By Charles Springer Homeless in Santa Monica
For years, I have been seeking to describe the conditions and causes of being homeless. I have been doing this with first-hand knowledge and experience from the point of view of being homeless.
Until now, it seems, these words, for the most part, have fallen on deaf ears. These words I have written in my past columns and letters to this newspaper, to give you, the reader, a better understanding of the homeless community outside of the stereotypical view.
Until now, the word “homeless” was synonymous with the dirty, smelly, drunken drug addicted, severely mentally ill human beings which are a part of the homeless community, yet do not make up the whole of this community. For years and years this has become the standard face of the homeless community. The face, in television and movies, ingrained in your minds.
I hope the five-part piece by Steve Lopez in the L.A. Times has removed these prejudged scales from your eyes. I hope as these scales of misrepresentation and misinterpretation of the homeless community as a whole fall from your eyes, will you develop a better insight into the severity of what it means to become homeless in America.
I hope you can see the face of homeless change in your minds as you hear the first-hand accounts from one who has given time and effort to expose the whole picture by spending time among what society has deemed outcasts. Mr. Lopez is doing what a true reporter does, digging for the truth and exposing the real nature of what it means to be homeless. Exposing the loss of self-esteem, self worth, and loss of one’s very humanity as the world spirals downward and the spirit is crushed under the weight of becoming the object of scorn when one becomes homeless.
I hope you see the various causes of becoming homeless, not just the ones you see or perceive of being the cause of all homelessness, drugs, alcohol and mental illness. The loss of jobs with a sustainable income and the rising housing prices are unscrupulously putting people on the streets for the sake of the market value; the closing of inpatient mental institutions and mismanaged outpatient treatment for the mentally ill. The lack of beds, mismanaged monies and general revolving door tactics within the shelter systems to keep the monies flowing and not really giving true service to those of us who need it.
I have read very little of these columns, I have to admit. However, I can see through his eyes what it is to be homeless. I can see the handicapped in wheelchairs on a daily basis, struggling to exist. I can see the aged homeless who have lived their lives and are the wisdom of any great society cast aside and struggling to survive in the elements. I can see the severely mentally ill who are either mis-medicated or not medicated at all roaming the streets acting out. I can see those who are ravaged by alcoholism and drug addiction, self-medicating to cope with the pain of their broken lives. I can see the deep and painful tears. I have cried myself at times at night inside every eye I meet among the homeless community, hidden behind the smiles and laughter, or the stoic looks and serious mimes you sometimes see, when we are not invisible to you.
I hope your perceptions and misconceived notions of homelessness will change with your reading of Mr. Lopez’s series and you begin to realize that what is needed to bring an end to homelessness is not so much sympathy, but compassion and understanding for your fellow human being.
I hope you will understand and not makes us invisible as you pass us on the streets and realize that this life-changing dilemma of being homeless is far more complicated and degrading than you might think.
I know deep within every fiber of my being the profound change his life is undergoing, as he spends only a week among the homeless community of Skid Row. He now understands and, I hope, is going to become an ally to make the changes needed to be made in this country to stop homelessness in its tracks.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on October 27, 2005. Read the original PDF.