By Randy Walburger Santa Monica
What issues about homelessness do I think are pertinent? That human beings are being neglected as human beings and that this neglect goes on in public so that everyone, including children, can see a society that allows people to die on the sidewalks in the city we like to think of is caring of human beings.
The suffering, the resentment, the hopelessness, the degradation of human life. How does the situation affect me? I try not to ignore this shameful neglect and be a part of the “good Germans”who simply complain and write nasty letters inferring that the city should somehow “deal” with these humans through punishment or criminalizing them for simply being poor in public with absolutely no basic necessities such as trying to stay clean,use a toilet,go to sleep or ask for food to eat.
It saddens me to know the lack of these basic necessities causes human beings to wash in public restrooms, defecate and urinate on the street, sleep on the street and beg for food. What else can a human being do if they are on the street?
What can be done is to put two and two together and provide those basic necessities so that humans forced onto the street can at least have their basic needs met. Wouldn’t everyone, both homeless and the housed be relieved. Providing a toilet, a shower, private safe sleep, food and storage would not be impossible and it would solve the most obvious issues that plague both housed and unhoused.
I have been volunteering my time for five years to work with homeless people through Side Be Side, a homeless discussion group that has met at the Ken Edwards Community Center twice a month. I work with H.O.P.E. (Helping Other People Eat) to provide and serve food for the homeless at least once a week and have for three years.I know many homeless people personally and have for years.The thing that separates me and you from them are these basic necessities.Without them, they devolve mentally and physically. They suffer from society’s hatred through repressive anti-homeless laws that punish them for simply having human functions that can not be magically turned off.They suffer society’s insults,dirty looks and neglect.
Instead, society continues pretending that the situation should be studied further, discussed by committees of residents and professionals year after year after year without meeting the homeless humans’ basic needs. Remember the homeless only represent 1 percent of our population. That percentage has stayed pretty constant for some time. As the population grows that 1 percent grows with it.
By the way, according to Bring Home LA’s own current census of the homeless, 17,000 Veterans are homeless in LA County. A 350-bed shelter for veterans at the West LA VA leaves 16,650 vets on the street. The “solutions” I’ve heard regarding the 100,000-plus homeless population of LA County are just basically a twisted sad joke that perpetuate society’s misery of people living and dying on the street.
Excuse me if you don’t like my tone, but face the facts. Talk, talk, talk, complain, complain, complain, ignore, ignore, ignore. Just try to put yourself in a homeless person’s shoes for two days and think about what you have today that you wouldn’t if you were homeless.
I am ready to conduct a seminar for the public with homeless people as the panel, and the housed and professional community as the audience. That might be step one towards society getting a better handle on “solutions” to this disgusting chapter in human degradation. Come to Side By Side any first or third Wednesday of each month to the Ken Edwards Center at 7 p.m. and listen, as I do, to what life is like being homeless.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on July 13, 2006. Read the original PDF.