I mean, I don’t think I’m alone when I look at the homeless person or the bum or the psychotic or the drunk or the drug addict or the criminal and see their baby pictures in my mind’s eye. You don’t think they were cute like every other baby?
-Dustin Hoffman
Today’s New York Times had a wonderful theme that never gets the attention it deserves, even in the current economic climate. Nearly every section, from Arts to Weekends, had some kind of piece on homelessness. The front page featured a tragic story about a stabbing at a library, where two homeless men were fighting for prime squatting territory for the evening. Another section had a wonderful piece about a former cop that had lived on the streets for nearly twenty years before falling in love and moving into a jail-cell of a basement in New York City. Sadly, he often wakes up longing for the openness of his sidewalk. Yet another fine article featured interviews from several elderly people reminiscing about their childhood homes, and how much they missed those times. What began as a frustrating scramble to find the crossword puzzle turned out to be much more important, although I never did find that puzzle.
I visited the University of Wisconsin last year, and aside from the amazing campus that I frequently regret abandoning, I remember a newspaper I picked up in a sandwich shop in town. The lead story was about the mayor of the nude beach in Madison, an honorary title, who could no longer lodge in his van for the winters because his heating had stopped working. Please, ignore your basic instincts that suggest a nude beach in Wisconsin is an impossible dream. Dreams are what you make of them. Anyway, his plan was to get to Florida before the first frost came, but his funds were insufficient. He was a lawyer who gave up on the world, left home with just one suit and an Italian pair of shoes, and started a new life on his own terms. The article left a P.O. Box address at the end. I sent him a few dollars in the mail.
You might be surprised to know how many famous folks the streets have coughed up in their time. Nine Grammy Award Winners, eight Emmy Award Winners, six Oscar Winners, and one Nobel Prize Laureate are among the notable individuals who once survived without permanent residence. Drew Carey, David Letterman, and Martin Sheen spent the early part of their careers living out of cars. Jim Carrey and Kelsey Grammar pitched tents. Daniel Craig claims he called a London park bench home for some time as he waited for his big break. And hell, perhaps the South’s only shining, guiltless icon, Colonel Sanders, shared a car with his wife as he tried to pitch his recipe across these fine United States.
Some may even be able to attribute some of their success to street living. Musicians such as Kurt Cobain, Jewel, and Woody Guthrie brought a raw and emotional quality to their art that must have had some influence from their days of sleeping in broken down trucks and railroad cars. Furthermore, “artists” like Scott Stapp crawled their way up from the gutter, only to find them selves back in it later in life. Some of us wish he’d stay there forever.
I can’t claim to be an expert on the subject, although I have had my own experiences. My bouts of homelessness were always fairly short rounds, and thankfully never due to financial folly. Instead, my big mouth landed me in the back end of my rusty old Jeep Wrangler a time or two. I preferred hiding in the backwoods of Henderson County with a pop-up tent and threadbare sleeping bag. I’ve spent too much time sprawled out, involuntarily, under the starry skies of both Iowa and Illinois, waiting for an angry phone call letting me come back home. I spent over two weeks camped out at Gladstone Lake a summer ago, and although that time period pales in comparison to most homeless stints, I like to think that I experienced a hint of their pain.
Most homeless live in large cities, although thanks to recent home foreclosures, the suburban and rural numbers are on the rise. This provides for some necessary financial opportunities in order to obtain food and drink. One route, as described by a homeless man in the NYT, is to begin “canning” for change. This involves collecting cans from garbage bins and sidewalks, and exchanging them for change in order to afford the basic necessities. An average, devoted day to canning can get you around $20 in change. The homeless man claimed a good day could put $100 in your pocket.
I never had to deal with this, and most likely couldn’t considering the size of Burlington. At five cents a can, you have to collect 400 to achieve the $20 plateau, an unrealistic goal in a community of less than 30,000 people. Luckily, and unlike most homeless, I had a debit card. Unfortunately, I also lack any form of financial responsibility. After realizing I would be on my own for a while, I often found myself at the local Walmart, filling a shopping cart with what I thought to be bargains. $1 liter bottles of green tea, $1.50 packages of hot dogs, etc. I’d somehow always find myself with an ample supply of Wheat Thins, which contrary to popular belief, are not a staple of the homeless community. I’d spend more money in an hour than most homeless would spend in a month, yet always felt as though I had nothing to show for it.
Furthermore, most homeless survive without any formal sleeping shelter. Cardboard boxes and newspaper blankets become suitable arrangements, instead, providing the most minimal of accommodations for rest. I keep a sleeping bag in the back of my car, just in case, and in foreseeable cases of prolonged homelessness, I always managed to find a tent. I’ve gone without both before, but would never recommend it, remembering the awful case of the shivers I had on the Crapo Park municipal stage, even in the summertime. I’d often find myself doing jumping jacks in the middle of the night, thinking of those commercials John Edwards used to run about the freezing veterans on the streets of D.C. To be honest, the sleeping bag is the finest tool for outdoor survival, though in times of rain and snow, you’ll spend more time fighting the ever encroaching dampness than sleeping. But then again, I probably deserved it.
I had a job to maintain, and a messy one at that, coming back to my tent at night with pizza sauce slathered all over my clothes. The next issue was always how to wash clothes, which I managed to do in Gladstone Lake, or at the local park bathroom. It’s a truly unhappy activity that makes you appreciate the washers and dryers we so often take for granted. But it was an activity that had to be done to maintain my lifestyle, something that most homeless do not bother with. Survival becomes more important than appearance, something you may notice if you have ever encountered one yourself. Though it should be noted that the stereotypical homeless are not the only ones that populate our streets at night. Doctors, lawyers, and businessmen all have their own stories of homeless life, whether it be due to financial collapse or even student loans. I worry about this from time to time as well, as my mother constantly reminds me of the increasing expenses of my college education. I know others that are worse off than myself, and I fret for them as well. I have dreams of drawing straws for a single sleeping bag in Boone County. Sadly, I never win.
I used to call it “involuntary camping.” I think the term still fits, especially in context to actual homelessness, which makes my story seem trivial in comparison. But I remind you that I spent my fair share of winter nights curled into a ball by a lake with no cell phone to rely on, and a dry tank of gas in the Wrangler that I later determined ran on absolute will power. I’d think about how I’d wished I had learned how to hunt as a boy, but always dismissed the idea due to liberal anxieties. I always got back into town, I always managed to collect a paycheck, and eventually, I always made it home.
My mom speaks fondly of my grandpa Harrison, a man I never met. She claims he was an expert survivalist who fed his entire family on homegrown vegetables and wild game. She remembers having rabbit stew and cooked squirrel, and my mind always wanders to Delmar in the Mississippi backwoods: “Would you like some gopher, Everett?” I envy that life in ways, but realize I could never do it. But that was a man that could live on his own without trouble, and perhaps, with pleasure. They are rarities today. Perhaps a better word is “treasures.”
The idea of a L.A. dumpster is equally as unfathomable. Scrounging through garbage for left over scraps and praying for one more night of survival. A guest from an old Jerry Springer episode always springs to mind, who claimed that he lived behind an apartment complex in Hollywood and was reduced to eating out of diapers. Whether for dramatization or not, that thought will probably never leave me. Furthermore, there is a constant threat of violence that is seen so often with the homeless. Several years ago, a homeless man out West was lying on a sidewalk in front of a department store, when he was assaulted and killed by a group of teenagers with baseball bats. The entire incident was captured on surveillance camera. As far as I know, the assailants were never apprehended.
I would argue that it was a case that lacked sentimental interest. Despite the media coverage, there was no face associated with the victim, aside from the disgusting bearded mug that was smashed by a Louisville slugger. The overwhelming majority of crime cases that are broadcast by the mass media involve an attractive white female, a point that has been brought up time and time again, but to no avail. The homeless, however, suffer from a public perception that is much lower than the average citizen, even the poor average citizen. They are below the rest of society, or at least portrayed that way. Their requests for change are often met with jeers and constant suggestions that they “should get a job”. Admittedly, I’ve thought this myself. One must consider, however, how difficult it would be to get a job dressed in rags and Kleenex box shoes. It’s not a pleasant thought, but a realistic one.
Perhaps even more unpleasant to consider is the idea of the homeless dead that are rounded up every morning in metropolitan cities. Most go unclaimed by families, and as the Times article mentioned, spend weeks to months in morgues waiting to be laid to rest. Eventually, after all hope has been lost for the contact of a friend of family member, they are given a careless burial, which might be the saddest funeral of them all. The tomb of the unknown soldier receives glory that many fellow servicemen do not, dropped into the earth without sorrow or fuss. It’s a hard reality for me to swallow, especially having just seen Charlie Kaufman’s Synedoche, New York, where the idea of each person’s individual story, individual play, is so powerfully displayed. I can only imagine many of their stories are worthy of presentation.
Furthermore, the homeless are often made into villains in a society that is so focused on material wealth and gain. Many question whether they were just the weak in a society that boasts “only the strong survive.” I’d rather not speculate about such things. Many homeless claim that they made the choice to live on the streets, opting to abandon their place in modern society, such as Madison’s nude beach mayor. They often have wives. They often have children. So it is easy to visualize such scenarios as despicable, but so many scenarios are. Others have fallen and just can’t get up. Their stories are equally as tragic.
The idea of the lovable tramp has virtually vanished from public memory. I used to think being a vagabond would be somewhat adventurous, and I remember tumbling down Current River in Missouri with some friends, calling our selves the “floating hobos”. Even spending those weeks in the tent seemed like a notable accomplishment that someone could appreciate, which I am further begging for here. But televisions used to be full of hobos and tramps, made popular by Red Skelton. This idea has faded, with David Koechner’s character of “T-Bone” being the only modern drifter of record. And to be honest, what a lovable drifter he is.
The homeless of the big cities are rarely mentioned, and often swept under the rug. Rudy Giulliani based much of his New York City mayoral campaign on ridding the streets of the homeless window washers. By all accounts, he did a good job of it. But where did the homeless go? I don’t know, and no one seems to be telling. Washington D.C. has one of the highest homeless populations in the country, and even as they lie on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, the issue is rarely addressed. I cannot think of a rougher life than a big city vagrant, living off the concrete of an unforgiving metropolis.
My stints of temporary homelessness, hopefully, seem nothing more than silly. A spoiled suburbanite white kid living out of his car for a few nights in winter, or pitching a tent on a riverbed for a short while. But I mention them for a bit of context: how many of you have even done that? How many of you have even spent a week without a guaranteed source of cash, or a promised meal when you need it? I venture to guess that few are raising their hands. Even I have felt that much, in the most juvenile of terms, but I acknowledge the ridiculousness of my claims. My life was never in danger. My future was never in peril. My home was never merely a fantasy.
And so I bring this entire point forward as a small bit of protest for the voiceless. Lord knows I have enough voice to share it. And hopefully, you enjoyed the consideration.
We have come dangerously close to accepting the homeless situation as a problem that we just can’t solve. - Linda Lingle
Consider it.
Alexander Denison, PhD.
