Homelessness in 2017: A Course In Gentleness

Homelessness bothers me. It bothers me every day. It is more than an inconvenience – it reminds that as a society we don’t care about the homeless. We continue walking while someone is freezing in the corner, asking for food, and we have nothing to give. We continue walking while someone smells so bad on the train it reaches you from a mile away and it brings you revolt. We continue walking, changing subways cars to solve the problem, letting it dissolve out of sight.

I give most of the time when I see homeless people on the train, and every time, I know this is not a solution. In fact, I wonder if my giving helps them continue asking instead of finding ways to solve the real problem. Other times, I feel that maybe my giving simply allows them to subsist for a little while longer because really there is no solution right now for them, the way things are. Shelters are crowded and violent, and many homeless people are too mentally ill to even know about them or be able to get and hold a job.

It bothers me to live in a society that is okay with this. That is okay with some humans really, truly, visibly suffering among us in the most basic ways and this is just how it is, and the rest of us move on. It has bothered me since I got to NYC in 2007. Ever since, especially lately, I feel the problem has gotten gradually worse. More people sleeping in the subways, more people shivering in the cold, asking for money. I can’t take it sometimes. It breaks my heart every time.

You’d think I would have done more than just give a dollar each time in the last decade. I haven’t. I don’t know why. Partly I think it’s my own helplessness, feeling that the problem is too big, it’s systemic, I can’t change it alone. I feel a little ashamed to say this. It’s the wrong mentality. It has also been reality: I have had jobs that have been intense, and now I am in grad school and again it is intense, and there is not enough time or energy in me to solve this problem. Saying this makes me realize I am part of this society and part of the problem I’ve been writing about. I am willing to participate in the moving on while someone truly, visibly suffers. I am complacent and complicit. I feel awful at this. Awful.