Homeless Prepare to Run for Their Sake
Those who think the homeless have been irretrievably left behind in life’s race for success and contentment might have been surprised to watch dozens of them lacing up their running shoes Saturday.
There was the overweight man from New Orleans in headphones, lugging bags onto the bus carrying runners to Griffith Park. And there was the mentally disabled woman who said she was participating, because “I like challenges.”
“Everybody homeless is not helpless,” Leron Bailey said later, sweat pouring off his brow after finishing first in a 5-kilometer run at the park.
The training run was a tune-up for the Oct. 8 second annual “Run for the Homeless,” which is expected to raise $50,000 to help Skid Row residents.
Bailey, 24, said he was once was a promising football player at Crenshaw High School, but drug use sent him tumbling downward and into the hotels of the poor. He described his experiences on the street as “painful. It’s a feeling of being in the world, but not part of the world.”
About 150 homeless people have already signed up to participate in this year’s homeless run, which is expected to draw as many as 2,000 participants for the 5-K and 10-K events, race organizers say.
About half that number participated in Saturday’s training run, which included those in shape, who ran the whole distance, and others who walked, at least part way.
Some people, however, have asked about the point of an athletic contest for the homeless. Don’t they need to lace up brogans more than Nikes?
“So much of our work is associated with misery and pain,” said John Dillon, the founder of Chrysalis Center, which is sponsoring the 5-K and 10-K race with KABC-TV. The idea behind this is “to get together and have fun.”
Other critics have wondered whether by making the homeless more comfortable--participants are fully outfitted with shoes and running uniforms by the organizers--the program may not be helping the poor.
Dillon denied that, saying, “This is putting people back into the mainstream.”
Of the 27 who competed last year, eight found jobs, he said.
But even for those unable to get off the streets the program has benefits, said Andri Downs, a slender 35-year-old man who came in second in last year’s contest.
“It gives the homeless something to do instead of being in the streets, doing nothing,” he said.
Similar Health Problems
George Marrett, race director, said the homeless participants have many of the same health problems as the rest of America. They eat too much, smoke too much, and don’t get enough exercise. If the race does nothing but help them change some of those bad habits, it will have made its point, organizers believe.
Bailey said he has already changed his bad habits.
Asked if he were still using drugs, he replied, “No, that’s why I won today.”
Downs, from Philadelphia, was a cardiology technician at a Compton hospital until 1984, when he was laid off in an economy move. He has worked only sporadically since then and has battled depression.
“I was so into it, when I got laid off, I let down, pulled the plug,” he said.
Now, he is rediscovering his intensity.
“It’s like this race. I’m putting everything into this run.”
