My job sends me to downtown LA a few days a week. Last week I stepped out of the parking garage to walk to my office. There was a man sitting on a concrete bench behind a stack of books, the top one open showing neat underlining on both pages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I took all this in as I speed-walked to get to my building. I saw an intensity that drew my curiosity and I wondered what he was reading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNice set of books,\u201d I said as walked past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His head jerked up and pivoted toward me, as he shouted, \u2018CAN\u2019T HELP YOU.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Realization dawned as I kept my forward pace. That intensity I intuited was not just from the power of the books\u2014there was a mental instability in this man. His shouts continued behind me directed toward the air. I couldn\u2019t make out the words he shouted, but I got his message.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The homeless problem haunts the crowded streets of downtown. As I go the last couple miles from the freeway to the office, I pass tents and the structures that are starting to fortify their homeless impermanence towards greater stability. People mill about with their folding chairs and carts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yes, they are at home in their homeless encampment. And yet, just like the man with the books, there is an unstable intensity in most of them. One morning I saw three different people lying on the concrete sidewalk shouting or moaning loudly. A block later, a man shuffled across the street in the crouch known to the fentanyl addicted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
20 years ago I worked up the street in the courthouse side of downtown. My co-workers and I would tell share stories of the one homeless guy who told the same story of being a student out of money to get a bus ride home. We took the bus ourselves and knew his request was for more than the cost of a ride and a transfer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHe should come up with a different story. We\u2019ve all heard his same story several times…Come on!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This story seems vintage quaint as I pass the homeless tent shanty towns in my clean clothes and stable routines. I wish I could help these men and women in their obvious distress and yet it is not all obvious what I can do. The Fentanyl crouch reminds me that even my previous (and infrequent) habit of handing out some bills to these people could mean an overdosing death sentence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Isn\u2019t wisdom supposed to come with age? I hear people with strategies for solutions. One thing I know is that whatever solution is implemented has to be met with investment from the individuals it is supposed to help. I am not sure how much investment these played-out people have to give. The current strategies in this metropolis are not satisfying. I would like to help them towards a better personal situation. It\u2019s hard to keep my eyes open, but it is the very least I think I can do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019ll have to keep looking for a way to help, from my tiny seat in the world. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My job sends me to downtown LA a few days a week. Last week I stepped out of the parking garage to walk to my office. There was a man sitting on a concrete bench behind a stack of books, the top … Continue reading