Joe

Recently I went into the community to talk to homeless people because I have to for this class.  It's a large part of the description of the course: find a beat, develop contacts and research, work the beat.  Simple.  Right?  Not too hard at all.

Pretty much.

So I leave the house with my camera, voice recorder and notepad in hand.  Ambitions high, I think to myself, "This is the day that I get a great story.  I am going to kick this thing in the ass and come back with a massively interesting something for all of my 14 readers."

This is what I'm thinking.  I am pumped.  I am wrong.

Instead I end up talking to a man who is clearly crazy for the better part of an hour, never caught his name, and as I'm talking to this man I notice that I have gathered a small audience.  Most of whom are amused with me trying to politely excuse myself. 

After I get away I hear a man's voice say, "You clearly don't belong here, you know that right?"  This is Joe.  Joe is younger, clean shaven and well-groomed.

I say that I am aware of this, but what can I do?  I am not homeless, I wear my wedding ring and I take my supplies so I can take notes.

Regardless of how well-groomed Joe is and the fact that his clothes are clean and that he's had a shower I can tell he belongs under the freeway with the other people congregated there. 

So I ask, "What would it take to belong?"

"Have you ever slept on the street before?" He asks casually.

"Yes, I have."  This isn't a lie.  I've slept on a few streets in my lifetime and it wasn't great.  But I can safely say that I was never classified as a homeless person.  So I asked Joe if he thought he would recognize someone who was just hard on their luck versus someone who was a "long-term" homeless person.

"Of course I can tell.  This shit doesn't happen overnight," as he gestures towards the few people that are scattered around us.  "When I got homeless I just lost it all and fast."

"So it did happen overnight," I ask.

"Yes and no," Joe says carefully. "Homelessness, poverty, and all this is a mindset.  This effects how you sleep, what you feel about yourself and the world, how you love, your passions, everything."

Aside from that excerpt our conversation was brief.  Joe wouldn't give opinions or a history of himself except to say that things could have been done differently.  He's made mistakes and he claims that the mistakes aren't tied to the fact that he's poor and without a home now.  He blames his mistakes on the structure of our society.

"I'm here because my parents had to steal to feed my sister and I as kids.  People see that shit and it doesn't just go away."  He states in a matter of fact tone.

Prodding a little bit I ask, "So then should we pull all of the money away from homeless charities now and give that to the children who need it?"

"Yes,"  The answer is immediate, unthinking. "I firmly believe that if we invested more into our children we would see less aggregate homelessness.  In the time between let people fend for themselves."

The more and more I talk to the homeless in Sacramento the more I realize that I don't fit in.  I've slept on streets and I've had rough times, but my mindset is different.  Joe is right on that much.  So as I talk to the people in my community and the volunteers who give up so much of their time and livelihood to make other people more comfortable I try to remember that I am an observer and I don't have a golden ticket to ride.

Homeless Sacramento

This blog is composed by Alexander N. Maier for Public Affairs Reporting at Chico State.  My email is AlexanderNMaier@gmail.com.  If you have any questions or input it would be greatly appreciated.  I will be covering various homeless and poverty centered topics on this blog.

Thank you for reading.

Martin

When some people think about the homeless and disenfranchised the image that often comes to mind is an unkempt, perhaps mentally ill individual, who doesn’t care about their circumstance and makes no effort to change.

“I would help them, but I don’t think that they want help,” Tracy Smith, 46, of Sacramento said while walking through Reichmuth Park last Friday.  “I see people everyday downtown where I work and they never change.”

Tracy is of the opinion that if homeless individuals really wanted to come up out of poverty they would get a job, save money and move up.

“I really believe in the American spirit,” Tracy said while drinking a tall Starbucks latte. “We live in the greatest state in the greatest nation in the world and everyone can pull themselves up by their boot straps.  No one ever helped me and I’m doing just fine.”

If that were true it would be wonderful, but the fact of the matter is that all people are products of the circumstances and opportunities that were and are provided to them.

The Pew Economic Mobility Project found that 70 percent of people born into the bottom fifth of poverty will never rise out of that position.  That means that if you are born poor you are likely to remain poor throughout your life. 

“You’re not looking at the positive side of that statistic,” Tracy says. “That means 30 percent are lifting themselves out of poverty.”

Tracy was born to a middle class family, has never been homeless, holds a college degree and when asked if she thinks that this could affect her position on the subject of poverty and the homeless she answers with a very hesitant maybe.

When pressed a little bit harder she admits that her family paid for her to go to college and that she did some traveling after she graduated.  Something she says helped her to find herself.

“Maybe that gave me a better edge, I don’t know, but I do know that I work hard everyday.  Hard work is what keeps me and my family comfortable.”

On the other side of town a clean cut, elderly, black man who asks to be called Martin says he works hard too.

“I work hard and I can’t lift myself up,” Martin says very casually.  “I need the assistance I get from the community to survive.”

Martin was, at one point, homeless for the better part of four years.  He says the recession hit him hard and it wasn’t until recently that he was able to find a job that paid enough for him to pay rent and buy food.

“Shit, man, have you ever tried to live on 20 hours a week with minimum wage,” he asks.  “It is impossible.  I guess I’m lucky to have found someone who was willing to hire an old guy.”

When he was younger Martin worked construction and did janitorial work.  Now that he’s older he says that he can’t do the kind of hard physical labor that he once was able to do.

When asked about why he is where he is today Martin says, “Maybe, could have been a lot of things.”

Martin was never categorized as a chronically homeless person.  The chronically homeless are those people who do not want to be sheltered or have been out on the streets for several years.  The length of time varies; for Sacramento County a chronically homeless person is someone who has been on the streets for three or more years without interruption.   

Martin was in and out of various temporary housing situations during the time he was homeless.  Now he lives in a one-bedroom apartment and gets help paying his rent from the state.

“I had to drop out of high school, so I never got that,” Martin says holding a cup of coffee in his home.  “College would have been nice, I went to the City College for night classes, but between taking care of my boy and working I just didn’t have the time.”

As Martin continues it becomes apparent that the issue of homelessness and poverty is not singular.

“If it was just about working hard I would have a million dollars, but working hard isn’t everything,” Martin says.  “You know, I had medical bills and my boy’s funeral to pay for.  That cleaned me out.”

After his savings were depleted Martin began to live paycheck to paycheck and then he began to fall behind.

“It wasn’t overnight, you know, it just crept up on me.  With everything that happened at some point the power got turned off, then I got evicted and then I was on the street.”  The way Martin says this almost makes it seem like it was organic, something that was meant to be.  “I guess I could have done things different, but I didn’t.  I didn’t have the resources, I didn’t know what to do when it got bad.”

Talking to the various volunteers who work with people who are very poor or homeless there is an emphasis on providing resources and opportunities.  Often times the assistance that is given isn’t financial.  It comes in the form of counseling or job assistance.

Martin attributes his success to a private citizen named Matt Lee that helped him learn how to use computers so that he would be more marketable and attractive to employers.

“I met Martin while volunteering with Loaves and Fishes, they have a men’s center there,” Matt states in a matter of fact tone.  “He was motivated, he wanted to learn and I have a skill set that I thought could help him get back on his feet.”

Matt believes that by helping people he is bettering the community and himself.

“It’s my personal philosophy, I guess,” Matt says.  “I don’t have a lot of money, but I do have time.  I think that if everyone gave time to other people we would all be a lot better off.”

Martin and Matt spend a couple of hours together every week or so having breakfast at a local diner.  They have become fast friends and spend their time talking about any number of things.

“I think that this whole poverty thing would be a lot better if people saw it as a community issue.  Maybe that’s me being naïve, but when I look at where Martin was and how my help got him to where he is now that makes me happy,” Matt says smiling.  “When people help people things get better.”