09 Oct Five Views of Homelessness, Part 2

I used to feel like homelessness was a choice for the majority of the people that live on the streets of Seattle. From talking with Daniel, Felix, John, Robert, and Joseph, I’ve learned that there are so many circumstances that can happen to a person that leads them to where they are living on the streets or in the shelters.

After spending almost two hours talking and laughing with the first four, I met Joseph (the one who had already announced his love for me). He is currently living on the medical floor of the Union Gospel mission and is not a Seattle native. He told me that he had been hearing for a while how great Seattle was (specifically for being homeless) because there are so many services here, so many handouts, and so many liberal policies regarding homelessness. That’s why we get people from all over the country—it’s “easier” to be homeless in Seattle than in most other cities.

New York has pretty harsh laws regarding homelessness, many of them instated with Mayor Guiliani (read this story of a NY homeless man).  On any given night in America, there are about 664,000 people sleeping on the street. Sergeant Paul Gracy (West Precinct Community Police Team) told me that there are 2,247 beds available to homeless in Seattle.

In a recent article by Nate, Burg, he stated that “to fight homelessness, some cities provide services, some build housing, and some arrest people. Often it’s a combination of the three, but now many critics are calling on officials to de-emphasize the law enforcement element.”

“Allowing people to sleep legally on public sidewalks may not be the solution to homelessness, but many experts on homelessness and civil rights agree that it represents a major step towards a solution. Arresting people for sleeping on sidewalks criminalizes homelessness, and that, many say, sustains homelessness. Others argue that it is the homeless themselves who perpetuate their own situation by refusing services and remaining on the street. They say the only effective way to deal with them is by strict enforcement and institutionalization.” [link to article]

Daniel told me that he doesn’t want to remain homeless, but if an average person has a hard time finding a job, imagine how much harder it is if you’re homeless. Felix (laid off from Lowes) said that there are many guys who live at the Bread of Life that are up and on the streets by 4 (way before the 6am deadline to leave), hoping to get hired for manual labor as a way to make some money.

If the homeless are unable to find work, how are they ever going to get out of their current situation? Daniel said that the best way other people can help is to come down, get to know them, keep their eyes out for available jobs (basically, networking). If there are enough people that know what they can do, maybe there will be a job opening they can be suggested for, and that gives them the first step to change their situation.

Is this the case for most of the homeless down there?

John claims that 85% of the homeless are just like them: good guys just waiting to catch a break. They say that it’s the 15% of people that give homelessness a bad name and are what leads people to judge them as a whole. After all, aren’t the difficult ones the ones that get it your face, ask for money, try to sell drugs, stumble around drunk at all hours of the day?

So many questions with so few answers. But the goal of this was not to find “answers” to homelessness. The goal was to get to know the people who I share my neighborhood with, and to understand a situation that I’ve previously been a harsh critic of.

I ran into John and Joseph the other day down at Pioneer Square, and I have to be honest: it made my day. A group of people that I normally avoided or looked down on, I now consider individual friends. At the end of my conversations on that first day with all five of them, I happened to mention that my mom is a professional baker and that I may have an incredible cookie recipe.

Anyone who reads this and is interested, I let John know that I might just be in Occidental Square this Saturday at 2pm. And I’ll probably have a lot of cookies with me if anyone else stops by. He told me that I should just give them to him, and he can sell them to the other guys. I told you he was a comedian by day, right?