When West Side got involved with the homeless movie he was living along the rail road tracks in Minneapolis in a place called the "Hole in the Wall." When we first asked him to participate in our video, he almost ran us out of his camp like an ornery bear roused from his cave.
But in time, West Side agreed to be in the movie, while always insisting that he was not really homeless because he chose to "live out." He had been "living out" for the most part since he had returned from Vietnam. He had seen all but two of his friends killed in Vietnam during a very active tour of duty.
West Side drinks heavily and makes no attempt to disguise it. He camps out all year round, sleeping in four sleeping bags during the coldest nights of the Winter.
Yet every weekday he gets up at 5:30 a.m. and goes to work as a volunteer at Catholic Charities, rain or shine. And in the tradition of a true train tramp, West Side is proud to claim that he receives no welfare money and earns every penny he drinks.
In the Spring, West Side and his tramp friends were evicted from the "Hole in the Wall" by the Minneapolis police. They took it gracefully because "Shit Happens" and moved camp up river, where they now live.