“The first 2/3 of this kind of worked for me in a perverse way. I was like, “See, this is what happens when you try to keep a pet homeless person that you can throw up on TV.”
I worked in an industry that has a lot of dealings with homeless people (by the by, I don’t usually call them “people experiencing homelessness because I have NEVER heard someone in that boat refer to themselves that way). And, yes, it’s true, there are MANY people who are homeless for a period who aren’t crazy, who aren’t addicts, and who aren’t criminals. MOST homeless people are probably from this camp, and the thing is, you might not even know they’re homeless because they are low-key and have their shit together enough to know that if their behavior can make their already tough situation a lot tougher.
Then you’ve got another set. These are folks who have mental issues, often substance issues as well. They are often unemployable. They often make choices that are no in their own best interests, and I’m not here to diagnose why, but they do.
Kai is definitely in this second group. He’s unemployable. He can’t keep things together. He talks a lot about not being homeless, but being “home free,” and it was kind of amazing how many people were like, “Yeah, this guy is free! I’m the crazy one, sitting at a desk 40 hours a week.”
Here’s the thing people, hear me out: there is a lot of middleground between being a hopeless corporate drone and living on the streets.
And take a lesson from this documentary. Because Kai’s story ends one of two ways:
If it ends as he claims, he was being taken advantage of and sexually assaulted, not for the first time, and killed a guy in self-defense.
If it ends as the law claims, Kai ended up murdering a guy for unknown reasons.
Either way, he’s locked up. Less free than you are, at your desk, which you can choose to walk away from. You can probably do something to improve your situation, at least a little. “