One day, the task of "cleaning up around the garden" included throwing out some personal effects - clothing, a couple of books, a binder. We were to treat everything as though it had been discarded, even if it may have still meant something to someone. The age-old issue of "trash" versus "treasure" comes to mind.
A couple of days later, I was removing cigarette butts from a planter when a businessman struck up a conversation with me.
Finally, he said, waving his own cigarette as he indicated the planter, "You're screwing over the homeless, you know. If you throw those out, they can't relight them and smoke them. Don't you feel guilty?"
I was somewhere between heartbroken and livid. I told him how I felt about having thrown out the personal items.
He said, "Why don't we just throw the homeless out, too?"
Since then I saw too many more faces and sleeping bodies and desperate placards and paper cups. Whenever I swept the sidewalks I had the urge to sit down beside the people leaning against the walls. It was only in my final weeks with the cleaning company that I brought food and water to a woman I'd had to pass with my dustpan and broom about every ten minutes during my shift that afternoon. I wish it hadn't taken me so long.
One of my earliest childhood memories is walking hand-in-hand with my mother in New York City and seeing someone asleep in a cardboard box on a door step. Only his blue denim jeans and brown boots were visible.
Like any loud, naive child, I asked, "Is that a person?"
The memory used to make me uncomfortable, because I wondered if I had embarrassed my family or if I'd disrespected the sleeping person. But sometimes I'd like to go back to my mindset of that day - the sheer shock of the sight, rather than this decreasingly naive adult response of sadness without surprise.
During my image search, I came across a post at Free Range Talk called "The Criminalization of Homelessness." There is a well written narrative of the destruction of a tent camp and some information about the unlawful camping law, which is punishable by a $1000 fine and up to 90 days in jail. Please do check it out when you have a moment.
If you're interested in more solid research material, here are resources specifically on homelessness, recommended by a fantastic professor at Sarah Lawrence College:
First, R. J., Roth, D., & Arewa, B. D. (1988). Homelessness: Understanding the dimensions of the problem for minorities. Social Work, 33(2), 120-124.
Hagen, J. L. (1987). The heterogeneity of homelessness. Social Casework, 68(8), 451-457.
Hall, J. A. (1990). Homelessness in the united states., 159-174.
Helping mentally ill people break the cycle of jail and homelessness.(2001). Psychiatric Services, 52(10), 1380-1382.
Khanna, M., Singh, N., Nemil, M., & Best, A. (1992). Homeless women and their families: Characteristics, life circumstances, and needs. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 1(2), 155-165.
Kim, M. M., & Ford, J. D. (2006). Trauma and post-traumatic stress among homeless men: A review of current research. Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma, 13(2), 1-22.
Liu, W. M., Stinson, R., Hernandez, J., Shepard, S., & Haag, S. (2009). A qualitative examination of masculinity, homelessness, and social class among men in a transitional shelter. Psychology of Men & Masculinity, 10(2), 131-148.
Mowbray, C. T. (1985). Homelessness in america: Myths and realities. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 55(1), 4-8.
Newman, S. J. (2001). Housing attributes and serious mental illness: Implications for research and practice. Psychiatric Services, 52(10), 1309-1317.
Pickett-Schenk, S. A., Cook, J. A., Grey, D., Banghart, M., Rosenheck, R. A., & Randolph, F. (2002). Employment histories of homeless persons with mental illness. Community Mental Health Journal, 38(3), 199-211.
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