{"id":3519,"date":"2015-11-03T14:09:04","date_gmt":"2015-11-03T21:09:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/?p=3519"},"modified":"2015-11-03T14:09:04","modified_gmt":"2015-11-03T21:09:04","slug":"when-the-homeless-problem-lives-next-door","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/2015\/11\/03\/when-the-homeless-problem-lives-next-door\/","title":{"rendered":"When the “Homeless Problem” Lives Next Door"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Homesless<\/a>Homeless, homeless, Moonlight sleeping on a midnight lake<\/em> \u00a0– Paul Simon<\/p>\n

This is the alcove between our house and the building next door. \u00a0Our neighbor has been here for a couple of months now and we have to figure out what to do. \u00a0This being San Francisco, we are all – to varying degrees – terribly uncomfortable with the decisions tied to such a situation.<\/p>\n

For a long time those of us who were most uneasy hoped we could just let him stay. \u00a0 We live right at a busy bus stop though, and there’s a 4-year-old upstairs from us and a preschool across the street. \u00a0And I remember…<\/p>\n

We lived in Manhattan, on Broadway and 79th St, in 1970’s and 80’s, when the city, and many of its inhabitants, were broke. \u00a0Homeless New Yorkers were placed in “welfare hotels” – beat-up old places nobody wanted;\u00a0\u00a0there were 3 or 4 of those within blocks of our building. \u00a0An island with trees and some greenery\u00a0divided the\u00a0uptown\/downtown sides of\u00a0Broadway. \u00a0Many lost souls slept there too, especially where we were, above 72nd St. – and on the sidewalks\u00a0and benches.<\/p>\n

Once after school, when my older son was around five, we stepped\u00a0off\u00a0the bus on Amsterdam\u00a0Ave, right outside PS 87’s playground, to find ourselves two steps from a\u00a0man sleeping on the sidewalk\u00a0next to the playground fence, his penis hanging out of his pants. \u00a0Other times the men (they were mostly men) suffered serious mental illness, yelling at voices\u00a0none of the rest of us could hear.<\/p>\n

Because the circumstances were so troubling, we worked to find ways for our kids to feel even a little bit empowered to help. \u00a0They\u00a0always wanted to\u00a0offer\u00a0money. \u00a0We asked, if they did want\u00a0to\u00a0help, that they provide\u00a0food, since\u00a0so many just bought alcohol with spare change. \u00a0They did this often – buying a bagel or some juice at one of the neighborhood\u00a0\u00a0bodegas and passing them on. \u00a0We also got involved with Paul Simon’s Children’s Health Fund<\/a>, which sends medical vans and doctors to New York’s underserved neighborhoods. \u00a0In the 80’s the\u00a0vans\u00a0spent much of their time at family shelters and welfare hotels. \u00a0Our younger son chose it as his portion of family donations for years. \u00a0No effort, however, eliminated the fear.<\/p>\n

We’d be walking through the discount stores on the Lower East Side and there would be a couple of homeless guys outside a door or on the corner. \u00a0I’d feel a little hand move into mine and, usually, squeeze pretty hard. \u00a0My husband, who worked in inner city medicine, always said “Don’t forget, they won’t hurt you; if you blew on them they’d fall over” but that information was only partly successful. \u00a0No matter how much they understood, no matter how much compassion they felt, many of these people\u00a0scared them.<\/p>\n

In other words, my personal experience with my own kids slams into my sense of that old Greater Good. \u00a0I know that a little kid getting scared once in a while is nothing compared to the ordeal the man next door faces every day but I keep remembering those small hands reaching out to mine and what I know\u00a0remains, however faintly, from those daily encounters. \u00a0I know, too, that I’m partly hiding behind the interests of the lovely little boy upstairs and the school across the street. \u00a0Social services are limited by budget, so I’m reluctant to act and struggling to figure out what\u00a0I think we should do. \u00a0No ending here – ending to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Homeless, homeless, Moonlight sleeping on a midnight lake \u00a0– Paul Simon This is the alcove between our house and the building next door. \u00a0Our neighbor has been here for a couple of months now and we have to figure out what to do. \u00a0This being San Francisco, we are all – to varying degrees – … Continue reading When the “Homeless Problem” Lives Next Door<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27,42,7,1917,9,1],"tags":[3464,3466,3461,3459,3460,3463,1365,3462,3465],"class_list":["post-3519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-affairs","category-family","category-life","category-nablopomo","category-politics","category-uncategorized","tag-1980s-new-york-homeless","tag-childrens-health","tag-childrens-health-fund","tag-homeless","tag-homelessness","tag-new-york-80s","tag-san-francisco","tag-squatter","tag-welfare-hotel"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4gBq8-UL","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3519"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3519\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3528,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3519\/revisions\/3528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}