Speaking to the homeless

There, but for a random roll of the dice in this life, go you.

The following words were spoken to me by a homeless Bristol friend: “Do you know what it’s like to have people walk right you by on the sidewalk and have no one look directly at you? It’s like I don’t even exist. I wish they’d at least spit on me as they walked by.”

I can (at least to some small degree) personally vouch for his situation. One Thanksgiving Eve several years back, I ventured out and about Bristol incognito (dressed as a “homeless” individual). The most shocking part of it all to me was, indeed, the fact that almost everyone looks right through you. It truly seems as if you don’t personally exist.

I’ll never forget one kind lady of means who stopped dead in her tracks on the State Street sidewalk, looked me straight in the eyes, and told me (in the sincerest, kindest voice you can imagine) that she wished me the happiest Thanksgiving possible.

That look. Those words. Such caring. The fact that she acknowledged my humanity. It was all worth more to me at that moment than had she handed me a million dollars.

My long-time friends know that I have actually been homeless. Back in the late 1980s (due to a bout of deep depression) I roamed homeless across the South for over two weeks.

Trying to fall asleep one night along the edge of the Okefenokee Swamp, I vowed (if I made ever it out of my darkness) that I’d help the homeless in any way I could for the remainder of my life. Indeed, I’ve many times since sought to aid the homeless in Bristol; to help, to encourage, to advocate, to cherish the fact that they do exist and are real people - with real hopes and dreams and real pain and despair. And, yes, the proceeds from Hometownstories.org all go directly to aid local homeless individuals and families here in Bristol.

I have found that the loopholes in our mental health care system are distinctly discouraging and debilitative to those trying to escape homelessness. Therefore, mental illness among the homeless often goes untreated.

I also wish there were a decree that stated something like this: “No governing body shall make a new law concerning the homeless unless - unless every member of that governing body personally spends a full 24 hours truly homeless, within the jurisdiction for which they would make a new law.”

For those who may have a negative or disdainful opinion of the homeless, I would invite you to do as I did and spend a night homeless in Bristol. Without any aid from friends or family, possessing only the ragged clothes on one’s back.

If we were all to do so, I feel certain that more eyes would become “widened” to the unique and daunting problems faced by the homeless among us.

Jesus said, “The poor will always be with you.” It is likely no accident that, according to the Gospels, Christ wandered about homeless for quite a bit of his adult ministry.

“Am I my brother’s keeper?” It is a question as old as humanity itself.

What is the answer?

Of course, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. If we can prevent individuals and families from becoming homeless in the first place, that is money well spent (or as I’d put it, well invested). Let’s each do all we can to support permanent housing efforts and projects for those in need at every chance we can.

And we can all choose to speak (cheerfully and meaningfully) to those souls whom we may come across who were born to a different fate than we.