10-9-01,Voice in the Crowd, 896 words
No Place to Call Home
By Pete Chaney
IPS Features
Some 15 years ago my good friend Jacques Zinman had Lakes Insurance Agency in Pompano Beach, FL. He was developing a plan for the elderly and wanted me to research and write a piece on the care of the aging population. It was to be called The Golden Years, a dream of many for their future after they retire.
I visited nursing homes where too often forgotten relatives were deposited to wait for death. It hurt to see people who surely were once vital and active tied to wheel chairs and not even knowing where they were. For the most part were mostly paid for by the individuals. I found some material comparing America’s programs for the elderly with China’s. They came out better.
Things have improved for government involvement in paying for the elderly.
The government has developed a variety of programs. The cripple, the vision impaired, those with a variety of ailments are now cared for. One man lost his mobility when he wrecked his bike while riding drunk. At the expense of the government now, he is furnished a special van and a wheel chair. His medical expense is free.
With all these programs, there is one overlooked. The homeless.
You see them every day if you look. They appear sometimes like ghosts from nowhere to cross a street, their clothes unwashed their hair disheveled, their faces unwashed. You see them sitting around the corner from a grocery store. They hang around soup kitchens waiting for the only meal they may have that day. You avoid eye contact, knowing that this could lead to an approach for a handout.
“Do you have an extra cigarette?”
“Could you spare some change so I can make a phone call?” Of course, you’re convinced he only wants it for wine.
And there are cheap, potently sickening wines. Thunderbird. MD20/20. Roman Rocket. One man told me once he tried canned heat, turning it to liquid and then straining it through a loaf of bread. “It didn’t get me so drunk as it did sick, so sick I didn’t care.”
Ten years ago I met a woman we’ll call Sophie. That, of course, isn’t her real name. Her brother had gotten her out of jail in small town where she was picked up for public drunk. She and her brother traveled together, drinking and partying. Occasionally, they went home to their mother for rest but had to leave when they began drinking. Alcoholism was in their genes, a gift from their father.
Married as a teenager, she had a husband who was not only an alcoholic but dependent on drugs. He prostituted her to support his habit.
Another husband later fathered two adorable girls and then sent to prison for child abuse. When sober, she was a hard worker. But alcohol prevented her from working regularly. With government aid, she did have an apartment and food—until she got drunk with no one to care for the children. They wondered out in the yard saying they were hungry. Neighbors called the police who found her drunk. The children were taken from her and placed up for adoption. She only has her memories now. Painful memories.
Sophie and her six husband spent last winter, when the temperature dipped into the teens, in a makeshift tent in the woods just behind a grocery store. He, too, was an alcoholic and couldn’t keep a job. Sometimes they are together. Sometimes, apart. They live off food stamps when they can get them and the generosity of strangers.
Suffering heart problems, Sophie knows she shouldn’t drink. But that doesn’t matter. Someone who has never known an addiction would say it’s easy to quit. Everyone is different. For some it’s not easy. With her health, she was a candidate for Social Security assistance years ago and has filed several times. But she never stays one place long enough to complete the request.
One day she might be safe and warm in the hospitality of friends. The next she might be back under a bridge with whatever blanket or rags she can find.
What do you do with someone like Sophie?
A bleeding heart liberal might say give her a fat check each month to do as she pleases. A cold conservative might say people like that are better off exterminating themselves. Incidentally, they shoot horses to end their suffering, not people when they hurt.
There has to be some ground in between.
If a society can remove barriers from restaurants to recognize the handicapped or revamp schools and facilities to accommodate an ethnic influx or homes for battered women, surely there can be a program for the homeless.
Some are physically or mentally unable to work. Some are perfectly healthy but have gotten into the homeless and alcoholic cycle.
Years ago the city manager of a New York state town created a stir by making welfare recipients work. They cleaned the streets or whatever they were able to do.
Perhaps a program would work for the homeless. Let each do what they can and have a system in place to aid them with lodgings, food and—most of all—hope.
Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head. -Matthew 8:20 NIV
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