Judge Turns Author to Help Solve Homelessness

Judge Robert Coates believes the rise of homelessness in America is the symptom of a devastating moral crisis--not necessarily among the homeless, but among the rest of society.

Coates is fond of telling the story of the 61-year-old man who appeared before him in Municipal Court bench charged with second-degree burglary.

“The man was emaciated, visibly quivering and weak,” Coates said. “He appeared to be starving. It quickly became clear that the police had arrested him purely as an act of mercy. He was charged with a felony, meaning the jail had to hold him, they couldn’t let him go.

“The man looked at me with tired eyes and said, ‘Judge, an old man like me should not have to live in the rain.’ And, you know, he was right. He shouldn’t have to. So, the question is, why was he? Why had we let him? Why can he not have a better life?”

The 52-year-old judge plans to probe such questions in his forthcoming book, “A Street Is Not a Home: America Can Solve Its Homeless Dilemma--And Here’s How.”

Prometheus Books, his publisher, wants the manuscript by the end of March, with a release date earmarked for the fall. It will not be the judge’s first book. His earlier effort was a book of poetry titled “Ships Crossing at the Dead of Night.”

Coates wonders about human ships, passing in the dead of San Diego’s night and said he hopes to offer solutions to a problem “that exploded in the ‘80s.” At the same time, he hopes to take a fearless inventory of his own conscience and offer theories as to why America, its cities, judges and thinkers, have not done more toward helping the homeless.

Ideas come to Coates in rushes, and on a rainy day this week, these were but a few:

“Camus said that, in every gesture of contempt lie the seeds of fascism. I do sense a rising tide of contempt in attitudes about the homeless.”

“Many of the causes of homelessness have to do with erosion of values, the decline of the family, apathy toward the mentally ill. . . . I saw an L.A. County survey recently that said 96% of PCP users admitted to being abused as children. Their lives were defined as lives of pain, and many became homeless.”

“The most fundamental aspect about Americans’ attitudes toward the homeless is that they’re ignorant. The fact that they’re held by otherwise intelligent, well-educated people ought to be terrifying to everyone.”

“I see this fundamentally as a moral issue. And, we are absolutely capable of handling it with grace, humanity and ease. If we don’t handle it, well, let me say a moral society will eventually handle it. An amoral society will not.”

Frank Landerville, project director for Mayor Maureen O’Connor’s Regional Task Force on the Homeless--an agency Coates singles out for praise in its work in helping to provide jobs and housing--said the judge has “a real compassion for the homeless, a deep and lasting concern. He was one of the first in the community to respond to the growing population of the homeless.

“He was definitely there at the front end. He helped put together the convocation on the homeless in 1983. He went out on the streets for two nights and helped raise attention to what was then a new phenomenon. He’s been an advocate for services for the homeless ever since.”

Landerville said the estimated number of homeless in the United States ranges from 300,000 to 3 million, “depending on who you talk to,” with an estimated 6,000 in San Diego.

About 40% of the homeless nationwide are said to be veterans, according to Landerville, and three out of four of those are Vietnam-era veterans. He said at least a third of the homeless are mentally ill.

Landerville agreed with Coates, who believes public apathy toward the mentally ill has contributed greatly to homelessness. Coates cites the “fewer and fewer” beds in state mental hospitals and said the only alternative for such people is the street, where they often turn to drugs.

“If you took the existing mental health programs we had statewide 25 years ago, and projected those figures to what they should be today, we would now have 85,000 beds in state-run mental hospitals,” Coates said. “The last time I checked, we had 2,200 beds in state mental hospitals, and that’s not counting the criminally insane.”

Landerville said he had recently spoken to Coates about the earthquake in Northern California and how public response to that differed markedly from attitudes about the homeless.

“What happened in the aftermath of the quake was indeed a response from the heart,” Landerville said. “There was all this concern about those who had been left homeless because of the quake. But what of those who were homeless before? It’s almost as if we looked at two groups of homeless and declared one worthy and the other unworthy.”

In seven years on the bench and as an attorney before that, Coates said he has come across hundreds of cases involving the homeless. He said the inescapable conclusion is that the law turns a cold shoulder to the homeless and to the mentally ill in particular. Coupled with the apathy, he said, is an attitude of helplessness, as if society’s response to the homeless was a big collective shrug.

So, he hopes to offer an antidote as well as anecdotes. His outline of the book contains a history of the homeless; cooperation and competition among social service agencies; the media; housing; religious institutions; jobs (how 10% of the homeless need a job, nothing more), and an in-depth look at women and children, combat veterans, and, of course, the mentally ill.

He said San Diego’s biggest failing is in the last area, although he praised the Regional Task Force on the Homeless, as well as the Joan Kroc St. Vincent de Paul Center and Episcopal Community Services.

“We have the dollars to pay for what’s important,” Coates said. “One of the themes of the book is that the homeless can be an asset; they present opportunities.

“A few years ago, a group of homeless men came into my courtroom. They wore boots and backpacks and visages that made them look like veterans of Bull Run. They reported promptly for their day in court; they were sound and impressive. I was moved by their presence.

“Here was talent. Here were people employers would be well served by. They suggested a reservoir of talent, energy and integrity, and a willingness to work. So, why didn’t they have jobs? Why were they homeless? Why had we let them become that?”