University Daily Kansan / Wednesday, September 12, 1990
5
Homelessness is a societal problem
We were talking about home-
lessness. It's a dreadful and
frightening problem, some one
it said. It's so hard to know what
to do to help. Sure, lots of the people
who are begging need the money for
school. Sure, lots of the people
professional beggars, and a lot who
use the money for drugs or alcohol.
The problem is a societal one, she concluded, and there is very little that an individual can do. I thought there had been very little I could do.
One Sunday afternoon a few years ago, I went to the post office to pick up my mail. Before the Salvation Army opened its shelter, the post office lobby was one of the places where they kept food. On this particular day, a couple of men approached me inside and said they hadn't eaten in two days.
I quickly thought about my options. I didn't have much cash with me. I wasn't about to take total strangers home with me to feed them. I thought about going home, getting some food and taking the kids out. I didn't have much food in the house. Then I remembered that LINK, the Lawrence Interdenominational Nutrition Kitchen, which was just getting started at that time, would be half an hour later than half an hour that day. I told the men where it was and when they would open.
Another encounter took place a couple of years later, when I was living in a vehicle myself. I was in a
Simha Ruben
laundromat late one winter night, lauraiting for my blanket to dry so I could find a place to park for the night. A man came in and asked me for money. He said he was homeless, he'd been thrown out of the Salvation Army shelter and he was going to die if he was outside all night.
I knew that there are very few ways to get thrown out of the Salvation Army shelter, and none of them reflect well on the threeway. I had a friend in this room who did this for person. I told him that I also was homeless and that I didn't have any money to give him. Then I told him that people used to sleep in the post office before the shelter opened, but now they could get there, it wouldn't freeze to death.
In both of these incidents the people's response to my suggestions was the same: "Thank you for talking to me."
Even though I didn't give money or food to them, I responded in a way that told them I recognized their needs for food and shelter. I didn't treat them as if they were invisible. A third incident also took place
A third incident also took place when I was homeless, in the same
laundromat. It was early in the morning. A young woman came in and went to the pay phone, where she made several calls. I could see that she was crying. After she got off the phone I went over and asked if she needed any help. She said he had come to Lawrence the night before from a nearby town. He had gotten very drunk and had passed out.
She woke up that morning in the back seat of an unfamiliar car that was parked in front of an unfamiliar house. The contents of her purse were strenuled all over the car, and all her money ($140) was missing.
The young woman had then walked to the laundromat, called her friends, and found that they had returned home without her the night before. She was trying to find someone to come get her and take her home. I bought her a cup of coffee and waited until someone came to pick her up.
This person had a home, a social network, and enough money that she could take 410 with her to go out drinking. But she was more unmoored than I can ever imagine people like her are the real tragedy.
Is there anything one person can do to help?
Simha Ruben is a Lawrence graduate student studying human development and family living.
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