For Denver VOICE Vendor Halvin Jones, Survival Means Walking All Night
Story and photo by Giles Clasen
Each night, as most of Denver sleeps, Halvin Jones wanders the streets, always moving.
“THE HARDEST PART IS THE RELENTLESS TOIL OF IT ALL, THE WAY EACH DAY IS CONSUMED WITH JUST PREPARING FOR THE NIGHT,” HALVIN JONES SAID.
“I just walk the streets,” he said. “It’s dangerous to close your eyes out here.”
Jones, a vendor for the Denver VOICE, has been experiencing unsheltered homelessness since losing his Section 8 housing voucher.
“They terminated my apartment because my paperwork wasn’t completed correctly,” he said. “I thought I had it right. My caseworker helped me. We completed it multiple times. But they still said it was incomplete.”
Jones gets Supplemental Social Security Income due to a developmental disability. He said doing paperwork is difficult, and he asked for help, but instead lost his housing.
“I’ve been special ed my whole life,” he said. “I’ve never had a license. I won’t give up, I just keep trying. But it isn’t easy, and no one wants to give you a break.”
Since then, Jones has been caught in the draining cycle that traps many experiencing homelessness. Too exhausted to function during the day, but too afraid to sleep at night.
“You’re always on edge,” he said. “I don’t sleep much at night when I try. You have to sleep with one eye open; you always feel on alert. So, I often sleep during the day when it can be a little safer and walk all night.”
Some nights, Jones tries to grab a few hours of sleep on a city bus or in tucked-away corners. But even that comes with risk.
“I got robbed in my sleep one night,” he said. “I woke up with nothing but my pants.”
Shelters haven’t been a viable alternative for Jones. He traverses the city, looking for the best places to sell the Denver VOICE, but trying to make shelter curfews can hinder his ability to work.
“Shelters, they stop taking people in at 8, and shelters are dirty,” he said. “I’ve gotten sick in shelters. They don’t feel safer than the street.”
Even when he’s made the effort to get in, shelter space isn’t guaranteed.
“Sometimes I wait in line and don’t get in,” he said. “Sometimes I get sent to Holly St., but if I miss the bus or have trouble with transportation, I don’t get in, and I get stuck out there. It can take half of the day to try to get into a shelter, and there are no promises.”
Walking the streets also leads to another problem: hunger. Jones said that he walks so much that he is always looking for food.
But surviving the streets has taken a toll.
“I feel like every week out here ages you a year,” he said. The hardest part, he said, is the relentless toil of it all, the way each day is consumed with just preparing for the night.
“I either try to find a place that is safe and I can hide through the night, or I try to prepare myself to be awake all night. Neither is any good, and it wears on you.”
Sometimes, when the exhaustion is too much, Jones turns to alcohol to force sleep. He doesn’t like turning to alcohol, and he avoids harder drugs, but without access to safe housing and medical care, he doesn’t have other options.
“Sometimes you feel so sick from not sleeping, you have no choice. You go to the liquor store so you can pass out all night. But that ain’t any good either,” he said. “That ain’t any kind of sleep.”
From time to time, Jones saves enough money to spend a night or two at a motel, but as Denver changes, there are fewer and fewer low-cost hotels that he can turn to. Still, each day, Jones shows up. He continues selling papers.
“I just keep trying, and I’m not going to quit. I hope if I work hard enough, something will break my way.”