Ferris Shrewsberry’s homeless life had caught up with him.

 

Shrewsberry had been without a home of his own since last summer, when he spent 60 days in jail after failing to pay traffic fines. When he returned to Eau Claire, his girlfriend, the woman with whom he had moved to Eau Claire in 2010, the woman with whom he had a 1-year-old daughter, was gone, along with their child.

 

Shrewsberry had gotten by working one temporary construction job after another. Then his jail time got in the way. After his release from jail, Shrewsberry looked for work unsuccessfully. Unable to pay rent, he lost his home.

 

“I never thought I’d wind up homeless,” Shrewsberry said as he stood outside the Sojourner House homeless shelter in downtown Eau Claire shortly before 8 a.m. March 19. “I used to make fun of homeless people. I didn’t understand how somebody could wind up homeless. Now I do.”

 

Shrewsberry spent the previous night at Eau Claire's Sacred Heart Hospital receiving treatment for diabetes. He had gone without medicine for his condition for much of the last nine months because he couldn’t afford it. He felt particularly sick in recent weeks, his stomach knotted in pain, his fatigue making it feel as if he lugged a piano on his back.

 

But Shrewsberry held off visiting the doctor, hoping his health lasted until April 1, the date he would become eligible for Affordable Care Act insurance.

 

He didn't make it. Shrewsberry’s health broke down, prompting his hospital stay and a night of gut-wracking pain.

 

“It was a real rough night,” Shrewsberry said. “That was some serious pain.”

 

The next morning Shrewsberry left Sojourner House for another day, trudging toward Positive Avenues, a drop-in center for people with mental illness and others looking for camaraderie, a cup of coffee or the twice-per-week meals served there. Schrewsberry still felt poorly. 

 

“I’m doing better than I was last night, but I’m not very good,” he said.

 

As he continued his trek from one side of downtown Eau Claire to the other, Shrewsberry recounted his time as a homeless person, the stigma of living at the bottom of Eau Claire’s economic ladder.

 

“People look at you like ‘Hey, he’s no good,’ ” Shrewsberry said. “Women with kids see you coming and cross the street to avoid you. People won’t look you in the eye, as if you’re not even there.”

 

Finding a job isn’t easy, he said, and is made more difficult when he lists 618 S. Barstow St. as his home address.

 

“Some employers, when they see this address, they’re not going to hire you,” Shrewsberry said. “They know you’re staying at the homeless shelter. It’s like that address is marked.”

 

Despite those challenges and the wear-and-tear a life of homelessness has wrought on him, Shrewsberry isn’t without his optimistic moments. He marvels at the support Eau Claire’s homeless population shows each other, from carrying backpacks for sick colleagues to giving up beds at shelters so others can stay warm for the night.

 

“Even though we don’t have much, we care for each other,” he said. “You don’t see that kind of support out there in the real world."