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.