Transcription of Thomas Ptacek for the show Homeward Bound #212
Lisa: There are many important things in our community that we have difficulty grappling with. One of these is homelessness. It’s something that I think all of us in Maine and probably all over the world are aware exist and yet we don’t really know how to work with it. It is something that we, well, it’s been a struggle. This next guest that I’m speaking with today.
He knows the struggle and he knows it in a way that most of us could barely even fathom. This is Tom Ptacek, who is Preble Street’s veteran healthcare outreach community organizer. Tom, a veteran of the US Navy has experienced homelessness and was an advocate for homeless voices for justice. Tom is also on the boards for community housing of Maine and the milestone foundation. Tom, we’re really privileged to have you here today.
Tom: Thank you for inviting me.
Lisa: You’ve been dealing with some. You’ve had a lot of stuff go on in your life. Back me up to where you are from.
Tom: Well, I guess I would say that I am from Kansas, that’s where I’ve spent most of my life but moved around a lot as a kid and moved around a lot as an adult. Actually here, next year, Maine will be the place that I have lived the longest continuously, and will be 10 years. Still another year or two to beat the total time in Kansas, but yeah, it’ll be the place that I’ve been the longest continuously. I say I’m from Kansas but all over.
Lisa: How did you make your way into the US Navy?
Tom: I was 20. Had gone to college was not really my thing. Left, was figuring on going back but not right away and was working. When you’re from Kansas, I guess the Navy can seem exciting since you’re nowhere near an ocean. I just on a whim, I’m going to join the Navy, I guess. I’m glad I did. It certainly got me through my early 20s with structure and discipline, I wasn’t really able to do anything too stupid because the price is really high if you’re in the military.
Grew up a little, I’d say I probably got what I needed out of it after a couple of years, so then I still had a couple more years to serve. It was a long time before I ever availed myself of any veteran services. You find a lot in the veteran community that we have this really high bar, we set for being a veteran. For someone like me, while I did serve during the desert storm period, I didn’t go over there. I was a psychiatric technician, I worked in a hospital.
I looked at people that served in combat, a Vietnam combat veteran, that’s a veteran, I’m not that. There’s a lot of that in the veteran community where we just, well, I didn’t do all these things that other people did, so they’re the real veterans. A lot of times there are services available to veterans out there but they don’t access them.
I never did, including the GI Bill which I paid into. When I got out of the Navy I went back to college and still didn’t access that. It wasn’t until I was stuck in Oxford street shelter for a year and there was an influx of money into the VASH program. A VASH voucher is essentially section eight, but specifically for veterans, stands for Veterans Assistance Subsidized Housing.
When the program got this influx of money, they were literally scouring the shelters across the country looking for veterans who were stuck in homeless shelters. At that point I was like, you’re right I’m a veteran, if it’s going to get me out of this shelter, then absolutely, I’m a veteran. Since then I have accessed some services. I go to the community-based outpatient clinic, that’s called CBOC, which is the veterans clinic that opened up here a handful of years ago.
Where I go for mental health stuff. I often say that I’m not sure if my year of homelessness broke something in me or if it simply brought to bear things that were always there but in good times just never noticed. Obviously wherever I was emotionally at the beginning of that year was vastly different from where I was emotionally at the end of that year.
There was a lot of depression and self-esteem stuff and I finally decided to look into that and see someone about that which is obviously a tough step for people. If you’re struggling whether it’s in poverty or with homelessness or mental health issues or addiction, whatever you’re struggling with, it can be, whether you’re a veteran or not, it can be difficult to seek those services. You often don’t necessarily know what’s available. Often times when you do go to seek some services there are long waiting lists and so you get discouraged.
Lisa: Well, I’m wondering how old you are. If you don’t mind telling us.
Tom: Yeah. No, I don’t mind. Here in a couple months, I’ll be 49.
Lisa: Okay. It’s interesting to me that the Navy recognized pretty early on that you somehow had skills that would put you, that would make you a good psychiatric technician.
Tom: Yeah. That was something I chose to do. I actually, when I joined, I wanted to be a photographers mate. I had a really big interest in photography at the time. I knew that school wasn’t … If a class really gains my interest, I do really well but if it doesn’t, I don’t even go to class. I don’t officially drop it and it’s just a mess.
I knew that school maybe wasn’t the right path for that. I thought you know what, “I’ll go in the Navy, I’ll be a photographers mate, I’ll learn everything I need to know and be able to come out and jump right into work.” Apparently, I had no idea at the time, but apparently, I’m color blind. They wouldn’t let me be a photographers mate because you’re working in a dark room and things are coded or whatever.
By that time, I was far enough in the process that I was starting to get a little psyched about this adventure I was about to go on. I just looked down, what else is there that I could do. My father’s degrees are in research psychology. I grew up with an understanding of human behavior and so I thought well that sounds good. I did not know at the time that while I chose that, that was not guaranteed.
I had to go to basic core school where you learn to draw blood and start IVs and pass the meds and all that stuff and then applied for psyche school. It essentially comes down to do they need psyche techs, if they need psyche techs, you’ll get in. If they don’t, you won’t. Some people would choose four or five different things so that they would get something rather than being a regular corpsman. I just chose that, luckily they needed one.
Lisa: Was it interesting to you as you went down your own personal path? Was it interesting to you that you had at one point been a psyche tech and that eventually you decided to access services for yourself?
Tom: Yeah. I was a bit of a sponge when I was … I worked the majority of my time on the overnight shift. When the duty doctor would come up to work on the charts for that day or whatever, I would just sit in the office with them and ask question after question in concern with patients and the treatment. It was something that I have a natural ability for.
The one thing that I did not truly understand when I left is in regards to depression and especially clinical depression, you would hear the words helplessness and hopelessness a lot and part of it was probably my age but I just I didn’t understand how you could be completely without hope. I understood sadness slash depression, I understood bad things happening and it affecting you, that I got.
How you could be completely without something, didn’t makes sense to me. It wasn’t really until halfway through my time at the Oxford Street Shelter that I got it. It is completely possible to be completely without hope and to completely feel like you can’t be helped. That’s why there’s no easy fix. I often tell people that when I got out of the shelter, when I got my place. It actually was an emotionally speaking a bit of a step backwards.
Because while you’re in a shelter, in order to survive, you got to get on auto-pilot and you find ways to exist. Make it from day to day to day. You’re not thinking about certain things, I wasn’t thinking about the fact that I no longer own furniture, that I no longer own a TV or a stereo, I no longer own a closet full of clothes, none of that entered into my mind because I had nowhere to put that stuff.
When I got my place, and I’m coming home every night and I’m sleeping on the floor and there’s no furniture in there. That’s when it all hit me, that’s like, okay, this is how far you have … When you’re in the shelter, it’ll be better when I get out. It’ll be better when I get out. You can fantasize or believe how much better, like you’re just going to jump from that right back into a regular routine.
You hold on to that hope but then you get out and that’s not how it is. Now it’s like the reality of just how much farther I have to crawl back. It seems like that process there’s 31st steps. It’s really overwhelming.
Lisa: That’s a really interesting point. I think about people who come to see me for whatever behavior they’re trying to change and I think okay once I reach my goal, once I have lost my 20 pounds, once I’ve gotten out of my bad marriage, once I’ve gotten to that place then everything is going to open up and it’s all going to be great.
You’re talking about a pretty, I guess more extreme form of that. Once I get my home, then it’s all going to become clear. You’re right, it just is another, just opens up the door then there’s another door, then there’s another door. I love hearing that actually. It’s just reminds us that we’re all basically in the same place, if we’re trying to change the circumstance, it’s just the process.
Tom: Yes. That’s why here recently over the last year or so, there’s been a real concerted effort in ensuring that there are services that go along with and follow people as they get housing and come out of the shelter, where everyone is starting to realize that as difficult as it can be sometimes to house someone, especially here in Portland, there’s not a lot of vacancies.
Often times the really hard work can be helping that person to maintain that housing and stay there. That’s part of it is you have a bunch of new things to deal with and some realizations when you get there. I like to talk about, obviously as human beings. We strive to be comfortable with who we are and where we are and we find ways to justify the decisions we make.
I can’t speak for anyone else but I know for me, when you’re here and there’s nothing to lose and maybe your investment isn’t huge, the math makes sense. As you start to invest in yourself and make small steps up it seems like what you stand to lose is so much greater. It can be really difficult, it’s like when I was in the shelter.
There were a variety of issues combined that were keeping me there. I also knew because I knew how I got there with low paying jobs and just living right on the edge and the only way I really even survived is because I had an employer that didn’t really care so they worked me 70-80 hours a week but obviously that can only last so long.
My thought was wow, if I go get this job for $7 to $7.50 an hour, how long is that going to last? If that falls through, I’m going to be back in the shelter because I haven’t been able to save anything, I’m not going to be able to survive. When I do I’m just barely going to be making it, I’m probably going to have to decide where maybe the landlord will let me slide on $20 for a little while or not pay the full electric bill and it starts piling up.
That’s just so overwhelming and that’s not where you want to scratch and claw to get to. Just having those services that follow you and that allow you to do things in a time frame that’s good for you. I know I benefited greatly when I joined Homeless Forces for Justice and there’s a small stipend that goes along with that but it’s not, you’re not making a ton of money.
I did that for a few years and I was able to connect with people in the service provider industry and show my skill level and the things I can do and felt respected and needed and that allowed me to get to a place that when I went back into full time employment, it was a good move. It was a move that I felt good about, it was a move that I knew was supported.
You still, you never really leave that time you’re homeless behind. I’m about six years removed from being homeless and I still think about it. I look at my bank account and I think, man, if things fall through, if I lose my job. I got maybe a month that I can make it before I start not being able to pay my rent and then my thought, I can’t go back to the shelter.
You never quite put that behind. I feel 99.9% confident that had I had tried something earlier, had I have taken some low paying job in an effort to get out. I would have wound up back there. There’s no doubt in my mind. I just wasn’t in a place where I could just really take it all in, it makes sense a bit and work, basically.
Lisa: It sounds like you’re saying that it’s not just the job itself, it’s the mindset, it’s the psychological approach on the emotional wherewithal to stay with something.
Tom: Yeah. If you’re depressed and your self-esteem has taken this huge hit. It’s hard to go up there and take what the day brings on and not have that affect you adversely. It’s always obviously something you have to deal with everyday. I’m in a place now and I’ve sought the services that I need to make a good go of that.
Obviously as I was talking about before that where people try and get comfortable with where they’re at and what their life is like and that’s one of the things that I want people to understand. Every now and then I hear people that they’ll see someone using their EBT card at the store or they’ll hear someone talking on the street and they come away with the impression that people are happy with where they’re at.
They’re, oh yeah, I don’t care, I’m just kicking it, I’m having a good time. I get this, I get this. That’s just someone trying to be comfortable with where they’re at. If someone is going to say, well, man, I suck. My life sucks, I hate this. I’m nothing, I’m worthless. That happens inside but that’s not how people are going to present it. I hate to think that someone who is just trying to make it and be okay with where they are at, is giving someone else the impression or ability to think that that is what that person wants.
Lisa: That’s a really good point. This is something that I’m, as you’re talking because this often happens when the guest come in, I’ll think is this something that I do? Is this a judgment I make? Have I had these thoughts before? I do think that when we see that someone is pretty down. That we think well, they should be grateful for whatever they have, whatever we’re so benevolently cared to give them, they should be grateful for.
They’re probably feeling really crummy right now. We’re really just, there’s a lot of super impositions and projections that we are putting on other people, not just assuming, they’re probably just like us. They’re probably just trying to make their way in the day. I don’t know. I guess there’s a lot of disparate thoughts, but this is really hitting home for me.
Tom: That’s something that I want people to understand too because you’ll hear people talk about choices that people are making. If you have someone who flies a sign on the median or whatever and gets some money then goes and buys some alcohol and they go, well, it’s their choice, he’s making that choice. This is happening because these are the choices he’s making.
What I really really want people to understand is that in order to make choices, you have to see options. If you don’t see options, then you’re not making a choice. Someone who’s just existing, getting through the day, the way that they best know how, that’s not something that they’re choosing to do. Obviously we’re all human beings, and as human beings dreams and desires occur within us naturally.
You have to think what had to happen to someone, where does someone have to be emotionally. For those naturally occurring dreams and desires to have died. That’s why it’s such tough work and why just being there and keeping the door always open for them and having patience and letting them work through that is the best way to do it because it’s not just as simple as, “Hey get of the street and take this house and everything will be fine.”
Lisa: Now tell me about the milestone foundation. I know that you just recently joined the board there, and this is important to you, why?
Tom: The milestone shelter really works with some of the most vulnerable members of our community. Milestone is essentially the shelter that you can be presently intoxicated, heavily intoxicated and go to. They really are working with a really vulnerable portion of the community. It’s so necessary and so needed. I’ve been fortunate enough through the times that I was staying at Oxford Street and utilizing Preble Street and then being around Preble Street all the time when I was with HVJ and then now in my current position.
I’ve been able to see people that are struggling with addiction when they’ve got a grasp on that. It’s just, it’s this reminder that there’s this really great person there. It’s well worth our efforts to try and create a system where they can get there. We can’t make that happen. We can’t bring it about, but the system has to be pliable enough and understanding enough and compassionate enough to allow them access to it and the process in which to do it.
It’s the same even if there aren’t addiction issues there. I didn’t have addiction issues. I didn’t have severe mental health issues. Yet I still was at the shelter for a year, I still had nine months or whatever after I got out of the shelter before I got connected with Homeless Voices for Justice. I was still with Homeless Voices for Justice for a couple years before I got back into full-time employment.
All along the way, whether it’s a place like Preble Street or whether it’s a federal or state program, all along the way, investments were made in me. Those investments are really paying off now.
Lisa: After listening to our conversation, I’m sure people are going to want to do something. Or I’m hoping people are going to want to do something. How do people learn more about the work that you do at Preble Street or the work that Preble Street does in general.
Tom: Well, Preble Street has a lot of volunteer programs so you can always contact Preble Street to see what you can do. Obviously donations of any kind helps, socks, socks are big. I know, I’ll just throw this out there because when I was there, it was funny but the one thing that never seem to get donated was deodorant. That was really hard to come by, socks you could get, shampoo, soap. You get those things, but man, deodorant was tough, so let me throw that out.
The best thing that someone can do is to get involved politically and make your voice heard because it all depends on the system that’s in place. Preble Street or Opportunity Alliance or Milestone or Community Housing of Maine, Avesta Housing. All these people are trying to do good things can only do so much dependent upon the system that’s in place. Becoming active and making your voice heard and letting it be known that there is belief in and support for a good safety net. A safety net that provides people with those avenues to success.
Lisa: Well, I’ve learned a lot from our conversation. I hope that other people who have listened to it will make their voices heard, perhaps donate some deodorant or socks or volunteer some time or even just think more about what all of this means and what it means to each of us as individuals. This has been just an amazing conversation. We’ve been speaking with Thomas Ptacek, who is Preble Street Veterans Healthcare Outreach Community Organizer. Tom, thanks so much for your time and for all the work you’ve done and I’m really glad to have you in our community.
Tom: Thank you again for having me.