacity. His clothes were clean, his hair was neatly combed, and he spoke calmly and eloquently. In a way, he reminded me of Terris, my friend from Portland. The more I spoke with him, the more I realized that he was indeed homeless. And yes, his middle name really is Tiberius. His parents were Trekkies.


Like the majority of the people I've spoken with, Neil's upbringing was typical. "I grew up in a lower middle-class family. My dad was in the Navy, and my mom worked several clerical positions. I grew up in Jacksonville, Florida, for the most part, and we moved to Rhode Island for a short time. Then back to Florida on the base. My dad retired after his twenty [years of military service] and we moved up here to Montana. I think I did a year of middle school, a year of high school, then I got my GED. I worked random jobs until I turned eighteen. I became a correctional officer here in the state of Montana, left that to work an oil field which collapsed like a bad flame when they lost our contract. I've just been working odd jobs since then; I went to Oklahoma, did some ranching. Now I'm doing dishwashing up here [in Missoula]."


I asked him how long it's been since he's been sleeping on the streets. "Essentially nine months on and off," he answers. "I've had a few places to crash for a couple weeks here, a couple weeks there." He says he's mostly been homeless in Missoula, but he also visited Spokane, Washington for a short time. "I was ill-equipped [in Spokane] and their shelters... the Union Gospel Missions make you go to chapel for an hour every night, everyone showers at the same time, you wear their pajamas to bed. The food's alright, but it's not worth all the bulls**t hoops you have to jump through. Here [at the Poverello Center], this is pretty laidback. You put your pack in storage so you don't get bedbugs, and just to keep stuff clean. They respect everyone, but it's not structured and it's not like beating you over the head with religion."


Neil elaborates on how he first became homeless, and how he's survived inside and outside of shelter. "I was working in Oklahoma for a rancher, and we got into a fairly retarded argument that pretty much ended me. I told him, 'I'm not going to buy an alternator for your truck. It's your company.' There's three bosses running [the ranch], so I talked with the other two bosses who were cool. I could have gotten unemployment, but I've already [had it in the past], and I don't really need it. I would have just wasted it on nothing and it would have stopped me from actually looking for a job. I came here to Montana because I had friends and family here, so I stayed with a few of them for awhile, but I didn't want to overstay my welcome. I'd like to have [those] resources in the future.... I don't want to burn those bridges. I've stayed [at the Poverello Center] for thirty days, talked to a bunch of people, and have slowly acquired the necessary gear to essentially build a camp outside."


I tell Neil that, simply in speaking with him for a short period, he sounds very resourceful. He has a dishwashing job which pays minimum wage ($7.25), and instead of trying to look for an apartment, which he says would take "half or more of his monthly income," he sleeps outside in a tent when the weather is nice and inside in a shelter when it's too cold out. "Why would I ever buy food again knowing how much free food is in this town? There's five food banks in this town that I know of, and meals [at the Poverello Center] daily? The meals here will eat you up on the inside after awhile, but unless I'm in the mood for something specific, I don't see the point of eating elsewhere. I get essentially six dollars a day in food stamps, and I generally use that to buy other people random stuff. I just make goodwill with other people with that extra money and then I'll just eat [in the Poverello Center] or wherever."


I ask Neil what he's learned in dealing with the uniqueness of the homeless community. "It's a community with a definite stratification and status. There's the RV people, the camping people, and then the total drunken bums just passing out on the street each day. The people that are in and out [of the shelters], the veterans that are here – there's a stratification and there's some movement in there, but generally, people move along in set paths."


Neil is the second homeless person I've met who prefers to sleep in a tent rather in a shelter. I ask him what some of the differences are between the two, outside of fresh air and blue skies. "You can go wherever you want, whenever you want. I'm nose-deaf, I can't smell anything, but people say [the shelter] just smells like ass and feet and farts. It's horrible and stuffy and hot and muggy in the winter. People are just breathing the same air. I got bronchitis in November and it stuck with me until [April]. They put me on three or four rounds of antibiotics and cough syrup the whole time. I couldn't keep any food down. Everyone just calls it the 'Pov Cough' that's 'going around.' It's not 'going around!' It's been here for years! Two years ago, I was running fifty miles a week. I can tell there's a marked decrease in the endurance ability of my cardiovascular system just from having stayed here the time that I did. Once you leave here for the night, that's it. You're stuck out in the cold. Here [at the shelter], though, you're guaranteed a nice, warm place and a fairly soft bed that is ill-fitting for a gentleman of my size [Neil is a large man, approx. 6'5" and between 250-300 pounds]. Whereas a tent, if you're not provisioned with the proper gear, you'll f***ing freeze your ass off all night. If you're careful [in the shelter], you're probably not going to have your gear stolen, whereas tents are pretty much fair game. If someone comes up to your tent and you're not there..." Neil stopped and shook his head. "For example, this guy named Dave, really nice guy. He's camped in the same spot for three years. Some people just walked down there looking to steal something. They didn't find whatever they wanted, so they just knifed his air mattress and put holes in his tent."


Part of the difficulty in living in a tent is being inconspicuous, as it's illegal to have tent cities in most towns or cities in America. Because Missoula has nice weather in the summer, many traveling homeless migrate there for a short time. "There's people that are outside year round [who keep to themselves] and cops leave them alone, but now there's all the spring chickens going out there and their camps are just f***ing horrendous. There's a group of about six people, ten dogs, and there's s**t and piss and dog food and human food and trash and tarps and old tents. They turned that camp site – this whole hillside – f***ing trashy in a matter of weeks. That draws attention to people like me. The other day, [this guy] was sitting on a trail with a ring of beer cans [around him], and yelling at people running a marathon on the trail. Part of camping out here illegally is blending in. I walk down [to the trail], I look like any other college student going for a hike. They're all dirty and grungy and their dogs are fighting with the runner's dogs. Eventually, the county gets involved, and they sweep through and bust everyone's camp out and destroy everyone's gear."


Neil explained that there are a few directions in life he could pursue. "The way I look at it is... there's a few investments I could make, and I make so little money that I need to invest it wisely. I can either directly invest it in my experiential view of reality, in that, I could go travel around, meet people, have fun and spend it directly, or buy a van to live in, build my credit up, build a resource like having a vehicle, and then later on, get an apartment; slowly build up to 'what people want to do' which is, live in a house, drive a car, and go to work. To me, the great line in 'Fight Club' is, 'working jobs you hate to buy s**t you don't need.' If I can physically get by and live, it's not always going to be an enjoyable life. I'm not always going to have the luxury of a nice, warm bathroom accomodations or a nice shower everyday. If I can live and have fun and meet all these f***ing insane people, then why not?.... Someone actually gave me a really nice huge bike that fits me. I can replace the tires, put the racks on, put the saddlebacks on, and essentially condense my camp and all necessary supplies to just fit on that. Then I'm free to go anywhere. If I work at a kitchen, a dishwasher, a prep cook, work your way up to sous chef or chef or line cook, and you get solid references... you go anywhere in the nation, people are always going to have to eat. I can fill that position quite easily with a solid reference."


I mention that there are some homeless people who don't know how or don't want to break free from their homelessness. In response, Neil said, "Maybe I'm just weird in thinking that... that's not how I want to live. There's people who get stuck in the [homeless] mindset. There's a man [people call] Cock-Eyed Joe [here in Missoula]. He's just drunk everyday. He wakes up barely long enough to beg for money on the street, get another bottle, then passes out. He's been doing that for... twenty years or so? Some of his buddies have been doing it just as long. They're missing toes from getting frostbite in the winter because they passed out when it was forty below; they're stuck in wheelchairs and have, like, five brain cells left and can barely put together a sentence. I don't do drugs, I don't drink, I don't find that fascinating. I'm never going to be there."


In regards to some of the other homeless he's met and hung out with, Neil says, "A lot of these people are just straight up f***ing fruitcakes. They're crazy! There was a guy here that went across the street and just started beating a guy, yelling something about him being a Mormon doctor. He was neither Mormon nor a doctor! The guy's schizophrenic, but he was out of jail in two days because of his own recognizance. He's just persona non grata to them. It just costs too much to help him or they don't have the resources to help him, so they say, 'Just go on the streets and hopefully you disappear to another town.'" Because of their dirtiness, their lack of mental stability, Neil says he can see the argument of the Missoulan downtown community against the homeless. "People predjudiced against homeless people have a point. We're lowering their property values. By having the Poverello here and all the supporting organizations, we have essentially four useless [downtown] blocks. Starting here, going over the walking bridge, we have the Partnership-Free Health Clinic and the Missoula 3:16 and all those organizations there just for the homeless. They could be economic powerhouses of greater downtown Missoula." He paused, then added, "We're not good for them, but as the Bible said, the poor will always be with us."