I’m the author of two books on surviving homelessness and in both books I discourage people from seeking help at homeless shelters. Stewpot's "Miss Mary" is an example of why asking for help from such places is a waste of time. I wrote the book How to Live in a Storage Unit or Other Place You Don’t Belong after I spent a year and half living in a storage unit and recording audiobooks. After climbing out of homelessness and moving to Mexico, and then getting robbed at gunpoint by corrupt Mexican police officers, I would later write The Homeless Survival Guide: How to Survive on the Streets and Along the Highways. On January 13, 2023 my family survived a kidnapping attempt by a Mexican cartel (terrorist organization) that is also responsible for kidnapping four Black Americans and executing two of them.
Yeah, you read that right. This isn’t your average sob story, and I'm not asking for handouts.
My wife, my 11-year-old daughter, and I are still standing, still pushing forward, still trying to make a life in this ungodly system. And what do we get from places that are supposedly here to help the homeless? We get Miss Mary—a self-righteous old crone at Stewpot Community Services in Jackson, Mississippi, who clearly thinks her job is to collect a paycheck and wear a title, not help human beings.
They love being called "Miss" or "Mister."
Let me be perfectly clear: I wasn’t looking for a handout, a free hotel, a bus ticket, or someone to play social worker bingo with me. All I asked for was a simple, routine voucher—a written statement saying I’m homeless so I could get a driver's license. That’s it. That’s the bar. Not even food. Not even shelter. Just a paper that says I’m currently without a home. I didn’t walk in drunk, high on meth, screaming, or stinking like a sewer. I walked in with my wife, calmly, with dignity. But Miss Mary didn’t want to hear it. She didn’t want to know why a man with books on Amazon and audiobook royalties is now living in a vehicle in the South with his wife and child. She didn’t want to hear how Amazon is stealing my income. She didn’t want to hear how a terrorist cartel almost murdered us. She didn’t want anything that required more than five seconds of attention or an ounce of compassion.
She just wanted me to speed it up. She wanted me to get to the part where she could tell me “no.” And she did. Dismissively. Coldly. With a look like she was doing me a favor by even existing in the same room.
These places love being called “ministries” or “outreach centers" and they love being called "Miss" or "Mister," but there’s no godliness in their dismissive heartlessness. There’s no Christ-like kindness. There’s no humanity, and there's no reason to respect their desire to be referred to as "Miss" or "Mister."
I’ve been around homeless shelters and nonprofits long enough to know when someone is jaded, burned out, or just too damn lazy to do their job. Miss Mary fits all three. She's a textbook example of the type of worker that gives Christian charities a bad name—because they use the language of faith, but they've got hearts made of concrete and cruelty.
So here’s your one-star review, Stewpot. Congratulations. You’ve become exactly what I warn people about in my books. You don’t serve the poor. You spit on them. You judge them. You don’t listen. You don’t care. And you sure as hell don’t deserve to be called “Miss” or “Mister” or anything other than what you are: a pack of dead-eyed, self-important gatekeepers standing between desperate people and the most basic help imaginable.
I’ll never forget what Miss Mary said to me, or rather, how she said it—not with concern, but with contempt. My wife was right beside me. But Miss Mary didn’t see human beings. She saw problems to be ignored.
Well, I see her and her heartlessness. And I’m calling it out.
One star. Because zero stars isn’t an option.
