Jai: A hard road back
Jai is an African American man in his fifties. Born and raised in Alabama, Jai joined the military at the age of eighteen and spent eleven years there. Since then he has worked at a sports venue as a bartender and most recently, at an Amazon warehouse.
Jai grew up in a small town in Alabama near a farm owned by his grandparents. He lived with his mother, four sisters and his stepfather, a steelworker, who moved in with them when Jai was a teenager. Throughout Jai’s childhood, his mother worked several jobs, in housekeeping and food services, to meet their expenses. When they weren’t at school and work, the family spent much of its time in the local Black church and its community activities.
Jai enlisted in the military at the age of eighteen, seeing it as a good way to earn a steady income and to develop work experience. Eleven years later, feeling a need for a change, he received an honorable discharge and began to work for an electronics data company in Miami, using the skills he had acquired while in the military. He married and had a son. But he and his wife clashed constantly and the marriage fell apart after a short time. His wife moved with their son to Atlanta to be with her family there and filed for divorce.
Because of the divorce and his wife’s relocation, Jai was unable to see his son very often. Finally, tired of the separation, Jai moved to Atlanta to be closer to his son, even though the move meant leaving his steady job in Miami. In Atlanta, Jai began bartending at a sports venue as a temporary way to support himself while he looked for a job in information management. But as time went on without a job offer, Jai threw himself into bartending. He worked eight to twelve hours a day, six to seven days a week. The long hours and tips from customers gave him a steady income stream.
For a while after his move to Atlanta Jai felt that his life had improved. He was making decent money and had moved in with his ex-wife and son, working on rebuilding his relationship with them. Then the family faced a housing crisis. The basement apartment which they were renting was sold by the owner. In the course of the sales inspection, the unit was found to have high levels of radon – a gas that increases risks of lung cancer with prolonged exposure. The family was given an eviction notice. They had thirty days to leave the apartment and find a new place to live.
Jai spent day after day combing the city for an apartment that was affordable and immediately available. As a husband and father, he felt a deep sense of responsibility to find a safe place for his family to live. He was desperate to save his son from the experience of being homeless.
Just a week before the eviction deadline, Jai finally stumbled on a suitable place. It was vacant and available to move into the very next day. The realtor told Jai that he did in fact have another potential tenant coming in that day. But if Jai could bring him a deposit of two months’ rent within the next four hours, he would rent it to Jai and not anyone else.
Jai rushed to his bank which was just five minutes away. He had enough money saved and was confident that he could come back with the deposit within an hour. To his astonishment, when he got there the bank refused to disburse the funds to him, saying that his identification card (ID) didn’t match what they had on file for the account: “The teller was this white lady and I'm African-American, so she had to give me a hard time. She was asking why my driver's license is from Miami, where I used to live. I explained it to her. I told her that if she checked my file, the license would match.” As the conversation heated up, the bank manager came out. Jai pleaded with her to let him withdraw his money, explaining why he was under time pressure. The manager just laughed at him and said that he couldn’t expect to withdraw money without a valid ID. Jai was overwhelmed with humiliation, helplessness and anger. “I was trying to meet my deadline. I just wanted to get my money so that I could go and rent a house, and provide for my family. That was the whole point, the purpose of the money I saved. I just couldn’t believe it because I’ve been going to that bank for 5 years. Then they tell me that they didn’t remember who I was and the valid ID that I gave them was invalid. And it was solely, truly based on the fact of my color. That’s the only reason I got treated that way. I was upset because I knew that I was right and I couldn’t understand why they were saying that I was wrong.”
Later on, the bank manager would realize she had made a mistake and call Jai to tell him that. But for Jai, the damage was done. He had lost the apartment. He could feel himself spiraling down into a serious mental health crisis. He went back to the bank, resolving to withdraw all his money and close the account there. In the course of trying to accomplish these tasks, bank employees mocked him. Jai felt disrespected and angrily asked to file a complaint. After a heated exchange in which Jai refused to leave the bank when asked to do so, the manager called the police. Jai resisted their efforts to lead him out of the bank and was subsequently handcuffed, arrested and thrown into jail. After several blackouts and hallucinatory episodes, Jai was transferred to a psychiatric facility. He was soon discharged from there, although the episodes continued.
Following his release, Jai was disoriented and unsure where to go. His ex-wife and son had moved in with her sister, but Jai was not welcome there. He didn’t get along with his sister-in law, and his ex-wife was angry with him because he had not listened to her advice to avoid interacting with the bank employees after the initial negative encounter.
Jai spent six months on the streets of Atlanta. He eventually found his way to the Atlanta Veterans Administration (VA), which has been a source of support for him, providing health care, employment resources, education and vocational training. Jai is now off the streets and living in a Transition House in a suburban area of Atlanta with ten other men. It is a difficult living situation as the house has no common area and the small kitchen only has one refrigerator, which is used by all the residents. The major problem for Jai though is the lack of public transportation. In order to get to jobs in the city he has to take two buses and two trains – a one-way trip takes him two hours.
Jai feels grateful though for the opportunity to put his life back together. He participates in the Veterans’ Rapid Employment Program (VREP) which provides funding to qualified veterans to attend a one-year program at an accredited college. Jai is using this opportunity to pursue a certification in logistics management, which will qualify him for jobs that specialize in managing the movement of goods, information and services across multiple destinations. On the advice of the VREP staff, he is also working at an Amazon distribution warehouse, a job that he finds frustrating: “You work a 40-hour week in a four-day period. You’re supposed to always get faster or stay constant in your numbers, or how fast you work. If there’s any drop in your production, they let you know and you get mandatory overtime. The wages are also low.”
Despite the difficulties, Jai sticks with the Amazon job, especially because of the health care benefits. While he gets medical care through the VA, he has found the system to be slow and uneven in quality. The Amazon job also has the possibility of transferring to a different part of the country. Jai has been thinking of moving back to Florida where he enjoys spending time at the beaches.
In reflecting on his life, Jai speaks of a path filled with heartbreak and sorrow. But it is also a road that he is building anew with determination and hope for the future. “It's been a hard road back to where I was and I'm not even halfway there.”