Homeless..

For the past twoish years I have been apostatizing amongst the Homeless People here in Pompano Beach, and somewhat in Ft. Lauderdale. In apostatizing, I mean I spend a lot of time walking with them, talking with them, and hanging out with them. We talk, in some cases we pray together, we may read the Bible together, we talk about God/Jesus, or we just “hang out”.

In this two years I have come to understand the homeless situation much better than when I started looking at the homeless. My initial impression of homeless was that they were drunks, druggies and lazy.

Many of them ARE drunks or on drugs, but not for the reasons many of us think. Many use alcohol as a means to “stay warm” (or cool), forget their worries, or ease pain in the body. Same thing with the drugs. And both tend to become addictive as we all know from the news, books, press, etc. But many of the people I’ve been talking to want OFF the drugs or booze, if they were able to get cleaned up and land a paying job. The problem is being able to spend a couple of months getting cleaned out and still live, and then find a job.

As to the lazy tag. Many of these people, wandering the streets, are far from lazy. They spend the day walking, or riding a bike, from point A to Z and back again looking for money. They spend hours on the streets begging for money. They stay busy all day to stay warm (or cool). And they do tend to drink a lot, when they are able to buy the beer.. But most are not actually lazy!

I know one guy, who has a booze problem, and rarely a drug problem, that is a “Weaver”. He walks along the beaches climbing the palm trees and cuts down the dead palm fronds, living coconuts, then he takes the fronds and weaves hats, belts, skirts, and other things for the tourist. He shaves the coconut and opens it up, serving the coconut milk. He will add rum to it if you want, for a great tropical drink. He stays sober while he works all day. He works into the evening, making roses for the ladies from the fronds, selling them to the guys for their dates. Once he has his roses sold, he goes and buys some beer (or other booze) and drinks the rest of the night away. This man if FAR from lazy! He got into this life after doing some prison time and no one wanting to hire him, because he was a felon. Now he gets harassed by cops daily, and arrested often. He would be HAPPY to “Get a real job”. (Although his job is real, and much appreciated by the locals and tourist that go to the beaches down here.)

There are some homeless that just plain LIKE living on the streets. I talk to one that has been on the streets for about 14 years now. He isn’t a heavy drinker (only drinks of Fridays and Saturdays, and not heavily), doesn’t do drugs, but does panhandle and other wise work the streets, and sleep on the streets. He doesn’t want to change his life, and doesn’t plan on changing his life. He lives by a very strict set of personally made rules about where and how he sleeps, where and what he does, and how he panhandles. He had to see me walking around on the streets with other homeless for over a year before he would even talk with me, as I was outside of his rules. We now talk often.

Another class of homeless is what bothers me. There are MANY on the streets that belong in mental institutes for sever mental problems. The problem is, there are so few psychiatric hospitals out there, and someone must pay for those, so that leaves that these people out running around on the streets fending for themselves. Several years ago we had many psychiatric hospitals for mentally unstable people. Over the last 20+ years our political system has had these places shut down because of the cost of keeping them open. (Bipartisan, not just one side or the other!) I know of one facility that closed a few years ago in Annapolis MD area. When they closed, they moved less than 1% of the patients to another facility (that was closed a year later), family members moved another 25-30% to other facilities on their own, and the rest were given the option to be on the street, find their own place to be, or try to get back with family. In some cases there was no family to go back to. These people pretty much ended up on the streets. On way day they had a home, the next they were shown the door, given what little they had in possessions, and told to leave. I watched this happen myself!

I have heard many people say that they would give the homeless on the side of the street money, but the person would then use it for drugs or alcohol. IF you were going to give someone money out of the kindness of your heart, does it matter what they use that money for? It shouldn’t. For these people that alcohol or drug might be what they need to stay alive at that time. It is not for us to judge what they do with their lives. Now, I’ve heard others say that they will give them coupons to McDonalds, etc. This is good, but then you are telling them what they need. Is it your position to tell them that? Again, aren’t you judging for them?

For many of these homeless people, living on the street, or trying to, is the only thing they can do. Many want to be there, as the other homeless are their only support. And that support is shaky at best! Today someone can be your best friend, tomorrow they are not! But it is better than none!

You may ask why they don’t go to the various shelters and programs out there? Well, from what I am seeing, first there aren’t enough programs out there for the number of people on the streets. Second, getting into these programs can be VERY hard, especially if you have an alcohol problem or drug problem, and many COST the homeless money to be there. (They wouldn’t be homeless if they had money…) The programs, at least here in Pompano Beach/Fort Lauderdale, that help bring in people from the streets, dry them out (from either drugs or alcohol), give them beds, food, clothing and work to do, are almost always full. They may have frequent openings when a person can’t get through the withdraws of their habit, but those openings are grabbed quickly by people wanting to try. Many of the “Graduates” from these programs get back into productive life. Some don’t.

The “half way houses” out there that I have seen are jokes. These are supposed to be places where a person can go to get shelter, and attempt to get their life back in order. The person must get a job and pay “rent”. Yes, the rent is low. But in many cases, the house “manager” is a street person still on drugs or alcohol and is not better at managing a business (which these houses are, very profitable, for the owner, businesses) than he is manage his own life. There are more problems in these houses, more drugs, more booze, more issues, than there should be, by a long shot. I have yet to see one that is clean, orderly and well run. (I’m sure they are out there, but the ones the people I have been dealing with have been trying to go to have not been good.)

Then you have programs like this one down in Miami that works it’s way throughout Miami-Dade County and Broward County. This guy brings the vagrants in, gives them a place to crash, takes any income they have (social security, etc) and their food stamps from them each month. They are to pay an extra $50 a week for food (on top of the food stamp money they already have given through the cards!). He then gives them a “Route” to work as a panhandler or a “product” to sell. He demands 80+% of what that person brings in. He puts some of it in a “in house” bank for the homeless guy, but from what I hear, it can be pretty hard to get that money out in the end, and it often stays with this guy. And this guy is backed by the local government. He teaches no skills, just takes, and barely gives back. Add to that, I hear the housing is pretty pour to boot!

So, when you see these people on the street, think of our system for helping the mentally insane, think of our system for helping these people, and consider giving them a hand. Let them figure out how to use that hand!