This is the first of several blogs centring on my experience of homelessness, from an intersectional point of view.
I’ve been homeless in Germany for almost a year now. In German we have two terms that apply to the concept of homelessness – “wohnungslos”, which means “flatless”, and “obdachlos”, which means “shelterless”. I’ve been mostly flatless, with awful days of being shelterless in between.
The fear of not having a place to stay in during the night is a constant threat looming over me. Because due to my Complex Trauma, living in a communal setting (emergency shelters and flat shares) is not possible for me, because they all force people to share a room or flat with a random stranger. Ever since I’ve lived in poverty, I learned that in our society, privacy is a luxury good. No one feels this more than homeless people.
The lack of choice is similar with food. Of course the places that serve free food for homeless people are not vegan and most of them don’t even have vegan options. A logical approach would be to have everything be vegan, because it means no one needs to go hungry. But inclusiveness and equality are apparently not what charities are about.
There are many who see veganism as part of the white, wealthy privilege. Maybe that's due to the many new vegan options that are overtly marked as such (and which tend to be more expensive than the non-vegan version...). But these are products from the top of the food pyramid, because all essentials always have been vegan. As much as people may love vegan ice cream and cheese, you really don't need them to survive.
In fact, saying that veganism is white, erases not only the countless people of colour who are vegan by choice, but also erases the fact that the broad mass of the people of most cultures have lived on a vegetarian diet since the Neolithic. Staple foods like corn, sweetcorn, beans, rice, or quinoa build the broad base of nutrition in agricultural societies, while the frequent consumption of animal flesh has always been a privilege of the small elite.
In this sense, our modern carnist cultures are extremely abnormal, not to say unnatural (which is, for example, seen in the host of cultural diseases that stem from carnist malnutrition, like diabetes, cancer, heart attacks, or strokes, among other things).
But few people are aware of this. When I dared to ask for a vegan option in a café for homeless women, I was immediately met with hostility and prejudice. One of the women who overheard the conversation (and who reminded me a lot of an abuser from school times, both in appearance and behaviour), immediately jumped in with a sneering “Oh, just make a survey about whether people want to have vegan food, I’m sure it will be very popular!”. And the cook of the café shoved a can filled with dead animal parts into my face, to show me what she was going to make for lunch. Informing me that prehistoric humans needed to eat meat in order to “evolve”.
This typical combination of meanness and righteous ignorance (coupled with ancient myths) is a typical experience of bullying for any vegan, but as a) a hungry homeless person, who is in need of food and a safe place, and b) a survivor of life-long abuse since childhood, this kind of bullshit is even more scarring.
Needless to say that this was not a safe place for me (for other reasons as well). My extreme social anxiety and fear of other homeless people also keeps me away from food banks. Since April I’ve been cut off from benefits and had to pay the expensive hotel costs out of my own pocket. Due to this, I’ve amassed debts, had to stop therapy sessions, and am in constant danger of ending up on the street. Last week I also had to go to the jobcentre to ask for money to buy food, as I literally have zero money left.
Two weeks ago I had to leave an apartment room with kitchen. Since then I’ve stayed in places with no option for cooking, nor a fridge (which is really a pain in the summer heat). I’ve been in this situation last year as well, and as then, I notice how bad it is for my psycho-somatic health.
I realised quickly that healthy food tends to be more expensive than fast food. It starts with bread – 39 or 45 cent for a multigrain bun, but only 19 for a white-bread bun. When you have enough money, you might not even notice the difference, but now I definitely feel it.
And when your emotional well-being crashes due to hardship and you enter a survival state, you naturally crave comfort food, full of sugar and fats. That might have made sense for our non-human and human Palaeolithic ancestors, but nowadays it throws you into a vicious circle of eating trash food and declining health.
(What a feast. If you can afford buying ALL of what's on that plate, count yourself lucky!)
Today I realised that I can’t continue buying the closest things to ready meals, for financial reasons alone. And it just feels unhealthy as well. So I started doing some internet research on a cheap vegan raw diet.
I never really was interested in that, as the thought of not having any hot meals is deeply off-putting to me. It’s a completely psychological thing – there’s a good reason why tea is also affectionately called “a hug in a cup”. Hot things remind our bodies of physical affection. And when you’ve gone without that all your life, your hot meals, beverages, and baths are part of your emotional support system.
Unsurprisingly, it’s especially my child parts who are fond of hot food, and miss their favourites, like potatoes and pasta. But as I don’t have a choice right now, I’m trying to save myself with curiosity and exploration. The idea that there is actually a way to nourish myself in a healthy way with the little money I have, while also offering the opportunity to learn and try something new, truly is a life-saver. It’s the difference between lethargy and motivation, hopelessness and inspiration, death and life.
One of the many things I learned to value this year is curiosity. It’s impossible to be suicidal when you feel curious about something. It makes you want to engage. It gives you a drive. It makes you feel alive. It’s exciting. And it can transform “This is useless. Why bother?” to “Maybe I can learn something from this.” It’s like a magic key for all sorts of things – personal crises, therapy work, and inter-personal relationships.
I’ve always had a difficult relationship with food for many reasons – sitting at the dinner table meant to be attacked by my abusive family, among many things, also for my vegetarianism as a child and other food choices that were seen as eccentric and silly.
I also experienced physical abuse in being forced to drink or eat certain things, and physical neglect in being left without food, so starvation really is nothing new for me. It is way too easy for me to save money by not eating enough, and I’d rather go hungry than to have to go to the jobcentre again. That tells you volumes about my childhood and about the jobcentre.
Having a ton of food allergies doesn’t make things easier either. No surprise then, that I never experienced food as something enjoyable. Only since I’ve transitioned to veganism seven years ago, did I start to explore food with interest and curiosity, which also made me think about what was healthy and what not. Before that I was simply shut-down when it came to the topic of food (which is symbolic for the rest of my life before leaving my abusive family).
So now I’m again in a position where I have to re-examine my relationship with food. Since it’s not of my own choice and is part of oppression, it’s particularly important to find a possibility for agency in it.
I started with trying out broccoli florets as a snack (perfect for dipping), to replace chips. Turns out, I actually like them much better raw (boiled vegetables...I don’t miss them). The point is to try to find a way to make food interesting and exciting, even when you’re on a tiny budget. It makes all the difference.
Two weeks later, and I’ve gotten completely used to creating meals from vegetables, fruit, and cereals (thankfully there is a great variety of bread in Germany). It is both tragic and beautiful to see a basket full of red currants as a luxurious, rare treat. And a kettle is a treasure – because it means tea!
I’m aware that there are much poorer people than me, living in worse conditions, and facing much more oppression and abuse. It’s humbling to think of that and it makes the contrast between poor and rich seem even more grotesque.
I can’t believe that most shops are filled with completely unnecessary and frivolous products, all aimed at well-off, comfortable middle-class people, and that there are hundreds of empty flats, as well as monuments like palaces and castles being curated for millions of money, while there are thousands of people without a roof over their head or having enough to eat! I walk through the streets, seeing nothing but abundance that could provide for everyone - if only there was someone to distribute it evenly!
I’m reminded of Sara Crewe from the Victorian children’s novel “A Little Princess”, one of my favourite stories since childhood. I always identified deeply with Sara – now I know that that was because of the abuse/neglect I experienced, and because Sara is a fellow INFP (my MBTI personality type). Like Sara, “pretending” and imagining things is my greatest coping mechanism, being able to build a palace from a speck of dust.
So I have occasional queenly feasts of berries, and I fill my wraps with as colourful a mix of the gifts from the earth as I can afford. I’ve loved the fact that we can get all the nutrients we need from plants alone before, but now I love it even more. If only all homeless and poor people could be educated as to how healthily they could live on a plant-based diet!
A couple of years ago I contributed a piece of art to the annual charity calendar of the Art of Compassion Project, which was in aid of Chillis On Wheels, who bring free vegan food to homeless people in New York. I drew “Mother Earth” and some of the wonderful plants that have sustained human animals for ages, wanting to depict the bountifulness of vegan raw foods (see below).
Now that I’m thrown to the very basics, I’m actually surprised to find that a raw vegan diet leaves me full after each meal, just as with cooked meals. You wouldn’t necessarily expect that with salads, which is what I was worried about, along with getting enough carbs. But, as I learned, you can get enough carbs from all kinds of vegetables, fruits, and cereals, just as protein, calcium, and all the rest.
Moreover, being forced to cut out expensive sweets and unhealthy snacks from my diet, I’m relieved to find that I don’t miss them as much as I thought. Yes, I sometimes dream of cookies and cake (and have been saving quite some photos of the most decadent and fanciful desserts on Pinterest), but it’s more tied to my hunger for beauty, which all Highly Sensitive Persons possess. I crave being able to buy new clothes just as much. Thankfully music, nature, creating art, and love, are free.
Mother Earth by Laura Buchenlicht