A problem that's getting worse

While we're not San Francisco, it seems like there are homeless people popping up everywhere you go.

This is going to be a tough piece to write.

Almost every day when I drive home from work, I see a man sitting at the first main corner I come to. If you’re been in Salisbury over the last six months, you’ve likely seen him too: sitting in his rolling chair, holding a sign that says “Truly Homeless”, with a hat claiming he’s a Gulf War veteran. (Funny thing is that I never see him in the morning when I’m driving to work. Other funny thing was that some other guy was at that corner yesterday - do beggars get vacation days?)

And there are other corners I drive by with their own rotating cast of characters, particularly the intersections in the shopping area along North Salisbury Boulevard - you know, the ones that lead to Target in one direction and Walmart in the other, plus the other one down farther by Wawa. They all have men and women who have signs with their sob stories.

But on the other hand, we have several organizations in the area whose mission it is to help the homeless, not to mention the small enclave that the city of Salisbury has built for them in order to get them off the streets. I have friends in my small group who regularly take time to volunteer for a homeless shelter in town, and that’s admirable. One of those shelters is even repurposing their offices so homeless families have a place to sleep.

Yet there are the rumors out there as well, the ones which claim those people standing on the corners aren’t really down on their luck but are simply looking for money to feed their drug habit. I suppose I am blessed to have never had such an addiction that it’s forced me to stand in shame with a sign claiming to be homeless. (Besides, I don’t think anyone would hand money to a guy with a sign saying “Will Blog for Food.”)

And while I haven’t seen it with my own eyes, the conventional wisdom of our local “big city” is that there’s a thriving community of those who prefer living out of doors in the wooded area back behind the car dealers - and that’s not the only one. Salisbury has plenty of wooded and secluded acreage, and they apparently prefer to reside close by where they can panhandle - ever wonder if they’re not all in cahoots and take turns begging for money at the corners? (See pithy comment above about the “new guy.”)

In my life, I grew up in a middle-class family: maybe not blessed with the abundance of stuff and experiences some children receive now, but always with a roof over our head - including a brand new house we built when I was 11, where I was excited to have a bedroom of my own - and plenty of food on the table. When we had a bit of a financial crunch after building the house, my mom went back to work for the first time since before my older brother was born. In essence, I may not have had all my wants (which, as is the case with most teenagers, was a rather long and selfish list) but my needs were covered with their sacrifices.

But the closest I came to being homeless was in the Great Recession, where the building industry was decimated by layoffs. I’m not proud to say I lost the house I had just purchased two years before, and came really close to losing my car that was only a few payments away from being paid off. Before all this occurred, I was probably 3-4 months ahead on payments because I always put a little extra in and paid on one or the other biweekly (so 13 payments a year for each instead of 12.) Didn’t matter. Fortunately, I had a couple backup plans and a place to stay. (I’m still writing for a little bit of money and still with her fourteen years later.)

So I know that bad things happen to good people sometimes. And the hard part is that, in this situation, they get lumped in with the grifters and the junkies who can’t or won’t take responsibility for their actions. That’s why homeless shelters generally have rules and encourage people to find their own plan B, because they cater to those good people who have had bad things happen to them.

Yet then there are those who have no shame in their situation and use it as a crutch. During an earlier rough patch in my life my ex-wife and I had to go on food stamps for a few months, which back then was a stigma. I was ashamed to depend on the government and take those coupon books to the store, but I was laid off and had to feed a family. (Now they give you a card that looks like a bank card.) If it were just me, I probably wouldn’t have done it.

And this is the moral conundrum I face every day when I see those people on the street. I know times are difficult right now, and the squeeze is really on for non-profits who cater to the indigent population. Yet I also know that there are people whose morals have been degraded by addiction to the point that they can justify addressing their opioid habits by stealing, prostitution, or begging on the street corners. They’re not interested in church or God, they want their next fix.

It would be interesting and enlightening to see how many people go from begging on the streets to getting three hots and a cot by trying to break into a house somewhere or robbing a store for money. Sadly, I think that number is greater than the number of people who would be considered success stories, getting up off the mat they were knocked to and regaining their dignity by seeking help to clean themselves up and working to regain trust.

I suppose this is something we all should mull further and pray about, right?