There is a man who sells paintings who is usually outside of the McDonalds on Leesville Rd or the McDonalds on Strickland Rd. His American name is Robert, but his Cherokee Indian name is Two Souls Walking (TSW).
TSW is homeless, but he is not a beggar. He is an artist whose pictures are for sale for donations. He has been working since he was 9 years old, but he fell off a building a few years back. The man he was working for didn’t have any insurance, so TSW had to live in his truck until it blew up since he had no other occupation or income
When asked about his living arrangement, he said, “I’m still waiting on my disability to come in, so sometimes I have a little camp out here in the woods. Once in a while I can go to my brother’s or my mother’s…. Basically I just live outside.”
He is not bitter about being homeless — he appears happy. He said, “My old life was full of headaches. I had a business I was running, I had a wife, I had kids…. Actually I’m happier now. I mean, I meet a lot of interesting people. I get compliments. It’s like on a daily basis I hear words like ‘awesome’, ‘fantastic,’ ‘’you’re doing a good job,’ ‘keep it up’. People are so encouraging around here. It’s really like a pleasure to wake up every morning… where back then it was really hard to even want to get up because, you know, the stress, the headaches and stuff I had to go through… I like waking up. I like being here. I like meeting people. and they encourage me to do different things. People give me ideas all the time. They buy my pictures, and I get repeat customers. There’s this one guy who is an artist for some company or something; he says he admires my work so much every time he sees me he gives me something to get food with.”
According to http://demography.cpc.unc.edu/, there were 1,170 homeless people in Wake County in 2014. The number of homeless people in Wake County has been increasing over the last few years at drastic numbers.
There is a large population of homeless people around The Triangle area, but there are very few who still try to make an honest living for themselves. Two Souls Walking is one of the few.
