homeless
i’ve taken to reading more of the local news online. it is important to know what’s going on in your city, even if it is all bad news.
in the last 2-3 days, there have been at least half a dozen articles about the homeless in rittenhouse square (the richy-rich posh park for those of you from out of town). apparently, anywhere from 30-60 homeless people have been sleeping in the park overnight, bathing in the fountain, and doing other personal type things in the park.
now, i don’t know how i feel about The Homeless Problem, but i do know that i don’t like aggressive panhandlers or the batshit insane homeless who will cut you for a dime (but that is probably related more to a drug problem or mental health issue than the fact that they are without a home). i don’t take issue with people who are homeless because they’re vets and the government fucked them over, or with people who have jobs but still can’t afford enough for a downpayment on even the shittiest of apartments. i have some compassion, but it’s hard to tell the difference between the “good homeless” and the “bad homeless.”
so, i think we can mostly agree that homelessness is bad, that it puts a strain on city resources, and that the solutions in effect aren’t really very solution-y.
anyway, my issue with all these articles is the fact that they’re all “OMG homeless. in RITTENHOUSE!”. i mean, there are homeless in washington sq. and logan sq. but you don’t see articles about those parks. it’s only because rittenhouse is “classy” and rich that they’re writing articles, because the rich people have something to say. and, no surprise, they don’t like the homeless in their park.
of course no one likes being around people who smell like poop, but they’re still human beings, and frankly, sleeping in the grass isn’t really bothering anyone.
one article quoted a tourism person as saying that seeing homeless people really affected tourist’s visits. as if seeing a man begging for change is going to ruin someone’s vacation.
other people said that the homeless were “disgusting”. as of today, the results of the poll on philly.com were that the majority of people’s reaction to seeing homeless people was “why doesn’t the city do something?”. the next highest respons was “revulsion.” awesome.
it just really bothers me that people are focusing on homelessness just because it’s suddenly hit rittenhouse. it was the same thing with violent crime. as long as it was in north philly or the southwest, it only merited a “tsk-tsk” but as soon as it invaded the borders of near-center city we got all uppity about it and america’s most wanted came to town.
my experience with homeless people in philly has mostly beein negative as i’ve mostly only encountered the really aggressive people who follow you and yell if you don’t give them money, or who try to guilt you.
i dunno. i admit that i am judgemental and probably predjudiced against the homeless, but i do feel that society should be doing something to help them get back on their feet. i know a lot of people don’t feel that way.
posted by sarah on 07/23/2008 at 05:01 PM
You know who wrote the big article about homelessness in Rittenhouse? That douchebag kid that I fucking hated when I worked at the center. The one who bossed me around like I was beneath him. And you know why the tone of the article is like that? Because he’s one of the elite, privileged folk from the ‘burbs who can relate to the poor, suffering, image-conscious folk who live in Rittenhouse (the neighborhood, not the park). Fuck that noise.
I think part of the problem is that it’s so hard to know what it will take to get people “back on their feet”—or to define what that would look like. Some homeless people really would be “back on their feet” if they could get help with some of the “start up costs” of living—security deposits, etc. Some have never been “on their feet” in a way that the kind of people who write newspaper articles would recognize, and probably honestly need a lot more help than money—like people who have spent their adult life in prison (another issue entirely—don’t EVEN get me started) they simply lack a lot of necessary life skills to really keep on their feet. And others, as much as it sounds cruel, will probably never be “on their feet” in the ways we wish they could be, at least not pending major cultural/political/funding shifts in health care and attitudes toward mental illness and addiction. I think it’s hard to know how to help those people—to institutionalize them seems cruel, and costs money people don’t want to pay. IDK.
on 07/23/2008 at 06:34 PM
the philly area has a really good low-cost to free funded and well-structured mental health system in chester. Helping people with illness get housing, benefits, etc.-- even to the point of hand-holding or doing the paperwork for them.
I’ve never been aggressively panhandled in the city or anywhere else, and I have been homeless in the couch/car sleeping sense, but thankfully never had to sleep on the streets yet. Being poor forever gives you a different set point for a lot of things; though… clothing wear; hunger, living conditions. It’s absolutely *horrifying* to wealthy or even middle class people how people can live at those levels and consider themselves “comfortable”. But they do.
But yeah, it doesn’t surprise me that there isn’t any uproar about it until it’s infringing on rich folk’s view. Then it’s a “blight” that needs to be “cleaned up” or a “problem” that needs to be “corrected”.
on 07/23/2008 at 10:07 PM