Still Here, Still Desperate : Like it or not, the homeless are our neighbors. Treating them with the same kindness and respect we expect is the least we can do.
I can’t remember the first time I saw my new neighbor. I don’t know his name or where he came from. But these days I see him more often than neighbors I’ve known for 10 years. I can’t miss him each night when I drive home from work.
Wrapped in a blanket at the Nordhoff Street exit from the northbound San Diego Freeway, wide-eyed, shaggy-haired and bearded, he roams the corner for hours on end, seeking from drivers and passersby what he is clearly unable to provide for himself. Money is good. Food and clothes are better. Homelessness, it seems, is just one of his demons. Mental illness may be the worst.
It seems every ramp has its homeless person. A disabled man lives at my Sherman Oaks exit for work. A middle-aged woman lives by the Nordhoff Street entrance to the southbound San Diego Freeway.
The experts agree that their numbers are growing. The Los Angeles Coalition to End Homelessness says there are upward of 40,000 homeless people in Los Angeles.
About 15% of them, 6,000 or more, live in the San Fernando Valley, the group estimates. Southern California’s dismal economic health suggests the numbers will continue to swell.
What preceded their life on the street? Was this man ever married? Where are his children? Did that woman ever diaper babies, drive a car, take vacations? What happened to her roots and the people who once cared for her? When does a life crisis become a personal tragedy, ejecting people with no parachute from homes, jobs and loved ones, and why do some people weather life’s storms better than others? Who are these people?
A 1988 study by the National Academy of Sciences gives some broad answers. It found the homeless to be young, ethnically diverse, often consisting of families. Far fewer middle-aged men are homeless than in the past. Minorities are over-represented, the elderly under-represented.
Children under 18 are the fastest-growing part of the homeless population. Veterans make up a large part of it, in particular those from Vietnam.
Homeless people are usually long-term residents of the cities where they live. Alcohol abuse is common in homeless men, and many have multiple problems like alcoholism and mental illness. The Academy says up to 40% of the homeless have symptoms of a major mental illness and nearly 25% have been hospitalized for psychiatric care.
Many of my neighbors barely see the homeless any more. They have become invisible, part of the landscape like the In-and-Out Burger and the ATM. A friend told me he hardly notices them any more, so many homeless people are around.
Many of my friends admit they walk past men and women begging for money without giving them a second thought.
Sometimes it gets nastier than that. Last winter, on a chilly Friday night, I was carrying groceries from a supermarket in Northridge to my car. Ahead of me was a family: middle-aged mom and dad, along with two teen-age daughters.
As we all walked, a twentysomething homeless woman approached the family and asked for money, saying she needed a room for the night. She was polite and calm.
The father immediately began yelling at her, calling her names and mocking her dirty and disheveled attire.
Then the whole family joined, in what seemed to be a sport they’d played skillfully in the past. The woman stood stunned. I was horrified.
In my shock, I handed the young woman $5 and a bag of chips.
Unfortunately, the actions of this family, totally lacking in compassion, were consistent with some messages coming from our authority figures.
Richard Riordan’s chief position on homelessness is that “panhandling . . . is a form of intimidation.” In the mayoral campaign he called for an “anti-aggressive solicitation amendment as a public safety measure.”
A story in this newspaper some months back reported that politicians have started cutting back on programs to help the homeless--”particularly in Westside and San Fernando Valley communities.”
What values are we teaching our children when we show only displeasure with the homeless? If children learn more by our actions than our words, are we teaching them anger, disgust and contempt? Or are we teaching them compassion toward people who are not criminals--just folks without an address at the moment?
I believe we have an obligation toward those half-invisible people living by the freeways.
I know if I were in their place--and the fact is most of us could be--I’d need the help and kindness of others just to survive day to day. So I help as often as I can. I give cans and bottles to the homeless man around my office. I hand out leftover food. And I give $1 here and there to homeless people, especially families, whether they are begging for money or not.
A friend chided me about this, telling me that probably one-third of all homeless people are scam artists. Even if I accept that, my money does good two-thirds of the time.
That’s enough for me.
DR, FRANZ BOROWITZ / For The Times
