By Michael Beattie
As I am sitting here and writing this column, I am watching images play on the television screen in remembrance of 9/11. My memories of that tragic day differ from most others who watch around the country. One year ago while watching TV, thinking that I was secure in my life, I was unaware of the events that would result from this wanton act of destruction. Little did I know that four days later I, too, would become a victim of 9/11. How you may wonder? Well, a victim that nobody notices, one that will never have a plaque or have people march in a parade in remembrance of. You see, as a direct result of actions beyond my control, I became homeless and unemployed in one fell swoop.
Secure in my job as a hotel auditor, many miles away from the scene of horror, my world crumbled. $100,00 in cancellations, I was told. Sorry, I was told. We have to let you go, I was told. Unfortunately, I also lived where I worked, so not only was I unemployed and upset, but also, now, I was homeless and scared. What do I do? Where do I go? How do I live? Why me?
These same questions have probably been asked thousands of times by people just like me. Ones who have suddenly found themselves in this exact same situation. Not knowing what is going to happen in the future or even if I will have a future is a fear unlike any I have ever experienced before. Many others in Santa Monica and elsewhere understand this feeling, but many who have never been in this situation do not.
The choices we face daily are not the same as most others. When we feel hunger, we can’t just open the refrigerator or go to McDonalds. We have to find a place to eat. This is usually a long and drawn out process of first walking to wherever the food is, then standing in line to get a ticket with a number on it, then standing in line for a plate, then getting in line to eat. This can sometimes take hours, and then it is on to the next line, and so on, day in and day out.
While this may seem a small price to pay for free food, it is a rather big price to pay when you factor in other things. People staring at you, reporters wanting to take your picture. Even when you ask them not to, they seem to think that you have no rights and take it anyway. When printed the next day, it always seems to read that you are displaying “anti-social behavior.” Knowing that everyone who walks by is thinking something bad about you, wondering if you are a criminal or just a dirty bum.
I would like to believe that nobody would ever choose to live like this. I am not that naive. Unfortunately, some do choose this type of life. I’ve heard a few reasons, none of them make much sense to me. ‘Nobody tells me what to do’ is about the most common reason I’ve heard. I don’t get that at all.
Someone was always trying to tell me what to do, where to go, where not to sleep, eat or just sit. Day in and day out we were always getting rousted by the police, property owners or just plain nosey people with nothing better to do at the time. Yes, believe it. There are people who like nothing better than to spend the day telling homeless folks how evil they are and how they are the cause of all that’s wrong in Santa Monica.
Recently there have been any number of articles published in the many daily and weekly papers here in Santa Monica that blame the homeless for just about everything that is wrong with our city. This is so ridiculous that I must mention it here.
In a few complaints, mainly made by the quasi-political (but, of course, they say they’re not... just read the latest newsletter and they’ll tell you so) Bayside District. While many of their complaints are valid, many of them are just using the homeless issue as a scapegoat reason for just plain bad business. I am not a math or business genius, but even I can count.
When air travel is off, tourism is down. $500 a night hotel rooms aren’t being gobbled up as frequently as in the past, $150 jeans made for five bucks in a downtown sweatshop aren’t selling like hot cakes, so who do you blame it on? Why the homeless, of course.
You see, it’s extremely easy to blame a part of society that has no voice, political or otherwise, for all your ills and woes. We usually can’t defend ourselves, and it still amazes me that some individuals actually believe that a guy on the corner of Third and Arizona asking for spare change is responsible for the downfall of Third Street Promenade business. Has anyone shopped there lately? The prices are absolutely outrageous. But, of course, gouging the tourists who aren’t flocking there in droves has absolutely nothing to do with it at all. It’s those people, you know them, the bums!
Are we really that selfish to think that the poor people of Santa Monica are the ones to cause all our problems? Do we really need someone to blame that badly? Do we really feel that much guilt for our own actions that we need to lash out at people that can’t fight back? In a society where white collar criminals steal millions of dollars from investors and retirees without a second thought? Where they will suffer little or no consequences for the deliberate, premeditated loss of tens of thousands of jobs due to their criminal behavior? In a time and place where this is excepted and they are basically above the law?
We complain about people eating food in the park, and the only way we can deal with it is to make more ineffective laws to make it criminal to eat or serve food to hungry people. Unfortunately, I do not think that we will ever see one of these rich criminals get the justice they deserve in a society that sends more people to jail for stealing a candy bar at the local store then a fat cat that ruins the lives of more people then he or she will ever know or care about. What’s Really Going On?!
Michael Beattie is a homeless man who lives in Santa Monica and a freelance writer.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on September 23, 2002. Read the original PDF.