Feeling Guilty Is Just Not Good Enough . . .

I did not know Margaret Laverne Mitchell. But when I heard the news that she had been shot by a Los Angeles police officer following an altercation over a shopping cart, I felt sad, outraged and then remorseful. I remembered the evenings I rushed up La Brea Avenue toward Hollywood and would see her sitting at bus stops in the Hancock Park area of Los Angeles. She would be curled up in a fetal position with a large coat wrapped tightly around her. Nearby was a shopping cart filled to the top with an assortment of cans, bottles, wrappings and other paraphernalia. I always wondered if these were all her worldly possessions.

Each time I saw her I would feel the little pang of guilt that many of us feel when we see an older, homeless person. I would often pose the standard litany of questions to myself about someone like her. How did she wind up on the streets? Did she have children and relatives? Did they know where she was or even care to know? But mostly I wondered how and why homeless advocates must scratch and claw to get money for assistance and treatment programs for the homeless from a government that routinely spends billions to build prisons, wage war, stockpile weapons, probe space and bail out foreign governments.

By the next traffic light, however, I had dredged up a storehouse of conscience-salving rationalizations to drive those thoughts from my mind. I’d tell myself that this pitiful-looking woman probably landed on the street because of drug or alcohol abuse or her own personal failings. Next, I’d tell myself that there was little or nothing that I could do as an individual to help her. Finally, I’d console myself with the fact that I often give spare change to the homeless, shell out a few bucks to pay them to pump gas for me and contribute to several major charities. Wasn’t that enough? The truth is that I, like so many, regarded her not as an object of compassion but as a nuisance and embarrassment.

But my rationalizations and personal disgust still didn’t answer the question that nagged at me: Why do so many men and women like Mitchell roam Los Angeles city streets? Every day I see them sifting through trash cans at the back of liquor stores and markets, panhandling on corners and near gas stations and pitching their blankets and meager pile of belongings in parks and on bus benches along nearly every major street that I drive down.

Many suffer from severe drug, alcohol or mental disorders. Mitchell was a classic example of this. According to her son, she suffered from deep bouts of mental depression. But where could she turn for help? The massive cutbacks in funds for mental health services have resulted in many needy and troubled men and women being dumped on our streets to shift and fend for themselves.

I want to believe that Mitchell’s death will force us to prod public officials to allocate more funds for the assistance, care and treatment of the homeless. But I suspect that after we shake our heads and tell ourselves what a tragedy this was, we will bury our guilt about the homeless, console ourselves that there’s little we can do about them and continue to drive by them like I did. And when we do, her tragedy will be our tragedy, too.