Economic Downturns

Friday was a rough day for me, most likely due to an overly busy week and not enough sleep for several nights for both me and my daughter. So I might have been reading things into what I saw up at the corner of 145th and 5th as we waited for the light to change. But regardless of my emotional state, it was a terrible sight.

I can't figure out if there was some sort of "clean up" initiative in action, or if some residents in the area were taking charge of their block, but there were 8 or 10 people in rain gear cutting and hauling away brush from the area. The city must have been somewhat involved as there was an SDOT garbage truck and driver loading up what the neighbor-types were hauling. Some kind of heavy equipment had probably been used as the area had been very overgrown and somewhat wooded, and now it looked like it had been cleared.

None of this would have struck me as particularly interesting or noteworthy except for the fact that one of the people on the scene was not dressed for the project, was not brandishing tools and bustling around. Instead, he was sobbing. Mopping brow with a dirty paper napkin, shuffling from foot to foot, waving his arms around, and generally looking very confused and upset. This man was clearly mentally ill and looked like he lived outside. He had 3 stuffed plastic garbage bags on the ground next to him, probably filled with his things, and he watched the other people moving around.

I think I may have seen him at this spot before, panhandling from cars exiting the freeway. I know I've seen his stuff -- 2-liter plastic bottles and some random bags of food. He used to have old popcorn spread around on the ground and the birds would gather to eat it.

So my guess is that back in the overgrown bramble and bushes, this man had fashioned himself some sort of shelter and was calling this corner home. What I don't understand is, if this was a city or neighborhood effort to prevent a homeless man from living there, why wasn't something put in place to provide him with some help? If an effort requiring this much coordination and planning was going on, had anyone considered finding a shelter or a soup kitchen to transport the evicted man to? Even arresting him and giving him a night in jail, a shower and a meal seems more humane than allowing him to stand and watch as what little stability and security he had was being torn apart.

I think what bothers me most about what I saw was that even in the unlikely event that they only discovered this man's presence there after the fact, they simply appeared to be working and ignoring his existence. Granted, I only saw a snapshot of the process. They may have had the best intentions and were unable to get him to leave or accept their help. But by the time I was there to witness it, it was one of the ugliest things I have seen in a long time. It didn't help that the "volunteers" or whomever they were were wearing heavy weather gear (overalls) and carrying pitchforks.