There's A Reason Americans Pass By Homeless People In The Street Without A Second Glance

[EFerrari]

135. It really is.

Some time shortly before my marriage blew up and I left San Francisco, I tried something different in our neighborhood. We were out by the beach in San Francisco and there were a number of homeless folks that lived there -- either in their cars or in the park nearby or I don't know where but they lived there as surely as we did.

So, I tried to keep track of just three of them and tried to get our block to "adopt" them in a way. One of them was a young man in his early 30s who had a drug problem that he tried to shake when he had the energy. Another was estranged from his family in the East Bay but he'd come around asking for work. The third was a man about my age but who looked a lot older and who hung out in a wheel chair near the streetcar turnaround. K has use of his legs but has other mobility problems that just make using a wheel chair a lot easier for him.

It worked and much better than I though it would. Enlisting the few people we actually knew on our city block, Young 30ish Man was helped into rehab, not once but the three times it took for him to get his balance. People on the block made calls and gave him rides or cab rides out to the clinic and didn't come down on him too hard when things went south the first few times. Estranged guy got enough work to finally make up with his family. Man, he had a temper and he was a drinker. But, he was also a hard worker and eventually, I think being able to talk to all these strangers nudged him in the direction of wanting to talk to his kin. Wheel chair K stayed in the neighborhood but at least now people are keeping an eye on him in case something comes up that he might need some help with or, that they need some help with because he sees everything that happens on that block.

Looking back, it was such a small effort. But it was what we could do and it felt good to do that. More, it made our block more liveable for everyone and in a city, that's a good thing.