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Now that I've shot down the obvious yuk-yuk, there's a serious side. In my school days I had one of those friends, one that the bond of friendship could never be broken by time or tide, even though it did not need to be spoken we spoke of it often - we will always find time and always stay in touch.
We've managed to keep that promise to each other for about 30 years, even though I had a daughter who grew and married that he never saw, we talked to each other often. Until a few years ago.
At first I figured he was in some European chateau, living the life, or something, he was the type to fall into such things. I constructed a website, [name.com], in case he stumbled on it, he'd get a laugh but it would goad him into picking up the phone.
It's been about 6 years now, no one's heard from him, he's not in the death index, and I've wasted a stupid amount of money on those money-grubbing people find searches, which provided outdated and worthless data. A week ago I got a lead from my name site, one of the members of the band he was in dropped me a line.
I called him. The news was not good. Since his last run-in with life, he'd gone downhill, last seen sleeping in his car. First, he's a b*****rd for not picking up the phone and asking for help, but still, I have my vow to keep. So I keep looking.
Does anyone have some ideas on how one would find someone on the streets short of driving around and looking? This would be in the Los Angeles area. I'm in the process of accessing some incarceration records, in case he's landed in jail at some point, and have a few requests out to some county organizations. Definitely not interested in detectives, they're as bad as the people finders.
I'm fully aware this may be the end for my old friend, and he may have descended to a point where he may not want to be found. But, a promise is a promise. Without honor, we're nothing.
Those of you in the L.A. area interested in seeing the info I've gathered, let me know and you can see the site. It would sure make the season to find him well - or at least find him and bring him home.
Some time homeless shelters are the best place to look. Greater LA area is about 8 million. Will be like looking for a needle in a haystack. If he doesn't want to be found you probably have an impossible task ahead of you.
Good friends are one of the true treasures of life. I hope you find him...KF
[edited by: lawman at 12:59 pm (utc) on Dec. 3, 2007]
Food
Shelter
Clothing
Health Care services
Church groups provide many meals for the homeless. Often the food is delivered to a location away from the church - a shelter, a park, or common area.
Shelters must be widespread in LA. When a man checks in at a shelter he must usually provide a name and a SSN. Not the paperwork or cards, mind you, just a name and number. I always gave bogus info; a fake name and the first set of numbers that came to mind. Besides that, shelters are probably not too willing to divulge their collected info. Maybe they know its bogus anyway...
Clothing can be had in any number of ways, all too vague to provide a lead.
Health Care Services might be the best way to locate someone, but again, false info can be provided to these services. Still, if there is a way to find your friend, this might be the best shot. At the least, you might determine where he goes for health care.
The last good place to look is the jail system. If he's been there they will know. Getting that info probably won't be easy. I would try to contact someone in the P.D. who works with homeless issues.
Being homeless isn't easy. For the most part I try to stay on the upside of the issue, choosing to stay with friends or to work for my room and board. But when I'm on the streets, several changes will occur. I close up, no one knows squat about me, not my name or my SSN or where I hide my stuff. Living on the streets is living in a dog-eat-dog world. It changes the way a man thinks too. I love my family and my friends, but when I'm out there, I don't want those who are closest to me to know, and so I shun them. Not because I don't love them anymore, but because I don't want them to rescue me. Pride and arrogance are not my friends. I suspect your friend may suffer from these.
I wish I could tell you where he was, I really do. I hope you locate him, it sounds like he needs a good friend.
Namaste
Just a quick post note to the subject matter.
I once had a fellow work for me that I thought a lot of. After he had left my
employment I lost track of him. Recently I was viewing a documentary about the homeless in LA they were doing an interior shot of the cafeteria in the Union Rescue Mission. As they panned the cafeteria line there he was serving the food.
I drove down there the next day only to find out he was long gone.(the documentary was shot several months earlier.)
I was telling the Mission supervisor that I wished that I could of seen him,
that maybe I could do something to help him.
He replied that was very thoughtful but a lot of them preferred the anonymity
of being on the street and had broken all ties to their families, friends and of their past lives.
Some (in the worse cases) had become delusional, schizophrenic and anti-social.
Of those most were not redeemable to regular society.
Most, but not all, are the results of drugs and alcohol. There are very few
"Knights of the Road" left anymore he added.
Thank God there are places like the mission and people like the supervisors that provide services to these peoples needs!...KF
[edited by: King_Fisher at 10:15 pm (utc) on Dec. 2, 2007]
Not because I don't love them anymore, but because I don't want them to rescue me. Pride and arrogance are not my friends. I suspect your friend may suffer from these.
Absolutely, this would be MARK. And if I ever do track him down, he'll be getting good a$$-kicking for it, we have discussed this very issue. :-) But I do know, talking about a thing and living it are two distinctly different experiences.
The inmate records are actually pretty easy to access, I just don't want to throw any more at online services and am taking the tedious process of going directly to the sources.
- Sad but very true.
Good luck with your search I hope it ends well
Is there an electoral register in LA?
Is there any sort of residential tax which relies on address details?
Is there any sort of employment register?
Is there a cellphone registry?
Is there a police database which might have his record on file?
Is there a hospital database which might have his record on file?
None of this data will tell you where he is right now. But what it will do is build up a picture of where you might find someone who has seen him recently and will be able to search for him. Talking to people directly is the only way you will find him. But in order to find the people you need to talk to, you will need some kind of documentary information first.
You need to go back to the last place where he was definitely seen or registered and trace forwards from there to the present.
The bottom line is, if he exists, you will find him.
You cannot help but do so because he has to eat and to eat he has to encounter people.
In June 1997, I turned up in Zagreb, a city of a million people, looking for a good friend. My previous wallet had been stolen in Russia several months before and I had lost her address details and phone number.
I knew two things about her: her name and the fact that she had been studying anthropology two years before. I knew no-one in Zagreb and nothing about the city. I could not speak Serbo-Croat beyond two or three words.
I found Marija in 36 hours.
Alas, I'm 800 miles away, and it's a bit more difficult. It would be different if I had the resources to drop everything and scoot to LA, I just can't right now. If it's meant to happen, it will.
Only a minority of homeless people set foot in a shelter. There are encampments in every freeway jungle, under many bridges, and in urban niches, nooks, and crannies you'd never know existed. Many collect containers and scrap to support themselves. There is actually competition for good panhandling spots; a freeway offramp can pay many times minimum wage. Homeless people tend to be somewhat territorial, and there isn't much communication, much less organization. Whereas the local homeles tend to stay within their local terrirtory and interact with the same local group of kindred spirits, the authorities periodically clear out encampments, sending people to the four winds and making it hard to keep track of where a given person is, day to day.
You can check if he has been incarcerated at LASD dot org; try some wildcards and variants as the search feature was a stickler for exact spelling when I used it years ago. Honestly, though; the police usually only harass the homeless, without bothering to book them for anything less than murder, so while your friend has almost certainly interacted with police, there may be no online record thereof.
The fact that he is a musician may be the most helpful hook in your search, but again there are complications. Los Angeles is a magnet for an entire nation of aspiring musicians, and the market is grossly oversaturated to the point that many venues CHARGE bands to play! (Pay-to-play.) Therefore, finding a particular musician in a state of homelessness is a needle-in-a-haystack unto itself. Still, it is the only hook you have, and there are a lot of free musician magazines to place ads in.
This is one search where all the computer knowlege in the world won't help. Best luck, friend.
-Automan
last seen sleeping in his car
Could you check his car reg no for an address?
I have spent the last week or so running up long distance calls, emailing dead end government organizations - jails, sheriff's, prison facilities . . . . he had two brothers, taking pot shots at phone numbers that **might** be them . . . . all leading to dead ends.
A free search on Intelius (the preliminaries are free) located one instance of the name in CA and showed relatives that perfectly correlated with his family.
The mother, now 70+, was listed in white pages.
Rang her up . . . . and the first number I called was a jackpot, it was HER. She remembered me, and said he'd talked about me often. Mark is fine.
He doesn't have a home, true. Because for the last two years he's spent his life on the road as a semi truck driver. When he gets into L.A. he stays with his mom for a couple days then he's back on the road again.
And now comes the p**er . . . some of his routes take him up I-5, the corridor between CA and WA, which is about 10 miles from my house. She explained that they drive him hard, he can't just stop anywhere, and I know this to be true - my stepfather trucked for a while. Trucking is a brutal life.
But it's a life. So now we let the butt-kicking begin. WOOT! :-)
Bet you feel a bit silly!
Nevermind, glad you found him and in good time to see him before xmas!
Nice one!
He said to do exactly what you did. They always check friends and family that's
where you get the best info.
Give us a follow up on the reunion and how the butt kicking went. :o)
Best of all it is a story of a true friend!Just right for the Christmas Season.
...KF
Bet you feel a bit silly!
Well, not really. For one, I had no idea of his mom's name, it was too many years since I'd talked to her. The band member also couldn't recall, and her surname is different than his by marriage. The last bit of info I'd gotten had indicated that he was NOT well, and directed me to look . . . in all the wrong places.
With the emphasis on unlisted phone numbers these days, it's extremely likely it wouldn't have been listed. Add to that both his last name and her last name are very common names of German origin, which turns up thousands of results.
Plus, she is an octegenarian, and it's possible that she was no longer with us . . . or even that either of them were in the L.A. area any more. There really WERE high odds against it.
But what is cool is that once I got her full name, she was the **only** listing in L.A. So yeah on one hand, wow, it was incredibly more simple than I'd made it, but that seems to be my big fault, over complicating simple things. :-)
Still no call from him, he's on the road, but he'll check in soon. In talking to his ma there is a good chance he may want to spend Christmas at home - if I can cut the bucks I might even take a drive down there. Not looking good on that front though, but we'll see.
More than anything, it's a relief. Mildy annoyed he hasn't thought to check in, there are many looking out for him and he probably just assumed no one cared. You go through the rise and fall that is rock and roll and come to a point where you assess what you've done with your life . . . it can lead to some false assumptions that way.
