A middle-aged American woman claims a run of bad luck has brought her to the brink of destitution in a society which has turned its back on her.<\/P><\/p>\n
The woman, Patricia Freed, who has lived in Nassau since 1997, said she has been reduced to begging for water from restaurants and eating ketchup from plastic sachets in fast-food outlets.<\/P><\/p>\n
“I even look at trash cans differently nowadays,” said Ms Freed, a 52-year old architecture graduate who claims a hit-and-run accident six years ago changed her life.<\/P><\/p>\n
“From- being a middle-class person with a good family background and high expectations, I have been reduced to this,” she said as she faced another day bathing in the sea and walking the streets.<\/P><\/p>\n
Claiming she had lost $250,000 in pay, legal costs and medical fees over the last few years, Ms Freed said: “The only thing I haven’t lost is my sense of humour. I haven’t sold my body yet. Who would want it anyway?”<\/P><\/p>\n
Ms Freed said the road accident left her on the brink of death. Since then a prolonged legal case had failed to resolve the matter in her favour.<\/P><\/p>\n
A few weeks ago, she claimed, a mugger knocked her unconscious in a Nassau street and made off with what little cash she had.<\/P><\/p>\n
The only thing between her and skid row, she says, is a free room offered her by a young couple living on an estate.<\/P><\/p>\n
“If I lost that, I would literally become a street person, walking around all day begging for money. Even now, I try to persuade jitney drivers to take pity on me.<\/P><\/p>\n
“I have lost 40 pounds since I started walking around all the time. It is exhausting and go to bed hungry every night.”<\/P><\/p>\n
Twice-divorced Ms Freed says she has Bahamian status, but injuries received in the mugging had made it difficult for her to get a job. She said events had somehow turned against her, leaving her “literally penniless” with no means of support.<\/P><\/p>\n
“It shows how easy it is for someone who seems to have everything to suddenly find themselves out on the streets,” she said.<\/P><\/p>\n
Ms Freed said she has approached the US Embassy, several leading politicians and many churches for help. But all had offered nothing.<\/P><\/p>\n
Now she relies for sustenance on a Salvation Army soup kitchen and whatever she can pick up free in fast-food restaurants, “I ask for a glass of water and then empty a sachet or two of sugar into it,” she says. “If I’m really lucky, I get a twist of lemon. But I’m not sure how much longer I can go on like this.”<\/P><\/p>\n
Describing herself as friendless with no family but a mother in the United States who she doesn’t want to worry and a brother who is bankrupt, Ms Freed said: “I have become distrustful and fearful. 1 have lost a lot of self-confidence. The hit-and-run accident in September, 1999, completely changed my life.<\/P><\/p>\n
“I received permanent nerve damage and injuries to my right leg. My heart had stopped.<\/P><\/p>\n
“I want to leave the Bahamas but I can’t because I fear that would prolong the legal proceedings even more. My lawyer told me it would be settled five years ago, but it still drags on.”<\/P><\/p>\n
As a small, frail woman walking the streets, she said she feels vulnerable. The mugging last month unnerved her even more, leaving her unconscious on the sidewalk.<\/P><\/p>\n
Oddly, she says, the only generosity shown to her has come from other poor people who have occasionally given her dollar notes to catch a ride back to her room.<\/P><\/p>\n
“I am not yet a street person,” she told The Tribune; “but I am very close to it. I feel I know the street people and I now understand how some people turn to crime.<\/P><\/p>\n
“When you are totally desperate., what is the alternative? Yet, for myself, I have drawn a line, a concrete line beyond which I will not go.<\/P><\/p>\n
“In the room where I live, there is no phone, no gas, no food and no running water. At the Salvation Army, I get a cup of soup, but I go to bed hungry.<\/P><\/p>\n
“If you have nothing, you get a bad reputation. And here in Nassau, there is no safety net for people like me – no unemployment pay, no social security, no pension. If you are homeless and hungry, you are literally in the street.<\/P><\/p>\n
“There is not even a homeless shelter for women. If I had a family here, the situation would be different. At least I have a roof over my head – but if I get kicked out, it will be the road for me, skid row.<\/P><\/p>\n
“All this misfortune has had a domino effect. It has been a nightmare. I have gradually slid down the scale. It’s incredible for someone with an architecture degree and a good background to find herself in this situation simply because use I stepped off a kerb and got hit by garbage truck.<\/P><\/p>\n
“I am from a good middle-class family in the States, but things have got really bad. I still have ambition but I am really discouraged and very frustrated.<\/P><\/p>\n
“What do I have to do to get help, set myself on fire in Rawson Square? I am getting tired. It would send anyone crazy. If I were the daughter of the president of IBM this would have been settled.<\/P><\/p>\n
“Unless something changes, I am looking at old age in a penniless state. I looking at trash cans like 1 never before.<\/P><\/p>\n
“Sometimes I ask tourists for a dollar I am surprised they have not locked me up for vagrancy. I used to earn 1,000 a week in a bank. Now a woman of my intelligence is reduced to panhandling.<\/P><\/p>\n
Ms Freed said she bathes in Long Wharf to keep clean, and brushes her teeth in fast-food restrooms. <\/P><\/p>\n
“For an educated woman, this is degrading and humiliating, but at least I haven’t done anything criminal,” she said.<\/P><\/p>\n
As she set off to walk three miles to her room, Ms Freed said: “I don’t know when this will end. Maybe I should write a book about it.”<\/P><\/p>\n
Source: The Tribune – Nassau, Bahamas<\/small><\/P><\/p>\n
Read more about the Bahamas government’s lack of action towards the drivers and insurance companies of hit-and-run accidents.<\/b><\/P><\/p>\n
Yet ANOTHER Man Killed By Grand Bahama Another Accidents, Red Truck Cops Refuse To Bahamas Cops Man Killed In
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