A typical night in midtown: Groups of girls dressed probably too fancy for the strip of casual bars we frequent, guys stumbling up to said bars probably too drunk for having just gotten there, lines of people waiting outside Fat Daddy’s (because they really want to play arcade games and get a brain freeze, I guess?), people entering Cantina to “take a lap” around the tiki bar and scope out who’s there, girls teetering in their heels whining for the closest male to buy them Pizza by the Slice (fast forward to around 1:50 a.m., of course), and homeless individuals mulling on the corner being ignored by the college students.
You could probably find a scene similar to this in any college town like Gainesville, but the last detail of the scene might be different.
As of last year, there were 2,094 homeless people in Gainesville.
To put this number in perspective, take your number of Facebook friends and double it (unless you’re way more popular than me and already have 2,000 friends). That is about how many people in our small town living without shelter.
A Monday night out when you are trying to have fun with your friends may not be the time to sit down on a bench and shoot the breeze with one of these individuals, but in another context, would you?
Let me paint a different picture. It’s Wednesday afternoon, you grabbed Sushi Chao after class and a homeless person approaches you. Do you put your head down and keep walking? Avert your eyes and mumble that you don’t have any cash on you?
It’s human nature to judge quickly, especially at our age with our current stream of media telling us how we need to look, what we need to own, and what we should be talking about with our friends.
You walk into the bar and someone comes up to talk to you. It’s not pretty, but you judge, assume, stereotype.
Are they attractive? Do they look wealthy by the way they dress? Do you think they’re a “frat daddy” or a “GDI”? Potential athlete? Geek? In the first few seconds you answer these questions in your head.
I think the same principal can be applied to the homeless.
We judge. Assume. Stereotype.
They’re on the streets.
They must be unclean, alcoholics, drug addicts, crackheads, woman beaters, criminals, rapists, uneducated.
We look at them as if poverty is a plague and it has taken them as their victims and we look away and walk past pretending they aren’t there so we do not infect ourselves. So that we are not overcome by the sickness of having nothing.
In the past, those have been my judgments of the homeless and I am not proud.
After having a conversation with a young homeless man outside of Pita Pit the other day, I was reminded of my experience volunteering at the Metro Atlanta Taskforce shelter in Atlanta, Georgia; I was reminded how important it is to keep sight of the fact that we are all human and my enrollment in school or watch on my wrist doesn’t change that.
The people you see on the street struggling with alcoholism and drug addiction may not be homeless because they are alcoholics and addicts. In a lot of instances, they have become alcoholics and addicts because they are homeless. These people have lost their sense of humanity.
Imagine this: You fall on hard times and end up with nowhere to sleep for just one night. You never could have imagined you’d be in this position, but you ignore your pride and do what you have to do. During that one night, people avert their eyes when they see you and walk past quickly when you try to talk to them. Nobody shakes your hand. Nobody asks how you are doing. Nobody cares if you die on that street corner tonight. They just care that you don’t infect them with the plague of poverty.
That one horrific night turns into two nights, three nights and suddenly you have become invisible.
I would need a drink after that, too.
In fact, I would need enough drinks to numb the pain of losing my humanity.
Every person has a story. Medical bills from a sick wife, bad car accident, a layoff at a tight time, a broken family. Every person grew up with starry-eyed visions of what their futures would hold and none of them consisted of a homeless shelter or the street corner in Midtown.
Homeless Vietnam War veteran Geary Allen Springer plays harmonica at the Bo Diddley Community PlazaVia: alligator.org
Step outside your comfort zone, speak to people you would usually shy away from, because you never know the story behind the eyes of the person you are about to ignore. A simple “hello” when you pass by can remind someone that they are, in fact, still a person that exists in this world.
Maurice Lattimore, a homeless man that I met while in Atlanta who also volunteers in the shelter that provides him a bed each night, said this:
“You can live comfortably and you can enjoy nice things. But you gotta be charitable. You gotta care about other people. It doesn’t have to be money…give away your time. Give away your heart. Let some of your good fortune trickle down to others.”
Even now, more than a year after my trip to Atlanta, I remind myself of Mr. Lattimore’s wisdom when the tribulations of college life seem overwhelming. I think it is valuable advice for all of us to remember.
“Whenever you get your head all wrapped up in negative things in your life, remember this. You know where you will be sleeping tonight. You know that you will have a meal to eat. You know that you could call someone right now that would do anything in the world to come and save you. Those are things many people do not have. Be thankful. Be loving. Be human.”
Be thankful. Be loving. Be human.
Image courtesy of: HONY
Pingback: Hope On The Menu | Gainesville Scene()