Points South Weekly Editions

Thursday, July 4, 2002

Street Smarts

The homeless on Central Avenue share their stories as they struggle to survive.

By Robin Sloan
Points South Staff Writer

CENTRAL AVENUE–Ava Britton’s eyes are cloudy, but her teeth are brilliant white. She asks questions in a cheery voice, then chuckles conspiratorially at the answers. She makes you feel interesting. Her conversation is sparkling. She could sell you anything.

But Ava Britton has very little to sell, because she’s homeless.

She was a nurse until the job "drove her crazy"--literally. She "saw visions and heard voices." She lost her job and landed at one of the Boley Centers for Behavioral Health Care in St. Petersburg, where she was monitored and medicated.

Now she is out of Boley and temporarily without a home. Until she gets her check from the government, she will rely on charity--she got three eggs, a plate of grits and four doughnuts in Williams Park this morning--and charm.

To make it sleeping on Central Avenue, you need not only street smarts and common sense, but also a real knack for sales. For many of the homeless, the product they’re peddling isn’t anything illegal, like drugs or sex. It’s simply their stories and themselves.

Like classic salespeople, they follow simple maxims: Get your foot in the door. Show interest. Build trust.

Personal Notebook

The day before I met Ava Britton, I bought lunch for Larry at the South Gate Restaurant, near Williams Park.

Larry can make you laugh genuinely, not just nervously. He told me a story from the Bible, the one where Jesus chases the merchants and moneychangers out of the temple--with a whip. This was news to me, and Larry loved sharing it with me:

"Yeah, man! Jesus wasn’t a wimp," he said. "Jesus can kick ass."

We were in on a joke together, comrades in comedy for a moment as we walked out onto the corner--which perhaps is what emboldened Larry to ask me if I’d spot him the money to get a room for the night.

I said no.

Ava Britton asked me for money as soon as I joined her. I resisted at first, but she won me over--she, like Larry, made me laugh. I handed over three crisp dollars, and then, as if to seal the deal, she said:

"Do you have a girlfriend?"

Yes, I said.

"Is she OK with this? I mean, I don’t want you gettin’ into trouble." She smiled a sly smile.

You have to understand that when I say that Ava Britton and Larry are salespeople, I don’t mean they are liars or opportunists. They are, I think, using real skills to succeed in a difficult situation. Success may seem a cruel word, but when you sleep down by the water to avoid the crackheads that prowl Williams Park at night, definitions change.

In situations like these, I think a free lunch or a handful of dollars can be what separates a good day from a bad one. Ava Britton and Larry have both honed selling skills, consciously or not, that can provide them with these small successes.

-- Robin Sloan

The tall, gray-haired man named Larry on the corner of Central Avenue and Third Street actually used to be a salesman in Tampa. He was a good one, he claims, but he lost his job because people just "didn’t get (him)." Now he’s homeless.

Larry, who asked that his last name not be used, usually only asks for pocket change--35 cents, a dime. It’s hard to say no to a request so humble.

Larry looks like the opposite of Ava Britton: his teeth are a ruin, twisted and brown instead of straight and white, and his gaze is laser sharp. Larry’s ills are physical, not mental. He has a limp right hand, post-traumatic stress disorder, a pinched nerve in his spine and a long limp, the legacy of Vietnam.

"I was shot in both the right foot and, if you don’t mind me sayin’ so," Larry said, "the buttock."

Twenty-four percent of the homeless in Pinellas County are veterans, a mirror of the national average.

In the United States, 1.5 to 3 million people become homeless at some point over the course of a year. Florida’s share is 57,000, according to a 1999 figure from the Florida Department of Children and Families. Of those, 1,800 are in Pinellas County, and about a dozen are on Central Avenue.

There’s one man, tall and gray like Larry, who walks the streets like a silent ghost, picking up trash wherever he finds it.

There’s Drew Monaghan, short and amiable, who is homeless but not without work. His last job was as a deck hand on a scuba-diving expedition. Thirty-eight percent of the homeless in Pinellas County are employed, but can’t afford or choose not to pay for a place to stay.

There’s Shorty, all stubble and intensity, who lost his job in New York City last fall when his boss, an Indian immigrant, closed up shop in response to racism.

And then there’s Ava Britton. Around a third of homeless people have mental health problems, both nationally and in Pinellas County. Britton definitely qualifies. A month ago, she was sitting on a bench on Central Avenue, shouting at the air, caught up in an imaginary argument with no one. Some time between then and now, she ran away from the Boley Center in the middle of the night. The police found her and brought her back.

Now she seems rational and reliable--but that may be a testament to her salesmanship.

She asks questions, asks about your work and your family. She laughs at your jokes.

And to earn your trust, she insists she doesn’t smoke, drink or do drugs. She says she’s a Christian who spends much of her time "just sitting and thinking about the Lord." She asks for money, but insists she’ll pay you back.

"Hey! Hi there," she calls out from her shaded bench on Central Avenue. "Got a minute?"

Ava unleashes her smile in all its glory. She’s looking for another customer to sell her story.