Overview

After a life-changing injury forced her to retire from a 20-year career in accounting, Ms. Hollins-Moore was rendered periodically homeless for the next two years. As a freelance writer, author and playwright of thirty years, she began documenting her experiences in living the life of homelessness. In other words, she knew she had a choice: she could either live the life of a partially handicapped or live it and write about it, too. She chose to write. The result is, Hitting The Pavement: A Journalist's 2-Year Memoir of Homelessness . She describes living in shelters (having lived in six shelters in two years). And she tells about her injury and the opioid pain medications prescribed for her that she refused to take. She then went on to see what her life would have been like had she succumbed to these powerful drugs. She also experienced the taunting and belittling the homeless receive from those she calls The Fortunate Ones . Making the main premise of her book to tell the American people that this could happen to them: just like for her in a heartbeat . Her story encompasses two years' worth of interviews (both in an out of the shelters). She reflects all points-of-view, including the homeless, merchants, law enforcement (and the jargon of the streets), volunteers and more. And, in order to obtain the stories of fellow shelter dwellers, she never revealed to them that she is a journalist. She did this for two reasons: she knew that, if they helped her, she wouldn't know if they did it because she needed it or because she is writing about it. And, more importantly, because she knew she would get embellished stories or no story at all from the people of the streets . The book is written as a journalist's memoir because, while a reporter for McGraw-Hill Publishing, she learned that names can be named from firsthand experience without fear of libel laws recourse. And she does name those names of the organizations that help the homeless just to reap the financial benefits, not to mention the glory. She completes her story by describing what it is like to return to normalcy despite barriers like having no recent rental history; and, worse, the fact that many homeowners won't rent a room to someone who has been living in a shelter (stemming from such things as reluctance to trust for rent and, of course, the Hepatitis A outbreak of 2017). It has often been said that we're all just one paycheck away from being homeless. Read her story and you'll know what's on the other side of that last paycheck.

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9781798490341

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