June 6, 2007
Tractors, Blackberry Bushes Cause Homelessness
On Saturday, a tractor clearing brush from under I-5 near South Massachusetts struck and killed a homeless man in a sleeping bag, hidden away in the blackberry brambles. The accident is "sparking," as the P-I has it, "a policy review."
"This is a horrible accident for everyone involved," Transportation Department spokesman Russ East said. "We're going to take a look at our practices and procedures. We're asking, 'What do we need to do to make sure that this doesn't happen again?' "
First, you are not just "sleeping" if you can't hear a tractor with an 18-foot arm coming at you, even under a noisy overpass.
Second, homelessness is not a Transportation Department issue. The fault lies with the city's criminal acceptance of homeless people setting up camp in unsafe areas and with more-heart-than-sense advocates who claim it's a right. We do have a 10-year plan to "end" homelessness, but there's bickering over whose backyard it should end in. If people are alone, poor, and haven't showered, it's not a crime if they die while Seattle is enjoying its beloved process.
The fact is that our economic system manufactures homelessness -- while providing most of us with the motivation to get to work in the morning. Homelessness doesn't pick downtown. It happens on your block, it happens on our block, it happens in West Seattle and Redmond. It happens during floods, it happens because of freak accident, it happens when venture capital dries up, it happens when you elect Herbert Hoover. One of the best resources any neighborhood could have going for it is a functional shelter open to anyone who needs a bed.
Really, is there more shameful evidence of civic inaction than someone being killed because the city will pay to clean up brush before providing a working shelter system for homeless people? Is there a more useless "empowerment" response from the homeless aid camp than insisting that people sleeping illegally in bushes need to be given alerts about grounds upkeep?
Is there someone else in charge up there?
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The first thing that I thought of when I heard about the death was that the guy had to be under the influence of something or had extreme hearing loss. If you've ever been near one of those machines, you wouldn't be able to sleep.
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It isn't simply our economic system. Depending on how you define which societies are truly socialist, most, if not all, of the former and current socialist states have homeless populations. Cuba, where housing is free and a right, still has people sleeping on the streets.
The reality is that most of the homeless in modern societies are mentally ill or suffering substance addiction--here and elsewhere. The well-meaning public relations efforts showing mothers and children on the streets is the flip side of the right wing's "welfare queens." These are the exceptions. Without acknowledging and embracing that this is about health--mental and physical--we will never solve the problem. But maybe the health care establishment has had an interest in trying to separate homelessness from healthcare.
You are also right--coddling the homeless does them no favors. They need health care, not handouts.
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Boy, seeing Smith Tower in that photo really rubs it in. That edifice has evidently been staring down at the homeless for 70 years. Probably will be for another 70. It's not a problem with an easy solution, but I'd certainly like to see some sort of resumption of the state hospital system (but without the horrific abuses, please!) and a less liberal attitude about personal freedom to get some of the more drug-addled folks off the streets. This guy may have had the "right" to sleep one off in those bushes but he'd have been better off if there was an electric fence up.
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wesaturtle: Yeah, those things are noisy as hell, and I would think it would echo even more under an overpass. I'm not thinking a politely worded note was what was needed.
David F.: you're right it isn't simply our economic system. However, our economic system makes very little allowance for housing if you're not working for a living, so I'm speaking of it as a legitimate by-product, rather than an accidental one.
My research differs on the mentally ill/substance abuse numbers -- taken together they may make a bare majority, but I don't see anything that indicates that more than 30% of the homeless are mentally ill (and of course that group tends to self-medicate, so there's overlap). When people think of the overall homeless "problem," they're usually talking about crazy drunks, given, but there's a lot more sleeping in cars and couch surfing that isn't taken into account.
That said, there is a huge healthcare component, no question about it (despite Ronald Reagan's notion that schizophrenics can bootstrap themselves). But if we had to start somewhere, I'd start with ensuring everyone a safe, temporary place to sleep, no matter what befalls them. And smaller, neighborhood-based shelters would provide that.
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We dont need this seattlest post because the last word to be had on the homeless issue was had by Pete Bagge in this comic in Reason Magazine:
www.reason.com/news/show/119487.html
And then after that the final last word was had in this six page comics journal message board thread:
www.tcj.com/messboard/viewtopic.php?t=1691
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You're right, MvB. I should have said "chronically homeless." I was basing my comments on the population of people I served when I did work at Boston's Pine Street Inn and New England Shelter for Homeless Veterans in the 90's and early 00's. These are the visible homless--the 10%-ers from the Bagge comic.
Matt--that thread devolved into an assy discussion of immigration, which really has nothing to do with this, does it?