Not Losing Hope The Homeless Person Spending Time

Not Losing Hope: The Homeless Person Spending Time in the Municipal Library
Doesn't Lose Hope: The Homeless Person Spending Time in the
Municipal Library In the coldest and stormiest week of the year, Leonid Asipov (32) spent time in the streets of Ra'anana. He has been here for a month under the open sky, without food, without warm clothing and without money. But while many homeless people are in great despair, Asipov has hope: he spends more than 10 hours a day in Ra'anana's municipal library, reading, writing articles, working on a startup he started and waiting for someone to discover him and save his
life
Roy Rubinstein
Published: 10.01.13, 14:34
Share on TwitterShare on Facebook
Share

Leonid Asipov (32) has already forgotten how much warmth there is in the world – the warmth of a hug, the warmth of love, the warmth of home. This week, when the great storm raged outside, he slept in stairwells on the streets of Ra'anana, wrapped himself in a thin blanket that had been attached to him for years. On Sunday morning, he was even reported dead by police after he appeared to be lying in the doorway of a stairwell on one of the city's streets, but Asipov has no intention of giving up so quickly. True, he doesn't have a home, he sleeps in cardboard, he looks very neglected and not always clean. But he has great hope. To learn as much as possible and develop a startup that will extricate him from the cycle of distress he has found himself in over the past two years.



More on mynet:

The dogs of the homeless are looking for a
warm home
The paramedic says: This is how we found the homeless man after a cold
night Come and join the "Yedioth Hasharon" page on Facebook


Every morning at 8:45 a.m., he shows up like clockwork at the municipal library in Ra'anana, reads a lot and works on the computer. He builds software, writes physics articles, and promotes the website he founded in recent years. Around 7 p.m., when the library closes, he goes out into the cold street.



For three years now, Asipov has had no roof over his head and is moving from city to city in Israel. First in his car, which was stolen in Be'er Sheva about two years ago, and then by hitchhiking and on foot. He arrived in Ra'anana three weeks ago, and since then he has been living between Tiv Taam's carton, Yad Labanim House, and stairwells and abandoned buildings. "It's not easy to be homeless, but you get used to it," he says this week, "There's a lot of food on the street and in Ra'anana, very kind people. Right now, money is less important to me. Just to learn and develop more and more of the site I initiated, because who knows, maybe this will be the thing that will save my life."



Wandering
Journey When he immigrated to Israel at the age of ten, from St. Petersburg to Jerusalem with his mother, Asipov never dreamed that his life would unfold in this way on the streets of the Holy Land. Adolescence did not contain any hints of what might happen. He did his full matriculation at the school in Jerusalem, military service in Givati and even a degree in life sciences. But three years ago, following a family secret revealed to him by his mother, his life changed. The mother told him that the person he had considered to be his father until now was not his father at all. "Suddenly I realized that I had grown up in a lie, and from that moment on, life at home was difficult, until I couldn't. I left the house and we haven't been in touch since."



At first, Asipov left for a rented apartment, but was unable to pay the rent because he did not have a permanent job. Having no other choice, he took his personal belongings and moved into his car. He decided to start a new life and moved to Be'er Sheva. "People in Israel have a hard time with homeless people," he says, "In Beersheba they didn't let me rest, there was a street gang there who took care of me, they slandered me that I was mentally ill, they caught me and tried to forcibly hospitalize me. At the hospital, I was discharged immediately. Already that day, the thugs found me again, even though I moved the car elsewhere. They rocked my car all night and I realized that if I wanted to live, I had to flee the city."



Asipov. "People in Israel have a hard time with homeless people" (Photo: Yogev Amrani)
Asipov. "People in Israel have a hard time with homeless people" (Photo: Yogev Amrani)


After a while, he found a job painting train cars for a meager salary, he said. Between shifts and the next, he discovered that his car had disappeared, and when he finished his work, he decided that the Negev was not for him. He filled six bottles of water, took his feet and walked all the way to Arad. "I was in the city for a few days, I slept a little outside the city as a lesson from what happened to me in Be'er Sheva, but there too there were no homeless people on the streets, and one day I discovered that my sleeping bag had been burned."



Everywhere he went, Asipov has a story. In Tel Aviv, a policeman kicked him because he slept in the stairwell of his building, in Kiryat Gat someone shot him because he thought he was a burglar, only in the Sharon area, he said, in Herzliya and Ra'anana he found solace. "It's a beautiful area. In Ra'anana there is free internet in the municipal library and that's where I spend most of the time, working on my website. It's a site for collecting temperature data through which anyone who wants to can water the garden according to the moisture of the soil."



Asipov sends his articles to all kinds of lecturers at the world's largest universities, but he says nothing has come out of it yet, because he is not a researcher at a local university and therefore they treat him differently. According to him, he came up with a startup that, if successful, could change his luck.



Are you afraid?
"The only time I was really scared was in Kiryat Gat, I was walking down the street near a lottery stall and asked people why the government gambles with their money and doesn't give in this
country
Gamble even in ways that are not a lottery. The owner of the stall suddenly pulled out a weapon in front of me and stepped on it. Because I was a combat soldier, I wasn't afraid, I ran away and he chased me with his van until I disappeared between several buildings. In Beit Dagan, too, a guy wearing a kippah tried to stab me because I told him there was no God."



As mentioned, throughout the day, Asipov is immersed in writing the site. "As long as I have the opportunity to work from the municipal library, I will do it. In the meantime, I'm looking for some money from people, or a small room, even a storage room. Just to have a roof over my head in the winter. I'm also willing to cut my hair, start working a casual job, only for someone to give me something so I can stand on my own two feet.



"In the meantime, I live here in a carton that protects me from the rain or under the stairs of the Yad Labanim house. I dress well and get through the night relatively peacefully. Money is not interesting. I can look for food on the street. There is a lot of food that people throw in the trash. The most important thing for me is to write the website, and I believe it will get me out of the crisis as soon as someone believes in it."