6 GROUNDCOVER NEWS VENDOR VOICES My story and struggles on the street ROBERTO ISLA CABALLERO Groundcover vendor No. 347 I have too many things in my head. I need to start writing them down. About a month ago, at 1:30 a.m., somebody tried to assault me at the corner of Washington and Main Street. They looked white, maybe 6 feet tall, maybe about 200 pounds. I took out my knife and they ran like crazy. I waited; I stayed up all night and couldn’t sleep anymore because I thought they might come back. Later, two weeks ago, I had forgotten about them and I fell asleep. That night, I forgot to put my things in my shopping cart. Somebody walked by and they took my things. They stole my tablet, my phone and many of my important belongings. Later, a guy came and tried to sell me my tablet for $20. I told him, “This is my tablet, why are you trying to sell me my tablet?” So he asked if I had the code to unlock the screen, and I said yes. He asked for the code and I refused to give it to him, I said, “This is my tablet.” Leon, Groundcover vendor No. 500, found the bag where I kept all my cables and my portable charger. I asked him if he had seen my tablet and my phone and he said he looked for it, but couldn’t find it. My case worker gave me another phone, but I still don’t have my tablet. I used it to listen to music. If a person needs something, they can just ask. If someone asks me: “Cuba, amigo, do you have a cigarette?” I usually give it to them. Sometimes I say no because I need to sell papers to buy my cigarettes. But it’s different when someone asks. You don’t need to steal, just ask. Some people say “Cuba, why are you not looking for real work?” I will explain. I went to Detroit one time and they gave me my I94 identification [that displays my photo and alien number]. I walked all the way there, it took me five days. Before COVID, I went to Chicago. The police caught me there and took me to ICE. ICE took me to a detention center in Kankakee, Illinois. They took all my papers: my green card, my social security card, everything. The police work with ICE. I stayed there for four months, from October 2018 to February 2019. Later, they took me to downtown Chicago for two or three days and tried to blackmail me. They said, “You need to sign your deportation.” I said OK, but they didn’t send me back to Cuba; they just told me to go home. Except that they took all my documents and then they froze my retirement, so now I can’t retire. If I apply for retirement now, I lose everything that I have. The social security administration works with the police and with ICE, so I can’t go back to them because I signed the deportation back in Chicago. So I came back to Ann Arbor to sell Groundcover. Now I’m on the streets and Groundcover News is my job. I can’t have another job because I don’t have any papers and can’t get my papers back. I see so much shit everyday on my corner. I don’t discriminate against any types of people. But I see lots of “PDA” all around downtown Ann Arbor. Kissing, hugging, holding hands, around kids and families. I tell people, if you want to do all that, please do that in private. If you’re hot, take a shower! I came to America in 1980. At the time, Fidel Castro told Cubans that they had the freedom to leave the country if they wanted to, and U.S. president Jimmy Carter said “Welcome!” 125,000 Cubans came to the United States then. In May, I will have been here for 44 years. In this country, there’s so many people with drug addictions, and so many homeless people. I asked my friend Lindsay, “When you went to Cuba, did you see anyone like this?” She said, “No.” So why are there so many people like this here? When Susan Beckett interviewed me and took my picture in 2016 for the cover of Groundcover News, no matter the weather, I worked 10 hours a day selling the paper. I have no family now. I’m waiting for housing, but it’s a long wait. Luiza and Lindsay try to help me, but in this country I have no papers and so I have no rights. Now, I’m 65 and have no retirement. I’ve worked my whole life. I want people to know that the police work with ICE, and I want everybody to think about the humans they see everyday. Finito. JANUARY 26, 2024 Caballero wearing a pin that states, "Groundcover News, this is my job!" It could happen to you I couldn't believe I was homeless. One minute I was in a home, next minute I was on the streets. Me and my girlfriend was on the streets for two years without assistance from anyone — including agencies. Without anyone trying to help us, people had made fun of us. We got sick being on the streets. We even had people say that we're monkeys in a zoo cage. It was hard to move at all; we were walking around looking homeless. I was disabled, using a walker, and I would have to pack all my things up and put them on my walker and push it everyday, all through the day and night, no rest. We had places like 7-Eleven and people from the streets giving us money; it was embarrassing but we had no choice. We were grateful for having 7-Eleven feed us. We had actually had a lot of people who offered their homes, but they always had bad intentions. When we were sleeping at a church they were homophobic. The church claimed they were open to all but they really weren't. It was all just for show and nothing else. We JOCELIN BOYD Groundcover vendor No. 85 were the only gay couple there; they treated single men as kings compared to us. Also, racism is real, no matter if you're homeless or poor. Never say never because you don't know when it's going to happen to you. I pray over all my people who are homeless, that they can get housing. I see a lot of abandoned houses just sitting there, thinking they can use these houses for the homeless. And what's really bad about it is we have elders on the streets who are homeless who need help and it's so sad to see them homeless. We try to all stick together. What’s even crazier was the homeless stealing from the homeless. That was a real big issue to me and I thought I should share this. It has to stop. We have to help our community to help these people. I finally got my apartment after two years on the streets and I live in a really nice apartment. The craziest thing about it is I had assistance — no bad credit, my credit was excellent. I had no felonies. But I was still on the streets. All these good things about me did not stop me from being unhoused. We had to wait for two years before we got housing. People that work for Section 8 need to take time out and start putting some people in front of other people who don't have housing — the elders out here, dying on the streets, getting robbed on the streets. If it wasn't for me and my partner being together I wouldn't know what to do all by myself. Well I hope you guys know that next time you see someone homeless, please help them, communicate with them. Because one day, you never know, it could happen to you.
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