I don’t like the shelters. It gives me the prison feeling, you know being inside four walls that are not my four walls. Lots of people telling you what to do, rules that don’t mean nothing. It brings up all those feelings of way back when I was in prison so I can’t stay in shelters. I’d be satisfied with one of those little store houses that people put in their backyard. As long as they leave me alone, I’d cut the grass and take care of it. I could live there. I could not live in a 75-year-old broke down house with rent going higher and higher and having to fix it cause the man won’t fix it. After prison I never had a real job cause with prison on you they don’t have much to do with you, you know with a felony and all. I have not worked much since I got out of prison. I did have a job with a man using a pressure hose washing off co-cola trucks but the police caused me to lose that job. You have to leave the shelter at 5 am. I was in Smith Park waiting to see a lady in the Catholic Dioceses. She was going to buy one of my pictures. I told them I had business and they told me that if I did not get out of the park and leave downtown they were going to take me to jail. I said, take me to jail ‘cause I have every right to be here and I have business down town. They took me to jail and I lost my job. I can’t work now because of arthritis in my knees and back. I was in the Army in 1977 and I am going to the VA to get medical care for my knees.

I’m not satisfied with the way I live. I don’t like the way I live. I don’t like people’s negativity and I don’t want this negativity in my life. Here is an example. My grandmother rented a one bedroom shotgun house. She paid rent for 42 years until she died. She paid for that house. That was her house. When she died I did not want anybody living in her house. I thought to myself she paid for that house and nobody but her was going to live there. I was going to set it on fire but low and behold the Lord works in mysterious ways. One day I went over to that house and it had split I half. The roof fell in and the house just split in half. That was the Lord keeping me out of jail. He had a better plan for me. That is the one time I knew the Lord. That’s my answer. I had negativity about my grandmother’s house. The Lord split that house and kept me out of trouble. He took that negativity out of my life.

In my heart I have no discrimination for any one's race or color but in my mind I have to. They want to know you when you are spending money with them but they won’t speak to you on the street.