On the Fringes

As we debate approaches to solving the complex challenges of homelessness in American cities, what is often missing from the conversation is empathy. As the middle class continues to shrink, many of us are a single financial disaster from housing instability. This calamity can come as job loss, foreclosure, repossession, medical emergencies, or a thousand other ways a financial system such as ours can bleed you dry. Couple this reality with our poor approaches to mental health and substance use treatment, and you discover anyone of us could become homeless.

Walking out of a subway tunnel on a cold Chicago night, I stepped over a man lying on a vent blasting heat from the ground below. The temperature was approaching zero degrees outside. Tonight, this would serve as his only form of heat and relief. Walking through Seattle’s Pioneer Square neighborhood, a woman with a disfigured face approached me. Desperately, I looked away from the face before me, ravaged by drugs, abuse, and a system that has ignored her. Walking Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles with a formerly homeless man, I was stunned by the sheer volume of people packed tightly together on the sidewalks of America’s second most populous metropolis. On countless corners to countless highway overpasses, I have read signs screaming for help or a moment of kindness as I averted my attention and made myself busy while waiting for the light to turn green.