‘Andy’ is a large man, with chestnut-brown skin, wrapped in too-thick layers of clothes. Stringy black hair is cramped close under a baseball cap, hugging large ears. Short, nubby lashes frame his brown eyes, staring quietly at the curb. He mumbles through thick lips.
‘Andy’ was born and raised on the South side of Austin. He didn’t go to college—and soon found himself dating, living at his girlfriend’s house, working as a bartender.
“I was making $800, $900 a week,” he said. He worked in this way for six years, living with and loving his girl.
We all need change, and in 2013, Andy’s brother called him from Virginia. He’d taken and left several government jobs since he left Austin, and now was running a business that produces office cubicles.
Andy moved to Virginia to join him, promising his girlfriend that he’d be back soon. He spent two years with his brother, working with his company.
He moved back to Austin in 2015.
“It’s too far. 1600 miles,” he said. Too far from the girl he loved. Then:
“She sat down in front of me crying. I said, why are you crying? And she said, I gotta tell you something.”
She said that while he was gone, she had cheated on him.
He reflected on the time he had just exited.
“When I was in Virginia, I didn’t cheat on her. I’d call her every day. Cause it was just an hour difference from here to there. I’d call her, make sure she’d okay.”
And now? “And then she turned on me.”
Try as he might, he couldn’t stomach the betrayal. They had been together for ten years; He broke up with her, left her house, and became homeless in February 2017.
Several options presented themselves.
He could move back to Virginia to be with his brother. But he said definitively:
“I’m not going to go back.” It was still too far from his hometown.
He could move back in with his family in Austin. But he refuses, largely due to his sense of independence.
“I don’t want to interfere with my family too. I just feel more comfortable, doing stuff on my own.”
He could even get back together with his girlfriend. Could it happen?
“No, no. It’s no more. I thought about it for a long time. I was like yeah, maybe. But she destroyed me. She didn’t care.”
Instead, he immediately began looking for an apartment to call his own. He took a job at an extended-stay hotel, InTown Suites. He lived at the ARCH during his search, hating every minute of it.
“You’ve heard about K2 right? I see people OD (overdose), I see people have seizures. These people are crazy.”
It was at the ARCH, in the computer lab, that he was robbed.
“They stole my credit card, my Social Security.”
Recovering was difficult, to say the least.
“I went to the DPS and said I need new [ID]. How do I do that? And they said, ‘Well, we need your Social Security Number.’ I said, ‘I don’t have it.’ And I’m at the Social Security Office and they say, then, ‘We need your ID.’”
He even asked the ARCH for help.
“I asked them about the cameras—can’t you look at the cameras to see who stole it?”
They said: “’The cameras don’t work.’”
Eventually he was able to apply for new IDs, but not before he lost his job at the hotel and found a new job as a day laborer. The work and the new hours are very difficult, he said.
“I have to get up at 4:30, catch the bus by 5:20. Be at the office at 6. And then they take us to Pflugerville, Round Rock, Cedar Park.”
Although he can make $400 in a week, he said:
“I just hate it. It’s too much labor.”
He is retaining the job, however, because it pays him enough for rent—he found an apartment. His move-in date was May 12.
“It’s a new suburb area,” he said, smiling.
Was he excited to move in?
“I’m counting down the days.”