Kevin: The Homeless Guy blog

Photo: Kevin: The Homeless Guy blog
Yes, that is a Blogger hoodie underneath his winter coat!
 

*Updated Yet Again*

[*Update*: Read an update on Kevin's housing situation, here]

Kevin lives homeless in Nashville, Tennessee.

However someone must have forgotten to tell him that if and when a person becomes homeless, there are simply certain things that would be impossible for them to do because of the various limitations involved. Or say, even if they were to bother trying, would not be all that good at doing.

Take establishing and maintaining a blog for example. Besides what would someone who is living homeless have to blog about, if anything at all, which would be of value and interest enough in order to attract either seriously minded netizens or those of us who are merely ordinary Internet users to visit and read such for that matter?

As it turns out, based on his own personal experience of having lived homeless on and off over a twenty-two year period (beginning back in 1982, at the age of 21), he knew all too well that people living homeless indeed had something meaningful to share with others, those who were willing and able to listen and learn anyway.

What would that be? Take just for starters their own perspectives and experiences, including their understanding and knowledge of what their basic needs are, of why people really end up becoming homeless, what it takes to survive and, generally speaking, what the experience is actually like for someone.

It of course makes sense that someone who has experienced homelessness for themselves are the one's who are most and better aware of what works and what does not work in preventing homelessness in the first place, not to mention their knowing well what would also be required to properly support a person to become housed once again and then remain so. If one thinks about it for long enough though, who else would know, but those persons whom have lived and struggled with these experience(s) themselves, like Kevin has.

Back in August of 2002 Kevin sat down at an online access computer one day, logged onto Blogger and began creating his own blog in order to help spread the word on the Internet -- through the medium of blogs -- that, in his words, there's more to homeless people than being homeless.

His very first blog post read(s) (here):

Well, here I am. I've done it - gone blog. Now what happens?

Thusly The Homeless Guy introduced himself and, during most of the last twenty one months now, he has been blogging away ever since.

Within a period of less than a couple of months from the time of that initial blog post of his however, people began to take notice. Many of them had never had the opportunity to hear the perspective of the type his posts provided, especially those concerning homelessness and related matters. It took some by surprise that not only was Kevin homeless, but that he indeed was blogging regularly.

Not only did he begin gaining regular visitors to his site on either a daily or weekly basis, but word was getting out within the blogoshpere and via e-mail that The Homeless Guy was a must-read blog. Soon the number of new readers drawn to his blog grew.

As the traffic to his blog along with the resultant buzz continued to grow, it did not take long until he was contacted by members of the press who wanted to interview him.

The first news article was published in the October 2, 2002 edition of USA Today: A homeless guy finds a refuge on the Internet

By Janet Kornblum, USA TODAY

He sits in a secluded corner at the Nashville Public Library, next to a window that overlooks glass-and-steel buildings and a small park. In front of him is a computer screen, which is a different kind of window — a window into the world where he sends his words, his thoughts, his ideas.

He writes about God, Jung and the symphony. But mostly he writes about what he knows best: life as a homeless man in urban America, a world so far beneath the social radar that many step right over it.

By day, Kevin Barbieux writes in the free-form diarist style of Web logs — known in Internet circles as "blogs" — as "The Homeless Guy." His Web site (www.thehomelessguy.blogspot.com) has developed a worldwide following.

By night, the balding, blue-eyed 41-year-old stays in a shelter, a car or sometimes a new spot that he has heard might be safe.

Writing about his life is not new to Barbieux, who has lived on and off the streets for 20 years. In 1997 he started a newspaper about the homeless, but it lasted only two issues. Over the ensuing five years, he spent much of his time on computers in cafes and at the public library. Then, on Aug. 20, he became a blogger, using free software offered through a Web service called Blog Spot.

[...]

Soon other newspapers and news outlets were reprinting the story. More interviews and additional articles followed. It took off from there, at least for a while.

Another Tennessee-based blogger, Eric Janssen who lives in Memphis and works for a newspaper in that city called the Commerical Appeal, later caught up with Kevin. Eric interviewed him and in March of 2003 published an article on his blog, webraw: Talking With The Homeless Guy.

Kevin was right of course, he not only had something of value to say, but there were those who were eager to learn more. He was receiving lots of posted comments as well as e-mails, answering back when he could either directly or within follow-up blog posts, responding to all sorts of questions and inquiries. There were so many that he finally put up a faq page: The Homeless Guy Answers.

More recently, on Thursday (May 27, 2004) of this previous week, Kevin blogged this must-read post (here):

Cotton

It's 7:35 am. I am at Provence (the cafe at the library) and I am at a table near a window. Through this window I can see the park. It is a small park, occupying about 1/3 of a city block. And there are a dozen or so homeless people there, milling about or sitting on benches. There is no bench in the park without some homeless person/people on it. It is by all rights a 'homeless people's' park. And there is no doubt that the occupation of this park by homeless people bothers many of the good citizens of Nashville. But what did they expect? Even I knew, when they first announced that the park would be built, that this would happen. Did the city's good citizens not consider the homeless when they decided to build the park?

It really is a beautiful park, nicely designed, nicely maintained, and nice to look at from a distance. Now, some good citizens use the park, but there are many others who avoid it because of the presence of homeless people.

I believe there is a solution to this. And, I'm finishing up a proposal that I think will be this workable solution - that is, if the city would be willing to pay for it. Everyone admits that something needs to be done about the homeless issue, but no one wants to pay for it.

It seems to me that the costs associated with my proposal will be recouped as more people/businesses/conventions come to Nashville, based in part on the realization that Nashville has the homeless situation under control.

Being that I am homeless, people have dismissed my ideas on how to deal with homelessness. They don't believe a homeless person would know such things. It is funny how some of my suggestions have returned, after initally being dismissed, in the form of someone else's suggestion (that of a "good" citizen). Like the old saying goes, "It's amazing what you can accomplish, when you don't care who gets the credit."

[...]

Read the rest of the Kevin's post, here.

To date The Homeless Guy has had 361,979 visitors since the day when it started with that short post of his.

Little did he know at the time however, when he wrote I've done it - gone blog, that it would lead to him experiencing a major blog addiction.

If you have not done so prior to now, make sure to visit Kevin's blog (here), revisiting it often and, by doing so, help provide support to yet another recovering blogaholic.


*Note*: Made several edits, which were mostly minor in nature, for the purposes of *clarification and readability*; added a link, to the Official Nashville Government Website, within the *leading* single sentence paragraph; edited and reworded the 7th paragraph for the *usual* purposes; added an update and link concerning Kevin's housing situation: last updated on Tuesday, June 8, 2004 at 7:01 PM [EDT].