By ANY DAY IN LA BY HEIDI MANTEUFFEL
Homeless people are a sad, mixed group of people. I couldn’t tell you which ones are transient due to circumstance, drug addiction, or a separation of the world as we see it. But I can tell you that most of us, including me, aren’t capable of handling their differences.
It was a recent event that led me to this obvious, yet eye-opening realization.
I was taking my Saturday walk, getting blueberry muffins, small groceries etc., and passed by a few homeless persons on Wilshire Boulevard. I usually don’t make eye contact if I have nothing to give, and hope the man or woman will sink back into the scenery. However, as I left Von’s parking lot on my way home, I noticed a woman inside the shopping cart corral refusing to be ignored.
There in the metal railings of the shopping carts was a woman completely exposed without pants or underwear. I’ll be the first to admit my initial instinct was to walk away. However, there was, of course, that nagging second instinct to try and get her dressed.
I really just wanted to go home and relax before going out that night, but I knew that this was something I should do. Nervously, I crossed over to approach this woman I assumed had dementia. I tried to think back quickly how I used to talk to my grandma when she had Alzheimer’s. For some reason, I was often the one she would listen to.
I noticed there were some bruised apples near her on the ground and quickly directed the conversation toward them. Thankfully, the old, woman laughed congenially as she told me how she lost the apples.
She was walking out of the store and hit her head hard on a pole in the parking lot spilling her small, green apples to the ground. It was when she slid that her pants that were six sizes too big for her fell off. She thought then that they might as well stay off.
The woman told me while she was is in the hospital the previous night someone took her pants that actually fit with $30 in them and gave her the oversized pants. When she asked for them back, she said the nurse had refused.
I told her that was terrible, but we better not have anyone harassing her for not wearing pants. She laughed, and agreed. While she gripped the railing as I put one cuff over each feet, I noticed she was incredibly frail, with serious amounts of fluid pooling in her hands and her feet.
She went on to tell me that her brother had died from an advanced brain tumor. She was obviously upset that she couldn’t save him. They had some saying in their family when someone passed on that they were passing the other side of the apple orchard. I could tell from these small green apples she bought years later she was still very much affected by this one event.
She actually grew up in Illinois on an apple orchard farm. Her daughters had tried to ask her to live with them in Texas, but she refused. She said she has been hard working all her life, and was looking through the want ads in the paper last night when a rookie cop handcuffed her and took her to jail. When the woman asked the cop why she was arrested when she hadn't done anything, the rookie said, to complete her quota.
After we talked, and got all the women’s personal belongings in order, I had to bid her adieu. I left promising her I would try to see her again and with a heavy feeling that there was so little I could do to make her life much better.
My mother has volunteered with the homeless and wanted to advise me before I went further in helping this woman. I know that because of mental issues some people can get stuck in the route of being homeless, but I never realize that some actually choose this lifestyle. She told me of a man at her site who would escape for the free life every time his loving family would come to bring him home. She told me many have some sort of dementia, are on drugs, some are criminals, and most have friends who are criminals. And if not criminals, many are at the very least manipulative. She told me it is likely that the high frequency of these lesser characteristics could have triggered the uncharitable response by the policewoman.
But this is certainly not every homeless person, and many if not most all are completely harmless in everyday situations. I’m not saying that I or anyone can change the situation that’s been going on longer than we’ve been alive, but I am saying that treating a homeless woman like an actual person can be the very thing they need to make it through a particular day, and help them cope with their altered reality. (If you would like to send a letter to Heidi, you can reach her at).
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 9, 2004. Read the original PDF.