It’s all in your perspective.
Today was one of those days. Meeting after meeting filled with buzzwords and action items and task lists and flowcharts. Dizzying amount of energy resulting in a very small amount of output. One more meeting to go, at least this one’s off site.
It has been the kind of day where I wanted to pick up Chinese take out, eat it while laying on the floor in front of the television, and then maybe go for a dip in the pool. That is, if it isn’t full of vacationers. Man, I hate that. The dangers of living in a condo adjoining a resort.
I saw her while I was stopped for a red light.
She had her back to me, struggling to push an overloaded shopping cart over a small space in the sidewalk. Bumping the air conditioning up a little, I glanced at the temperature gauge on the console. It was 96 degrees out there in the sun. There was a too-hot-for-April wind, too, blowing in dusty gusts down the road.
She wore a long coat, over what appeared to be the majority of clothing she owned. It looked like she had some sort of makeshift brace on her left ankle. It was swollen and hampered her movements even more than the fissure in the hot pavement.
Just like any city, Phoenix has its share of homeless people. With our mild winter, we get a migration-type influx during the colder months. You can’t get onto or off of any freeway access point without seeing the typical homeless signage: “will work for food”, “need help, God bless”, and the once-popular “why lie, I need beer” plea for assistance.
All scrawled with that same giant ransom note penmanship, on an equally predictable panel torn from a cardboard box.
I find that I am callous more often than sympathetic. Honestly, it irks me when I leave for work at 6:00 in the morning and the same guy is there at the on-ramp, every day, and still there again when I come home.
I have to remind myself that while I am up before the sun and work all day and then fight traffic on the way home while he stands beside the road and asks for handouts, his day is still much more difficult than mine.
I know that at any given moment, I am about twenty steps away from a clean, functional restroom, one that is heated in the winter and cooled in the summer. Using the restroom doesn’t require me sacrificing my dignity or involving stares from those around me.
There is a whole cabinet full of toilet paper.
I know that I have a clean, safe home waiting for me at the end of my day. That contains a giant, soft bed.
Chances are I’m not going to be robbed of all my earthly possessions while I sleep under a highway overpass.
Yes, I eat stupid fast food, but it’s because I’m lazy. If I made half an effort, I could eat a decent meal. It isn’t my only choice.
And then there are people like this woman, trudging along in fog of auto exhaust and dirt.
As I think about stopping to see if I can help, my logical mind tries to wrap itself around the “why” of her situation. She hasn’t asked for anything, at least in the time I’ve been sitting here. Is she just down on her luck? Maybe she isn’t even homeless…perhaps mentally ill? Lots of folks on our streets who just fell out of the system.
You can’t be too careful, you know.
Or maybe she’s just an old woman who has nobody check up on her or take her to the store, or the doctor. I wonder how long it’s been since she talked with another person.
I wonder where she’s going, and what she’s eating for dinner tonight.
I’m sure that someone will help her if she asks for it. She doesn’t look crazy, or high, or drunk. If only I didn’t have this meeting, this client, this workload, I might be able to help. If only…
Oops, there goes the light. Immediately my mind is off to the coffee shop, where water strained through burned beans costs four dollars, where I can sit and laugh and up sell and secure the deal.
Out of sight, out of mind.
April 30th, 2008 at 7:14 pm
This post was really good. I saw the woman in my mind, and wanted to reach out and hug her. It tugged at my heart, in the most cliche of ways, of course.
I hope she’s safe and warm tonight.
Keep on writing.
May 1st, 2008 at 8:28 am
Its my understanding that most homeless people want to be ignored, unless they are panhandling or doing a task that requires interaction.
May 1st, 2008 at 10:11 am
Although I could see that point of view, I don’t know how accurate it is.
I think that at first, people may be embarrassed for being on the street, having to ask for help, etc, and a hope to be ignored would certainly be a part of that. Shoot, if I spill soup on my pants I hope to be ignored, at least for the rest of the day. If I had to sleep in a box and push my belongings around in a broken shopping cart I’d wish for invisibility too, at least for a while.
That said, at some point, people will still want to be treated like people. To be acknowledged, spoken to, to make eye contact with someone else. To be afforded even the most basic dignity that comes with not being an animal.
The tough part for me is keeping that in the back of my mind when I pull up to the red light. I try to acknowledge the person standing there, but I don’t necessarily want to give money. However, any sort of recognition on my part is always taken as an invitation to approach, if they’re not already standing at the window. The way around this, unfortunately, is to ignore them. That way, I don’t feel obligated to give when all I was really committing to was a “hello.”
I would think that after a while the need to be acknowledged would be greater than the drive to shake fifty cents out of someone.
Back when we used to live downtown, there was a guy who was at the freeway on-ramp every morning, without fail. He worked the right side of the road, and since I was always turning right onto the highway at that point it was unavoidable. At first I would give him change out of my ashtray, but then I started bring cold bottles of water with me, or a soda, and soon I got to the point I could just pull up and shake his hand and ask him how he was doing. There may have been some expectation of money on his part, but I think that he was just happy to have someone to talk to who wasn’t in his same situation.
May 2nd, 2008 at 10:58 am
I hear you. That was a great post.
It’s easier in Britain because we walk about more. The ones I spoke to in London said being ignored was the hardest part, they knew it was because people were embarrassed, that it was easier to ignore them than say “no” when they asked for money but it made them feel invisible, inhuman.
The guy at the on-ramp probably valued the drinks, the hand shakes and the conversation far more than he valued the cash you initially gave him.
I used to stop and talk to the ones I saw in London. I reckoned all I could give was time and a chance to talk to somebody who would treat them like a human being. So that’s what I did. Even now if they’re asking for money or trying to sell the Big Issue and I don’t want to give any I still try to look them in the eye, smile apologetically and say no rather than say nothing.
I leave you with a statistic I was told back in the early 90s.
In 1986 20% of the homeless in London were mentally ill. By 1990, 80% of them were. If they have no family and no one to look after them they fall through the net… pretty much every time.
It’s grim and I wish I knew what the solution was. Food for thought I guess…
Cheers
BC