UHC: Basically [indistinguishable] we are starting from the beginning. Life, all the way up to when you became homeless…the transformation out of homelessness.

Mr. Kramer: How long does he got?

UHC: [Laughs.]

Mrs. Kramer: In the beginning, Jim, lost his job, and when you lose your job, you can't pay your rent. We were living in a townhouse; we couldn't pay that.

UHC: Where? In Greenville?

Mrs. Kramer: In Simpsonville. And Samantha was seeing a pediatric neurologist, Russell Creech, at the time and they knew that we were going to be homeless. They put us in contact with 3 or 4 places, and Upstate Homeless was one of the places that they knew someone from. So, they called and unfortunately at the time Homeless Upstate did not have a sponsor available for us. And they...uh...

Mr. Kramer: They usually find a church or a group that will be your sponsor, that would be helping you go through the program.

Mrs. Kramer: Well, we were in such a bind that they were scrambling to get us a sponsor. Well, Sammy's doctor ended up sponsoring us...

UHC: Oh. Wow.

Mrs. Kramer: [Laughs.] To get us into a place, they moved us into a 2 bedroom at...on 8th Street.

Mr. Kramer: In the Judson community.

Mrs. Kramer: Because that was all they had. We did fine there. It was really hard...it was much harder on Jim and me that it was on the kids, because he'd lost his job. We had had that wreck, everything, you know, you just...

Mr. Kramer: ...that you take for granted.

Mrs. Kramer: Yes.

Mr. Kramer: Things can change in a heartbeat.

UHC: What were you doing when you lost your job?

Mr. Kramer: I would say an area supervisor of a major shoe company. I'm sure you're familiar with Johnson Murphy?

UHC: Okay, yeah.

Mr. Kramer: Jarmin? Micros? They are all owned by General Shoe Company, which is called Genesco. I worked for them for 15 years and had the area... the 23rd area, North and South Carolina. I moved down from Greensboro to here, to open us a store in Haywood mall.

UHC: Yeah.

Mr. Kramer: After the wreck, I wasn't able to do, you know, my job, traumatic brain injury, so I was unable to continue. They let me go about a year later.

UHC: What type of wreck was it?

Mr. Kramer: Automobile. We were driving a Mazda Proté which I sure y ou're...it's a pretty small compact car, and we got hit by a 24,000 pound Fed Ex truck.

UHC: Oh, wow. Oh, man.

Mr. Kramer: Yeah, unfortunately Fran was making a left turn, and I was just off work, and I was wheeling away to an Easter picnic in Simpsonville, at the park out there. And when we were making a turn, the truck hit right on the back door, and that's where I was sitting, passenger side. Fran was driving. The older daughter who's not here was in the passenger side. Joshua, the baby, he was about 2 in a car seat, and Samantha was in the middle with me, and I took the whole blunt of it. Apparently I had fallen over. I didn't see it coming. I was looking out. I must have been gazing somewhere, and I fell over onto Samantha, with my head...open.

UHC: Oh, wow.

Mr. Kramer: Josh, I think, just had glass in his mouth, that kind of thing, so they...it wasn't as traumatic for him, but it was for Sam... in a coma for three days, and woke up, came out of the hospital, what, 4 or 5 days later?

Mrs. Kramer: But in the midst of all of that...

Mr. Kramer: Oh, yeah...

Mrs. Kramer: ...with the children being black...

Mr. Kramer: Picture this...

Mrs. Kramer: ...the cop was very prejudiced.

UHC: Really?

Mr. Kramer: Now, picture this...here is a wreck...

Mrs. Kramer: And...

Mr. Kramer: Everything in the car was thrown out...

Mrs. Kramer: They kept asking where Josh and Samantha's mother was... where their parents were, and we kept trying to tell him that we were the parents. Well, he got mad, and they had just changed the law here where it was mandatory that you have automobile insurance. Well, the company that we had in North Carolina did not work down here at that time, so this guy, this policeman is standing there trying to take the kids because, we logically cannot be their parents. And so they yanked Jim up, put him in an ambulance, sent him downtown to the trauma unit.

Mr. Kramer: To Greenville hospital.

Mrs. Kramer: And they take us in one ambulance…take us to Hillcrest and drop us off.

UHC: Oh, wow.

Mrs. Kramer: Left us. The policeman is standing out in hallway yelling at me that he is going to arrest me. And I'm saying that I haven't done anything wrong but have a car accident and he still wants... he's mad. We're trying to find out where Jim is because obviously he doesn't have the memory, and...

Mr. Kramer: I didn't know anything. I was out.

Mrs. Kramer: And he, you know, had head trauma. The guy was standing there, the ambulance guy, didn't want to take us in the ambulance together because they were still waiting on their parents. In the process, you know, Jim's gone. So, nobody knows where he is. No one can find him, and the police don't know his name.

UHC: Oh, wow.

Mrs. Kramer: So, he's over here at the trauma. We're at Hillcrest. Joshua is just 2 at the time and had no diaper, and this happened at about 4 o'clock in the afternoon. Okay, so here it is 10 o'clock at night, and we're having to hitchhike

UHC: Really?

Mrs. Kramer: Having to hitchhike from Hillcrest hospital to our home. Like I'd said, nobody had had any food. Krista had a broken nose. We had no car and didn't know anybody either. So, they get Jim down there, and Jim's giving them all these numbers. Yeah, he's just rattling off numbers. They're trying to get a telephone number, a house number, an address, a social security number, anything.

Mr. Kramer: Their major concern was how I could pay for it...

Mrs. Kramer: So they could identify him...

UHC: Yeah.

Mr. Kramer: So they are trying to get information to where they could send a bill.

Mrs. Kramer: And, so, Jim is over there, and nobody knows. Nobody knows. A day later, I finally find him.

UHC: Oh, wow.

Mrs. Kramer: So, all of this, you know, from then on, it just kept piling up.

UHC: So that's...

Mrs. Kramer: We lost the house.

UHC: So, that was in 1990 when you had your accident and got fired from your job with the shoe company, right?

Mr. Kramer: Uh-hmm.

UHC: And it was inevitable for you guys to lose your home, and were you ever... it seems like you found this doctor... was there anybody else that you could be like...?

Mr. Kramer: Not at the time.

UHC: ...that would help you, or...?

Mr. Kramer: No. We never thought we'd need it. First of all, I was a successful kind of businessman, you know. I didn't make a killing, but we were living all right. You just never think about that, which made it worse because I started working at Genesco. I was an insurance agent, all right, and we sold, Mutual of Omaha, and we sold disability programs. Well, unfortunately, you know, when you lose your job, it doesn't matter what you got. The first thing that goes is your insurance, even though you know you need it. You need food. You got to find a place to live, you know, so, if you're able to take those two then you're able to venture a little bit. I also had that car insurance, well, that was paid up, but I had no car now, so...

UHC: Was there a period of time where you lost your home? Was there a period... where did you live between that and living in Upstate... the two-bedroom home that Upstate...?

Mr. Kramer: It was in the car wasn't it?

Mrs. Kramer: Uh-hmm. We had a U-Haul truck that we put our stuff in, and we stayed in it 3 days. And that's when Dr. Creech said he'd sponsor us if Mike Chesser would take him as a sponsor, because Dr. Creech hadn't had any training either.

Mr. Kramer: I mean he was a pediatrician, so...

Mrs. Kramer: And, so, Mike took it because he knew, we had nowhere to go. I mean, there weren't any shelters at that time that would take a family.

Mr. Kramer: They wanted to split us up. We had children, a woman and a man, but...

Mrs. Kramer: Now at least he's got [indistinguishable] and, you know, some of the other shelters, but they still don't take complete families, you know. So not only do you have to worry about being homeless, but are they going to separate you in the process. You know, what do you do, especially if you don't know anyone? The church that we were dealing with at the time was not interested in helping a homeless family, so, they accepted us into their program, breaking all their rules. So, you know, to me, you can't ask for anything better than someone that puts your sanity before their rules, because, you know, he knew we had to have somewhere that would accept all four of us. So, they worked hard to get us in the shelter, or in the home. Then we were there one year, and Dr. Creech died. So, then we were there for almost a year without a sponsor at all, and Mr. Chesser was... I mean he bent over backwards. I mean, they all did, just because I'm saying Mike doesn't mean that...they were all very supportive. My children started calling Don, Grandpa Don, because...

Mr. Kramer: Have you met Don? You don't know him?

UHC: No.

Mrs. Kramer: You've got to meet him. And, they were there as a cushion as much as being someone that offered us a home. You know, because you have nothing coming in, and so they made sure that we had food for holidays and any other day, you know. They make sure that you have the necessities. So, of course, you don't have the money to have your utilities turned on, you know, because you already owe for utilities. You think, okay, there's water. Well, if your paying water and you get evicted, what are you going to do for water? You can't get it turned back on.

Mr. Kramer: You come with a deposit, and you...

Mrs. Kramer: Well, if you're homeless, you don't have any money coming in...

Mr. Kramer: Right.

Mrs. Kramer: Okay, we didn't qualify for food stamps then either. Until you have an address, you don't qualify for food stamps. And, of course, Jim at that time did not qualify for his disability, so it was being proud and still wanting a job, and couldn't do the paperwork. So it was even more degrading to someone that still wants to protect and support their family and can't. Now, the world is not set up for people that want to do something but are not capable of doing it. You know, the desire is still there, just not the mind or the mentality to keep it up. Nobody wants to go that extra mile for the individual. They can't, you know, in this day and age. You can't do that, but homeless people need that. There is no counseling offered for homelessness, or there wasn't at our time.

UHC: So, going back a little bit, you say you were in the U-Haul for 2 days?

Mrs. Kramer: Uh-hmm.

UHC: What was going through your minds? I mean, was there anything, like, had your hope just sort of like fell, or was it hard to find joy, or, I mean, what was going through your mind?

Mr. Kramer: You're doing the talking. Go ahead.

Mrs. Kramer: Well, you're petrified. You're scared to go to sleep. You're scared to eat, because what if you don't have anything later in the day? What if one of the kids get hungry? You know, what if you get run off from the place you parked? No food. Nothing to drink. Both my kids were on medicine at the time.

Mr. Kramer: In today's society, a young guy coming up may not be effected as my group. I guess my... I've always been taught, if you don't work, you don't eat. I mean, that's the idea, so it was very hard. I was full of anger, frustration, disappointment. How could the world turn on you like that, you know? I was a decent human. I wasn't a criminal. I wasn't a crook. I was unable to perform my fatherly responsibilities, as such, because I couldn't, you know, provide a home, the basic necessities. It's not a good feeling... not a good feeling. But, that didn't change over night either. It was five, seven years before I could deal with myself in the mirror.

Mrs. Kramer: Your friends, quote/unquote, disappear.

Mr. Kramer: Nobody knows how to deal with it. I mean, you know.

Mrs. Kramer: I mean, some of them not through their own fault. They can't offer you something that they're barely existing on themselves. You know, when you live paycheck to paycheck, you don't have anything left over. And that's what we were looking at. But you're just very depressed, and you don't know which problem to attack first. You know, do you get a home first? Do you get food first?

Mr. Kramer: And when something happens like that, people stay away from you, because you're negative. And you don't want to be around someone that is always... that you know is actually going through something. But... and you feel sorry for the guy, which makes the guy that's homeless even more resentful, in a sense, you know. It's just a real hard struggle between the two, so friends, generally, stay away. If you've got a... you know what I'm saying... it's just an uneasy situation. So, I crawled into a shell and...

Mrs. Kramer: I got angry.

Mr. Kramer: ...to deal with it.

Mrs. Kramer: Very angry. You know, if you can't depend on the police, who are supposed to protect and serve, to help you in a crisis, then you're sure not going to open your door and tell someone else you've got a problem. And she didn't even have a place for us to go, and she was staying with other friends. And it was just, it's bigger than what you anticipate. It's earth shattering. Your mind cannot wrap around something that enormous.

UHC: Did you have hope during it, or was it really hard to have it out there?

Mrs. Kramer: No hope. No hope. None. This world is not for us. You know, you can't tell your kids it's going to get better, it really is, when you can't feel that. You know, it's frightening. Our families didn't even know we were homeless. We didn't even tell them.

UHC: That was my next question. Did they ever figure it out or did they, like, even after the car accident, were they helping out at all?

Mr. Kramer: I think they helped out for a little while. A couple of times...

Mrs. Kramer: Ah, Jim's...

Mr. Kramer: ...my brother.

Mrs. Kramer: ...middle brother, because they thought Jim was going to have to have a blood transfusion...offered to come up and...

Mr. Kramer: ...get tested.

Mrs. Kramer: There wasn't anything they could do, I mean, you know. If you send money, where do you send it to? You know? If you send a gift card, who and where do you send it to? So it was, you know, it was like you were an island... you're all by yourself, and Upstate came in and filled that void by being cautious. You know, they were...

Mr. Kramer: Well, they let you grow on your own without being pushy.

Mrs. Kramer: Yeah.

Mr. Kramer: You know, they stood by you as you grasped...as you grasped on to something, I guess. They were supportive.

Mrs. Kramer: I mean, that year that we didn't even have a sponsor, they didn't treat us any differently, you know. It's like they expect you to want to do better. You know, it's not "give me, give me, give me." It's, "what can we do to make this a better situation so that down the future you've got something to hang on to?" They have, of course... the areas may not be what you want, but you know, you can live in anything if you've got one person that has faith in you. Well, Upstate Homeless had that faith in us. It will get better. It will get better. Next year looks better, you know. We can turn over a new leaf.

Mr. Kramer: And to carry that further, Upstate actually got me my job. You know, at the time, I was still not working, and it just so happened that a new group had gotten together, a very revolutionary idea, using churches and volunteers to help in this situation. Well, Rev. Jerry Hill from Buncombe United Methodist, and Mike Chesser, who are friends and also on the boards at different places, well, I was put in touch with Mr. Hill. I went for an interview, and I became the bus driver for this new group, Interfaith Hospitality Network. It's called G.A.I.H.N. That's Greenville Area Interfaith Hospitality Network. It's a nationwide group. And five and a half years later, I'm still with them. It filled a void in my life, in a sense that as I was being helped, I was helping others. So, it was kind of easy. I guess it helped in my situation because I was able to shift that, you know, because of the anger and the frustration. Well, I could now understand other families going through the situation. So I was able to work with that, and that's why, and that's why that bus is out there, and that's why...

Mrs. Kramer: He drives the families that don't have transportation that come into the program.

Mr. Kramer: So, I don't know if you want to put that as part of the continuing help.

UHC: Well...

Mrs. Kramer: Mike Chesser is the one that helped us get our home.

Mr. Kramer: He's…He's…He gave…He put me in touch with this house.

Mrs. Kramer: And...

UHC: How was that whole process?

Mrs. Kramer: Well, you get excited. You get so excited. Somebody's going to help us. And we don't even know...

Mr. Kramer: I mean, we would've taken a shack.

Mrs. Kramer: Yeah. We didn't even know him.

Mr. Kramer: We didn't know what to expect, whether it was a crude joke, you know.

UHC: When he started giving his signs of help, was it hard to trust?

Mr. Kramer: I don't know about anyone else, but for me, yes. I mean, I've always been very inward. I mean, I don't know what other word to use, but, you know, an island kind of a guy. I take care of my family, and it was hard to ask for help...personal...but it was... we walked through, what was it, four or five houses? Out here it was kind of a newer situation. I had been here maybe a year or two before. But Mike and Linda, they put in a good word for us, you know. They...

Mrs. Kramer: And Heath and Don...

Mr. Kramer: ...and Heath and Don.

Mrs. Kramer: Is Heath still there?

UHC: I'm not sure. I've never met them.

Mrs. Kramer: Oh, you have to.

Mr. Kramer: They were the maintenance guys. You'd appreciate him. He plays in a band, and he has his own. Got long hair in a ponytail like this, but we haven't seen him in years. I haven't seen Don either, but anyway.

Mrs. Kramer: But they, just them saying an encouraging word was enough to make you want to try a little bit harder because he was so sincere. You know, they really think, or thought, that we could make a go of it. Even when we thought there is no future, they made us believe that there might be one out there. Just hang on... hang on. We're working on houses, and we're working on other potential places. Just hang on.

Mr. Kramer: Because at the time, they were building and getting bigger, you know. They were a one county... no, they were three counties: Spartanburg, here, and Anderson, I think. And then it grew into like five or six: Oconee, Pickens, and a couple of others. But also, in all this time, this happened in 1998 - we moved here in 2004, no... no, 2002, check see what that is?

Mrs. Kramer: 2004.

Mr. Kramer: Okay, that's, excuse my brain. Anyway, by then I had finally gotten my Social Security disability approved, and that was hard to get. There's a frustrating thing there, and it was income. And it was, you know, steady, you know, and UCRA, through Mike, worked out where we qualified for a house.

Mrs. Kramer: Never thinking, you go from homelessness to your own home, no way, no.

Mr. Kramer: It's like walking out of hell and living in heaven again.

Mrs. Kramer: You know, you've got to consider, too that we have two special needs children. Well, how do you explain to a mentally handicapped child that they don't get to sleep in their bed that night?

UHC: That was going to be my next question. On top of everything else, you had to be parents, how, on top of everything else, how did you handle being parents?

Mr. Kramer: The best you can.

Mrs. Kramer: With special needs kids, if you're sad, they're sobbing. If you're confused, they're totally lost. Well, that's where Don came in. He was a grandpa to them. He would let them follow him when he was planting seeds, grass, flowers, mowing the yard, putting out logs, whatever he was doing. He was under the house, they could sit at the door and watch him, you know. It wasn't that they didn't know that that wasn't our home, it was just that he was there so often that it must be okay.

Mr. Kramer: It was that continuity there.

Mrs. Kramer: Yeah, he's not mad, and he's not coming to fuss at us. And it, you know, it must going to be okay.

UHC: So to piece it together for a little bit, you were living in a U-Haul for...for how long was that now?

Mrs. Kramer: For about four days.

UHC: For about four days, and then you were connected with UHC. And how long was it until you found the pediatrician to sponsor you?

Mr. Kramer: We were seeing...

Mrs. Kramer: We were seeing him...

Mr. Kramer: at the time.

Mrs. Kramer: ...when all of this happened.

Mr. Kramer: Yeah. He was...

Mrs. Kramer: He was...

Mr. Kramer: ...Sammy's doctor...

Mrs. Kramer: Yes.

Mr. Kramer: ...during this.

Mrs. Kramer: And he has since passed away. But he had, he had not heard of them, but he had a therapist that worked with him that had worked with Greenville Mental Health. And someone at Greenville Mental Health had gone to work at the Upstate Homeless Coalition and had mentioned to Mary Riddle that Upstate Homeless Coalition had places for homeless people, and when we called, that's when we found out that you had to have a sponsor.

Mr. Kramer: See, if you get inside the circle, I don't know if this is going to sound right, but if you're in the circle, it's amazing. At this time, there's such a...the circle's wider. It's bigger, because we interrelate with each other, and that wasn't there then. Well, if you go to Upstate, well, they'll make a call to United Ministry. It will bounce over here to Salvation Army. It will bounce over here to Rescue Mission. I mean, we're... I mean, the cycle is there, and the people without realizing themselves... well, Mike knew Jerry Hill. Jerry Hill knew somebody, you know, and it just bounced. It's knowing people. And these people were in the community, and they knew what was available. Now, of course, it's more available, so it works even better.

Mrs. Kramer: Now it is more accepted, you know. Homelessness used to be something that you would hide, and now it is like, "Ah-ha, there might be a reason why these people are homeless." You know, it's not just because you're schizophrenic or mentally handicapped and, you know, stuck under a bridge and not know who you are or where you're going or any of those types of things. It's actual families, and if you don't have the abilities to ask the right person for help, you're not going to get it. You're going to be one of those people living under a bridge. And I don't know how long Upstate Homeless had been in effect when we called, but it sure hasn't taken long for other people to see that homelessness isn't always your fault. And when we came into the program, that was the way it was figured. Well, now you'll see there are more and more homeless families than ever before because families are staying together now, instead of Daddy going up north to work a job and leaving Momma down her to take care of the children. Now it's more like families are staying together because you can't make it alone. And it just wasn't, you know, there are still some of the shelters here in town that will not take a woman and her children and the daddy, or they won't take boys over a certain age, or they will send momma to one shelter and daddy to another. And daddy may even have to take a couple of kids with him. Well, see, you can't get on your feet if you're spread out.

Mr. Kramer: You're drifting from his question.

UHC: No, it's fine. Now, how was the shoe company that year before they had to let you go? I mean, what were...were they supportive?

Mr. Kramer: Very.

Mrs. Kramer: No, they weren't.

Mr. Kramer: Well, the company maybe not, but I had my friends.

Mrs. Kramer: Jim had some friends with the company that helped right at the wreck time, and that's why we were able to stay in the apartment a lot longer. But then when the company let him go for his memory problem, it was like, don't talk.

Mr. Kramer: Here again, it's a circle of friendships. You're out of the circle. You're...

Mrs. Kramer: See, so your job isn't as supportive because they are there to make a buck. You're not helping their organization. You're just hanging on.

UHC: So, you got into the two-bedroom house, and after you started living there, is that when you found the job driving for...?

Mr. Kramer: Yes.

Mrs. Kramer: He worked at a gas station, at a doughnut place - Krispy Kreme, BJ's Wholesale... anything that came along that we could pay something towards Upstate Homeless. But not one time were they banging on the door. They were very supportive. I know this will get better next week, you know. I know this will be good for the kids, or let's try this over here, you know. Just hang on. They were the ones, in fact, that put Jim in touch with legal aid, and Mr. Chesser was, to help us...

Mr. Kramer: ...with the Social Security claim.

Mrs. Kramer: Uh-huh, to help us fight Jim's Social Security. You know, it's very hard to prove brain disabilities to Social Security. So, you know, it took us five years to get that. In five years, we had nothing coming in.

UHC: How were the schools? How did they...were they flexible or were they...?

Mrs. Kramer: Well, Sammy, fortunately, was in a special needs class, and she was in neuro-delayed satellite program that Greenville County has. So she was in that, so school didn't really change anything. It made her stories bigger. She reported us to DSS. [Laughs.] They had a substitute teacher one day in her special needs class, and she told her...

Sammy: I confused her...

Mrs. Kramer: And she told her, "My momma slapped me, and my daddy beat me up. And my daddy beat my momma up, and he's been in jail for two weeks."

UHC: Wow.

Mrs. Kramer: So, needless to say, DSS sent someone immediately to the house. So, in the process of dealing with homelessness, we had one that wanted to tell elaborate stories.

Sammy: Well, I learned my lesson in middle school. I had to write down every single lie on a big old piece of paper.

Mrs. Kramer: So now, they have started training special needs substitute teachers that you do have to be aware of the stories these kids are telling.

Mr. Kramer: Yeah.

Mrs. Kramer: They went down to Josh's school. At the time we were homeless, he was not in school, so he started school at Hollis Academy. And they were very…they were supportive. His teachers were supportive, but we didn't tell anyone at the school for a long time that we were homeless.

Mr. Kramer: Yeah.

Mrs. Kramer: You know, we just gave them our address and not much else. You know, if they don't know it, they won't feel sorry for you.

Mr. Kramer: Only one or two out of the five years we spent there knew it, and that wasn't until about four years later.

Mrs. Kramer: See, if you're proud, you don't want anybody to know. You know, so you just put your stiff upper lip on, and you just go on. Well, I don't have enough food to eat tonight, but here is you and Josh something. Call United Ministries and ask them for food. It's a constant begging thing, and you don't want to beg, but you'll do anything for your children...anything. You know, if it's keeping a stiff upper lip and keeping them happy, you'll do it, and you won't let anybody else tell them any different. Upstate stood by that recommendation, and not one time did they ever degrade us. Jerry Hill? Fantastic. I don't know with that man, there must be two of him for them to spread him so thin, because he is so tiny. He is so skinny, but he, now, he and Mike Chesser are elbow and elbow by going the extra foot for needy families. I just can't say enough about them because there was Linda, and….all of them. They just treated you like you were normal people. You don't feel normal, but they treat you that way. Well, you start thinking in a positive way, you know, because you're not dealing with someone constantly telling you how bad. We thought it was great. You know, four of us living in a two-bedroom house, fantastic. You know, we were not separated. We weren't brow-beaten. We were in a house.

Sammy: I thought it sucked, me sleeping in a room with my brother. Now, it would be, oh god, Josh shut-up.

Mrs. Kramer: And yes, your children keep on fighting. They don't know, you know. Of course, you can make it worse by boo-hooing and telling them how bad off you are, but see, a positive attitude can make a difference. Even though you know, this is my last quarter, you don't tell your children that. You know, you can't tell them that because they're depending on you.

UHC: So, how long were you in the two-bedroom?

Mr. Kramer: 2 years.

Mrs. Kramer: 2 years.

UHC: And that was from... what years? Do you know what years? Do you remember?

Mr. Kramer: 2001, 2002, and 2003. Yeah, because we were [inaudible] from 2000 to 2001.

Mrs. Kramer: And 2003 to 2004 in November, we were in a three-bedroom.

UHC: With Upstate Homeless Coalition still?

Mr. Kramer: Yeah.

Mrs. Kramer: Right.

Mr. Kramer: They finally had an open one.

Mrs. Kramer: They finally had an open three-bedroom. [Laughs.]

Sammy: We moved in here for Christmas.

Mrs. Kramer: No, that was...

Mr. Kramer: She said, "We moved in here for Christmas."

Sammy: That was the best day of our lives. Plus, we got Christmas presents. That was the other best day of my life.

Mrs. Kramer: That's the other part. You don't do holidays real well when you're homeless.

UHC: Yeah.

Mrs. Kramer: Yeah, because, you sure don't want anyone to know that your children are without... not getting anything. Upstate Homeless made sure we had a sponsor, you know, and it was fantastic. The kids had a wonderful Christmas. And of course, living in the area that we did, the first year they got new bicycles, and someone stole them.

Sammy: What a rip-off, my new bike.

UHC: [Laughs.]

Mrs. Kramer: And yeah, she kept us laughing a lot of the time. When that DSS worker showed up and wanted to know... [Laughs.]

UHC: Yeah, that's funny.

Mrs. Kramer: So, you know, that's the thing about being homeless with a special needs child - you can tell from that how confused she was.

UHC: Yeah.

Mrs. Kramer: ...you know, how scared, how intimidated. Because, if something wasn't wrong, why did we get in this situation? So, all these things had to happen to get to this situation. Well, at the time, it had happened months and months apart, not that Jim had hit her or anything, but at the time she was having bi-polar episodes. And we were going down the road, and she'd just... and I had put my hand over her face to tell her to please stop. And when I did, she has a very sensitive nose because they've done lots of surgeries in it, and blood just gushed out everywhere. And I'm driving, and I'm just a crying. [Laughs.] So I take her...

Sammy: And I was screaming.

Mrs. Kramer: I take her over to Dr. Creech, of course, you know. But these things all came together in her mind as really bad episodes.

UHC: Yeah

Mrs. Kramer: You know, being homeless is bad enough, but when you put these other things with it, something terrible is going to happen. I just know it is.

UHC: So you guys were in the transitional housing for about 3 years?

Mrs. Kramer: Almost 4 years.

UHC: And how much of that time were you working with the Interfaith…is that what it is?

Mr. Kramer: Uh-huh, that's what it is.

Mrs. Kramer: Interfaith, the last year, in 2002. Yeah.

Mr. Kramer: Yeah, 2002.

UHC: And up until that time, you were kind of in and out a few different jobs?

Mr. Kramer: Uh-huh, about a month each. 30 or 40 days was about all I could handle, or that they could handle me.

UHC: How did you guys handle transportation after the accident?

Mrs. Kramer: You beg. You plead. [Laughs.]

Mr. Kramer: Pretty much.

Mrs. Kramer: Especially when you don't know anyone. And Josh was sick twice, and Jim walked him to the doctor's office twice in a wagon. Let's see, the bus came and got Sammy for school, but we couldn't go get groceries, or anything. Because like I said, we didn't know anybody. And of course, the police tried to ticket Jim for taking Josh in a wagon because you're not supposed to have a wagon on a main street, you know. So, you know, it's kind of like you feel like I'm batting a zero here. You know, my kid's sick. I had a wreck. I can't get a job, and we're losing our home. And I can't even get him to the doctor now. It's kind of like being out and no way in. There's not a doorway there.

UHC: Yeah. So, now that you're here, how has it been since 2004? How has Upstate been?

Mrs. Kramer: They're still talking to us. You know, they didn't just walk away when we got the house. Is there anything you need? You know, is there something we can do? Well, no, we're just hanging in there. You know, how are you doing? It's like, you got your house, now what are you going do? Well, no, we'll talk to you. We'll help you. What else do you need? Well, do you have enough to eat this year, you know, this month? Because, you know that you can call on them, and they won't make you feel like a total idiot. You're a human being. They treat like one, and they expect you to act like one. And you will with them because they are doing their best for us. I wanted to do our best for them.

UHC: So, leading up to the reason you were able to move here, was it purely financial reasons, or, I mean, what allowed you to move from the transitional housing to your own home?

Mrs. Kramer: Greenville Redevelopment Association did an in-house loan, which means...

Mr. Kramer: The people that we knew felt that we were worthy by the way that we had conducted ourselves. They knew that I was out trying to find something better, to do something. This [inaudible] came in, and they found an opportunity where they could assist us. And they did.

Mrs. Kramer: And too, when you find out you…when you finally get your disability, that the bill collectors and the debtors can't just walk in and take it away from you. One thing GCRA does is send you to, like, Compass for credit counseling. And they give you, you know, this is what's good, and this is what's bad, and this is how we can fix this. Well, we didn't even have enough money to pay back creditors. So they worked with us and got a letter up that said Jim had been approved for his disability. We could offer them like five dollars a month, and if they didn't take it, then they couldn't come in and take Jim's paycheck, see. So she fixed me up those, and we did those letters and 2/3 of them said, "We don't want to work with you. We want our, you know, hundred dollars, our 300 dollars a month or whatever it is. And when she told us that they could not come and garnish Jim's disability, we got another start, you know. So GCRA only asks for a small down payment. You know, it's not like 10% or whatever the normal house buying thing is. And then they did an in-house loan because they knew who we had been working with - Upstate Homeless.

Mr. Kramer: And Jerry Hill.

UHC: So how has the credit and all that been?

Mr. Kramer: Well, it has been shaky, but the house has been paid routinely. The car has been paid. So it's definitely better.

Mrs. Kramer: But it takes anywhere from 7 to 10 years to get back on your feet from the day you start doing better. So, we're looking at 2014 before we see a good turn around. You see, that's why it is so important that Upstate Homeless or G.A.I.H.N still checks because it's so easy to fall back into depression.

Mr. Kramer: You don't get a third chance. We've already had our second. I'm not going to take a chance on a third.

UHC: Yeah.

Mr. Kramer: I'm not going to be there again.

UHC: What is the difference between you in 1990 and you now? How have you changed?

Mr. Kramer: I don't think I've changed outside the period that I... I'm not as positive as I used to be. I guess, I'm a lot more negative. I don't enjoy life as much as I used to, or try to, but I'm not as negative as that period, you know. Up to 1998, I was one individual. From 1998 to 2004, I was probably another, and 2004 to here, probably a third. You know, I'm not what I was before, but I'm not here as negative as that. But I'll never be what I was before the accident. I'm not the same.

Mrs. Kramer: But, see...

Mr. Kramer: I have matured. I've learned a lot of things that I wouldn't have learned, in a shorter time. I was a typical male that was trying to climb the ladder, you know, and supporting a family. I can't say that I... I don't think that I, well, I don't feel like I was neglecting my children or anything, but I...

Mrs. Kramer: Now he's finding out that he did.

Mr. Kramer: Well, I...I don't know, you know. I'm working with my children now...my priorities have changed. Obviously, I, in a way, I'm not worried and pressured to have to worry about climbing the ladder because there's no ladder there, you know. I fell from the ladder, and I'm down here. But I'm not down here, you know. I work with my children. I'm working with children at school, and I devote a lot of my time to P.T.A. I've been the P.T.A. president for six years at two different schools. That causes, you know, that's why we laugh. We're at school so much it's like being a teacher, you know. They kind of wonder, "Why are you here all the time?" They think I'm being paid by the school or something, you know, literally, and they don't know.

Mrs. Kramer: You see, now, when Jim, in our normal world, he worked anywhere from 18 to 20 hours a day. He worked 6 months without a day off. Okay, so, he missed all of Krista's school, part of Sammy's. So we get over here, and we have this wreck. And as Josh said, he lost half his mind back there at that wreck. You know, they can't put it back in there, so that's how he's looking at it. So, Jim is frustrated and not wanting to take a penny ante job to support his family, but that's all that's available. So, he gets even more disgusted with himself, and, of course, us being around him and trying to build him up, to make him aware, we're still here. We still count. And slowly he has worked himself back around to where I can function. I am a valuable human being. So now he stays at the school all the time. [Laughs.] You know, he's still got that goal orientation of I've got to be there and if I'm not there then something won't get done, and I've got to do it. So, you know, even though you're in a homeless situation, you still have goals. It is just a little harder to see them. Does that help?

UHC: Yeah, no, definitely. And so what is...you said it usually takes about 10 years to get fully kind of back on your feet, right?

Mrs. Kramer: Uh-hmm.

UHC: So what is your outlook, or what is your vision for your family now?

Mr. Kramer: I have no idea.

Mrs. Kramer: You just sort of accept things. We're not quite ready for a 2008 automobile, but we've got a 2003. What more can you ask, you know? It's running. We have insurance on it. If we have a car wreck, we're covered.

Mr. Kramer: We enjoy working on the house.

Mrs. Kramer: Oh yeah.

Mr. Kramer: Working in the yard.

UHC: Yeah.

Mrs. Kramer: You are welcome to take that with you and read it because Josh and Sammy are in it.

UHC: Yeah.

Mrs. Kramer: And I mean, like I said for that Christmas, we called GCRA, I know, a dozen times a day. Do we have it yet? Do we have it yet? I mean you just get...it's such enormous excitement after being so far down and then to come into your home. You know? As long as you make your house payment, you have a place to live. You know, that's my backyard. Josh and Sammy both will say, they can't come and take it away from us now. There is nothing more desensitizing than losing your home and your ability to take care of your family. Once you hit rock bottom, if you don't have the right support, you're not going to get up from rock bottom.

Mr. Kramer: You strap your boots on. Lift your straps.

Mrs. Kramer: You see, people are more scared of being homeless and penniless than what we really think because they don't want anybody to know. You know, they'd rather just load up their stuff and go to another town to try and start over. Well, if you don't have that right support, it's not going to do you any good to go to another town. See, because you're not going to have any support there, so you're still lost.

UHC: Yeah.

Mr. Kramer: Uh-huh.

Mrs. Kramer: And without some sort of positive input, you're not going to feel like you're accomplishing anything because you can be so desperate that you forget that there is a way out. And that's how desperate we were when we needed a place to stay.

UHC: How did being homeless compare with your preconceptions, with like, your pre-stereotypes with being homeless? And, like, when you actually encountered it...I can only imagine.

Mr. Kramer: What am I doing here? How did I get myself in this situation?

Mrs. Kramer: And why? You know, where are all my friends that I had before? You know, I gave 13 years of my life to this company, and I don't even have any disability insurance. I gave up my daughter's school years and for what? You know, I could have taken a Saturday. He worked two Christmases - didn't spend Christmas with us. That all goes to the wayside when you lose your job by no fault of your own. There's no rebound. There's nothing. It is sort of like free falling. What's going to happen when I hit the bottom? What if you hit it and you split apart? So, you have to work at keeping the family together, and that's easier said than done. You know, because everybody is scared, not just the daddy or the mother, but the kids. They are depending on you for their outlook. You know, you're the protector. That's a lot of responsibility. You know, and it can happen to anybody. No matter how hard you work, sometimes, it won't be there when you need it the most.

Mr. Kramer: So the moral of this is: Stay in school, get an education, find a job you enjoy, and protect your interests.

UHC: Thank you.

Mrs. Kramer: And enjoy today because tomorrow...

Mr. Kramer: ...is not promised.

Mrs. Kramer: ...is nothing that's guaranteed. You know, you can plan for tomorrow, but you can't make a bet on it.

UHC: Uh-hmm.

Mrs. Kramer: And that's what you're looking at when you're homeless. What are we going to have tomorrow? You don't have any tomorrow's when you're homeless. You know, if you think about yourself, and you say tomorrow in class, "I'm going to have these three subjects." Okay, if you're homeless, what does tomorrow bring? You don't have school.

UHC: Yeah.

Mrs. Kramer: See, you don't have anything. Think if your parents were gone.

UHC: Yeah, I know.

Mrs. Kramer: You know, I mean, you two may be best friends at school, in class, ever. Imagine you get up in the morning, and he's gone. Where? What happened? You know, like those kids that were killed. Don't you know that their friends are standing there saying, I wish that I had said...

UHC: Yeah.

Mrs. Kramer: Well, when you're homeless, that's what it feels like. I guess that's the best way I can put it because you can't really put it into words because it is so demoralizing. But you've got to keep a smile on for your children, regardless of how shaky you feel. So now they get to do their Batmans and stuff and their Playstations and such. See, they have the same desires as other children now, you know. They know when they get up in the morning, they are going to go to school. You know, for a long time, they didn't know that because, you know, who wants to send their kids to school in dirty clothes?

UHC: Yeah.

Mrs. Kramer: You know, not being able to feed them the day before. They go in and tell someone they're hungry. "Momma didn't get to feed me last night."

UHC: Yeah, that's bad.

Mrs. Kramer: See, then, of course, they've got to get the school counselor involved. So there you are, right back at, I'm in trouble again.

UHC: Yeah, thank you so much for...I really appreciate it.

Mr. Kramer: Listen to it when you're about ready to go to bed. It'll probably put you to sleep. [Laughs.]

UHC: [Laughs.]

(The rest of the interview is a brief discussion of the employees at UHC and then a short goodbye.)