It’s outrageous that the Supreme Courtroom is permitting states and cities to criminalize homelessness and that Gov. Gavin Newsom is ordering encampments dismantled, particularly when there’s not sufficient housing or shelter area for many who want it.
I used to be homeless for 6½ years, from 2002 to 2008, a narrative I’ve instructed earlier than in these pages. I do know what it’s like when nobody cares about you or your dwelling scenario.
I by no means pushed a procuring cart, by no means slept in a metropolis park or on a sidewalk or in a tent encampment, by no means took medication and by no means panhandled. I paid for all my meals and for nightly stays in my Toyota pickup in state, metropolis and federal parks, alongside vacationers and leisure campers.
I labored the entire time I used to be homeless, totally on computer systems in libraries, sustaining a contract writing enterprise and doing public relations consulting. I intermittently had cellphone service, and I had an e-mail deal with, so most of my purchasers had no concept of my scenario. However throughout an financial downturn, I couldn’t make sufficient cash to hire a room or condominium.
Campgrounds have limits on how lengthy you’ll be able to keep, so I moved round so much, largely in Southern California, alongside the ocean and within the desert, typically in Montana, the place I as soon as lived.
I met lots of people on the transfer and out of luck. At one campground’s entrance, a faculty bus picked up a homeless household’s baby each morning. A man I met collected cans on his bicycle and was in a position to pay for meals; he by no means begged. As soon as he stashed his cans in a church parking zone; they have been thrown out by workers, and he was instructed by no means to come back again. A drug addict I knew died of publicity, curled up on the entrance to a retailer. One man I bumped into on the campground circuit did OK for some time. Then I noticed him panhandling. He’d needed to promote his sleeping bag for meals.
Finally, I began getting Social Safety and have become eligible for Medicare, and my scenario improved. I stayed in an inexpensive motel sometimes. I bought wanted cataract and knee surgical procedure, recuperating in my pickup or a motel room.
After I had sufficient revenue to hire an condominium however not sufficient cash for each hire and a deposit, a spiritual group helped me out. I’d been on housing-assistance lists for years, ready for a backed low-income condominium. Lastly, I had a bathe and a washer and a kitchen. I bought my stuff out of storage. Discovering my out of date pc, TV, household photographs and different mementos was like doing an archaeological dig on my former life.
I’m 80 now, and lucky to have Social Safety and Veterans Administration revenue, and I haven’t needed to have housing help for years. Being homeless looks like a very long time in the past. However I always remember it.
After I see folks panhandling, I don’t give them spare change, or perhaps a greenback; I give them a 5 or a ten or a twenty — and a form phrase. At Christmas, I hold $10 payments on the prepared. I don’t care if somebody is drunk or on medication. I make no judgment. It helps them and it makes me really feel good.
I don’t prefer to see tent encampments on sidewalks, or by the freeway, or in parks. However criminalizing homelessness, or clearing out tents isn’t a solution when there’s no place to go. We’d like extra housing, extra applications for psychological sickness and drug dependancy, common healthcare, perhaps even a minimal primary revenue. And this: extra amenities for the homeless to bathe and go to the lavatory.
I do know California has spent billions; it can value extra.
A wealthy nation like the US must be able to compassion. Feed the hungry, assist the poor, heal the sick, home the homeless, dress the bare, welcome strangers. Till the Supreme Courtroom and Newsom discover a higher answer, they ought to begin there.
Les Gapay, a former newspaper reporter, is retired and dwelling within the Coachella Valley.
