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This afternoon I drove out to a suburban mall to go shopping. In front of a health food co-op was a vendor for Real Change News, a community change newspaper that serves the homeless community in Seattle. Real Change publishes a newspaper once a week or so. The vendors of the newspaper are homeless people. They're often standing on streets in downtown Seattle, with tags hanging from strings around their necks identifying them as authorized vendors. I often stop to buy their papers and chat with them. Rarely do I meet a Real Change vendor in the suburbs.I told this suburban vendor that he didn't look homeless. He seemed taken back. "What are homeless people supposed to look like?" he said. I replied, "You know what I mean."
He told me his life story. He said that his parents were abusive, they got divorced when he was young, and he left home early feeling that adults can't be trusted. He worked his way through his junior year of college but then dropped out, with lots of debt. His girlfriend cheated on him and got pregnant with another man's child. He lost it and turned to drugs. He said many homeless people were abused as kids and have drug problems.
For years he's been a vendor for Real Change News. He buys each newspaper for 35 cents and sells it for a buck. He says he makes up to $100 a day. He lives in a communal home in the U-District of Seattle, some 13 miles away from the suburb. He commutes out to the suburb, by three riding three buses. He said it takes him up to seven hours a day to commute. He's happy that he will soon have a home of his own, thanks to a King County program for which he applied five years ago. (The waiting list is that long.) He showed me a photo of his wife and daughter, who is 11 years old. They all looked "normal."
He said that over the years he had trouble holding down jobs. One reason was his outspokenness about politics: he often complained loudly about the unfairness and corruption of society. This tended to alienate his employers. Probably he had trouble getting along with coworkers. (Don't we all?) I sensed that perhaps he realizes that, to some extent, it's unhealthy to blame society, because it can be a way to shirk responsibility for one's problems.
I acknowledged that "There but for the grace of God go I."
I imagine that the Real Change vendors represent the "high functioning" subset of the homeless population. Many of them are quite well-spoken, and I do not feel fear speaking with them.
According to Wikipedia, 2/3 of homeless people live in cities. I asked him why homeless people congregate in Seattle. He said that suburban policemen are trained to harass homeless people and make them feel unwelcome. This seems unfair. Another reason why homeless people congregate in cities is that cities provide more services for the homeless.
This situation probably contributes to "white flight" to the suburbs and to high costs for cities.
BTW, while driving out to the suburbs, with my girlfriend and daughter, I was thinking of global warming and the Gulf of Mexico and feeling guilty about using gas and polluting the air. Aggressive drivers in SUVs zoomed past me. Suburbs are where the Reagan Revolution took root. Suburbanites want to protect what money they have, so of course they don't want to pay taxes that might go to helping the homeless and the poor who live in cities.
Seattle is a relatively affluent city, and I am unaware of any slum areas. But homeless is a big problem here. According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Seattle, there are between 6000 and 8000 homeless people in Seattle. There have been several "Tent Cities" in the Seattle area. City governments and area residents often oppose these homeless encampments, claiming they are sources of crime and drugs. Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels came under criticism for clearing out homeless encampments, and Real Change News often publishes stories about homeless people who lose their belongings when police raid their tents. But local houses of worship often invite the Tent Cities onto their property.
I figure the rich people with big lawns should lend some land, or an extra wing of their mansions.
I recall seeing homeless men hanging out at subway stations when I lived in Nagoya, Japan.
I can only imagine how bad things must be in the Rust Belt and in places like Florida, Arizona, and the Deep South, where recession, the housing crisis, tax cuts, and war spending have destroyed communities.
