Homeless

My sign reads:

“Traveling from NY. Lost Everything. Please Help. God Bless.”

“Alone. Broke. Help.”

“Need kibbles for my dog. Give what you can. God Bless.”

“Homeless. I need food.”

I’m saying out loud:

(in rhythm) “Help if you can, help if you can. Help if you can, help if you can.”

“Please give me money so I don’t have to dig through the trash tonight.”

“I’m just hungry.”

I’m wearing ripped stained clothes. My hair is probably in dread locks. My shoe is broken and when I walk it flaps against the pavement, being closer to the concrete then my feet. I have my blanket that I wear everyday. I’m usually looking down, not in your eyes.

I’m a man. I’m a woman. I’m young. And I’m old. I’m white. I’m black. I’m Latino.

And we like to say that hunger, and homelessness aren’t issues of such a “First World Country.”

There are about 4 homeless people I encounter on a daily basis. There’s an older woman always sitting on the bench as I get off the L to go home. She’s usually speaking to herself, playing with her uneven dreadlocks. She’s got Walgreens bags surrounding her and her extremely thin blue blanket on her lap. Then there’s the man in front of the L station as I’m leaving from home. He looks so, normal; if it wasn’t for the fact that he’s sitting on the ground with that same red blanket everyday. Then there’s the older gentleman, and I call him this because he really does look like a gentleman, as I’m walking into my gym. He sits on the ground with his head in his hands, his sign and cup sitting next to him, almost empty. I can just feel his embarrassment, I can just sense his utter desperation. And then the woman on my way to work, she’s got her dog in a baby carrier and she’s got her sign about the kibbles. That dog could probably have a better home, one WITH kibbles, but he just might be her only friend.

I hadn’t ever really encountered homelessness until I came here. At first it shocked me to see the man sleeping behind the trash can on my first walk into the city, but I don’t notice him anymore, and it’s only been three weeks since that day. Before I used to feel a pull to my purse to grab the couple of dollars I do have and hand it to the woman asking me for it, and now I don’t even hear her anymore. I don’t know what this says about me. I am a socially aware person. I’m on the Urban Studies Program for goodness sake. But what can I do for them? I do not have enough money to support any ONE of them, let alone all of them. Giving them a dollar here and there isn’t going to change any of their circumstances. And even logically, you have to realize that begging for money on the street, no matter how successful you may be at it, it is never going to be a very self sustaining job. It’s temporary by nature. It’s inefficient from the beginning. But what are their options? Maybe their family is either gone, or estranged to the point that they’re no longer family. Maybe they’ve been convicted of a felony (no judgement please), and getting a job is very out of reach. Maybe they’re mentally disabled and they just didn’t have that one person to look after them. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.

I know that I’m the first one to say that homelessness is a structural thing, not personal; but where do you start? I guess this is more of a rhetorical question, because I don’t plan on answering it right now. I just wanted to put my thoughts down.

well, that’s it.

-elle

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