Decades on the Street: Eddie’s Story in Miami, Florida
Eddie has been homeless in Miami for more than 30 years. You can hear the weight of that time in his voice. You can see it in the way his eyes shift, searching for safety that isn’t there. Trauma accumulates. So does exhaustion. So does the sense of being forgotten.
He grew up in the child welfare system—foster care, group homes, orphanages. When he aged out, there was nowhere to go and no one to catch him. Without support, guidance, or resources, he was pushed straight into adulthood with nothing but the survival skills he learned as a child.
Eddie has struggled with addiction, but he has been clean and sober for years. Despite that progress, homelessness has continued to shape his life. He lives with an untreated hernia. He panhandles to survive. He rarely sleeps. He has been stabbed. Even the simple act of resting is risky.
“People look right through me,” he explains. “Being ignored hurts the most.”
The barriers keeping Eddie on the street are not character flaws. They are structural. Eddie does not have a state ID, and without identification, he cannot get housing, a job, benefits, or even a bus ticket to leave. It is a closed loop—one that traps tens of thousands of people nationwide.
Eddie has tried to get help, but the services available to him were not safe or supportive. Shelters were overcrowded, chaotic, and filled with drugs. Outreach teams made promises that were never fulfilled. Hope was offered and then withdrawn. Trust erodes quickly under those circumstances.
Still, Eddie has not given up. He says he would enter a Housing First program immediately if one were available. He doesn’t need treatment. He needs a door that locks, a place to put his things, a place where rest is possible.
But Miami, like many U.S. cities, does not have enough housing. People are forced to wait — often for months, years, or decades — while living outside. During that time, trauma compounds and health deteriorates. Homelessness is not just the absence of shelter. It is the slow erosion of a person’s physical and emotional stability.
Eddie is a reminder that people do not stay homeless because they are broken. They become broken because they are forced to remain homeless.
If we want fewer people living outside, we need:
- More Housing First units
- Immediate stabilization options
- Simplified pathways to ID
- Systems that keep promises
We need responses rooted not in punishment, but in dignity. Because 30 years on the street is not a failure of the individual. It is a failure of the system.
