Get ready for truth from someone with lived experience & those whom can confirm, relate: please comment
@metrolosangeles @FoothillTransit 🧵
@metrolosangeles @FoothillTransit 🧵
https://twitter.com/racheluranga/status/1502357779582881794
Before COVID . There is Metro & Foothill transit buses that ran 24hrs a day/ 7 days a week. If the driver got to know you, you could get in & sleep. You had a driver, some camera (at doors) & warm hard bus seat to Sleep on.
When I was first as a homeless teen/young adult struggling to stay in college. I had one metro bus driver give me free emergency transfers with no time expire & let me into the El Monte bus station bathroom to sleep for the night. (Before the remodel)
On foothill. There was a bus now known as the “Silver streak”. It ran 24hrs from montclaire to DTLA & back. I got to know the night drivers and morning drivers. He would tell his switch driver about me & ask them not to wake me up.
I didn’t know till I woke up arriving at CalPoly stop & was like “o shit” and got off. I remember faintly waking up & one rider bitching to the driver about how I was taking up three seats at the front. Driver told the passenger that I was a homeless college student.
He also told the passenger that he wasn’t gonna wake me up either. I don’t recall seeing that driver much after that. Idk if he got in trouble or they moved him to a different route or if he was just a sub but I never forgot this memory. This was 02-04
The metro driver who gave me the emergency transfers & once took me In her car for some good tacos to some stand here in ELA. I’ll never forget. I also remember where the taco stand is. I also remember her liking techno/house music & her husband being Native American.
I will never forget the voice of the foothill bus driver who stood up for me while I was asleep to catch the conversation half awake & dashing off the bus & thanking him but never getting his name. These memories I will cherish forever & wish I could meet them again.
Years passed, wasn’t homeless & till a house fire & wrongful eviction got me. today I don’t see as many compassionate drivers. I’ve seen & have stopped or deterred a would be attacker on Metro & Foothill & I can say based on my eyewitness account that they didn’t look homeless .
I’ve been attacked at two metro bus stops again neither person looked homeless. One was high on something & the other just seemed like a violent drunk. This isn’t metro fault. Sheriff’s did nothing to the first person & local PD did something with the 2ed person.
This pepper spray has helped. To the best of my knowledge, it’s the same one used by local PD & Sheriffs. amzn.to/3i2JFsM 
From my experience: the late night or overnight shift drivers usually like the homeless because we act as a :
-deterrent because eyewitnesses.
- drivers actually trust some of us.
Some actually wanna help.
-deterrent because eyewitnesses.
- drivers actually trust some of us.
Some actually wanna help.
Also a bathroom selfie pic of me. I’m-actually- homeless because poverty sucks. Me & my bags.
Video thread into my nightly routine:
Video thread into my nightly routine:
https://twitter.com/houselessgamer/status/1494507741016039424?s=21
Also you can catch my past live streams on Twitch at : Twitch.tv/HouselessGamer
& other videos on YouTube.com/HouselessGamer
I know “Gamer” is a strong word here but does any of this make me dangerous @latimes ?
& other videos on YouTube.com/HouselessGamer
I know “Gamer” is a strong word here but does any of this make me dangerous @latimes ?
This is just the short version of my story but I’m more scared of the sheriff & local PD . I’ve had five guns drawn on me over mistaken identity while playing on a PSP with headphones on & sitting on a duffel bag.
falsely accused of stealing alcohol from 7/11 b/c the owner thought it was the homeless. I had to point to the guy who was laying in the gutter after being hit by a car to the sheriffs & had their backup confirm through camera tapes it wasn’t me but the guy dying in the gutter.
I’ve had “housed neighbors “ falsely call the sheriffs because of where I was sleeping as a fake “I think somebody trying to break into that warehouse “ so the sheriffs would show up just to harass me. Another time as well but by the business owner across the street.
These are just some of the hardships we deal with & not sleeping or lack thereof. I’m also proof that not all if not most, homeless are just trying to get by & this article is very misleading.
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