HOMELESS FOR THE HOLIDAYS

I have a little Christmas Eve story to tell you...it's not a fable but something that I observed and happened yesterday while my partner and I were out in Hillcrest.

All over the place there were homeless people...most were young people- late teens to early 20's at best.

We did our usual thing and went to our favorite coffee spot and I watched as a man- perhaps around my age, in tattered clothes with a dirty old blanket wrapped around his shoulders asked person after person for money for food.

We sat there and watched for at lesst a good half hour. People either ignored him, looked away or worse turned up their noses and made snarky and downright cruel comments about the man as they passed us by (we were sitting outside).

When we left we passed him and we stopped. The look of desperation and real hunger in this man's eyes were heartbreaking. He asked if I could spare a "5-spot"..that would be a 5 dollar bill so he could eat something. Even though, as many of you know we are having our own tough Christmas I pulled out a $5 bill from my pocket and handed it to him.

You have never seen a more grateful person in your life and he went off to eat something.

There was another I saw, he could not have been more than 19 or 20, sitting on the curb with pants that had a huge rip in it. Sadly we were on the other side of the street and by the time we came out he was gone. I wanted to take him to one of the local thrift stores and buy him some pants.

What makes me sad and infuriated is the way people these days just don't care- yes many are struggling as well...we certainly are until next month...but would a dollar or five really make that much difference to one of the people that passed the man by?

While I wish I had millions to help these people I don't but what I do have is a home to live in when it is cold and a refrigerator to put the food I buy in. Many of the people that passed the man by will be attending churches celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ who would have never turned a blind eye to this hungry man. I hope when they sit there in the pews that their angels remind them of the soul they passed by.

Trouble is people, especially many with a lot of money, get real sanctimonious. They spew out nonsense not knowing the WHOLE STORY. Or they make assumptions that because of drugs, booze or insanity the homeless person somehow, through laziness or character defects created the mess they are in themselves.

I received emails from one prick like that- Borderboys long time readers will remember I publicly slapped his righteous ass down.

No matter how one becomes homeless the fact of the matter is that they are.

Just in the past few weeks the US Congress has passed bills to spend billions more in Iraq and Afghanistan and yet funding for homeless shelters and other social services in this country isminimal at best. Billons of tax payer dollars to keep trying to sort out some other country's mess while people are starving, freezing and some dying on the streets of almost every city and town in America.

We should be ashamed.

The people who I see constantly dressed well, passing by and snubbing the homeless don't give a fuck for one reason. They have never been there. But if you are someone like me, who when I was young, arrived in a new city with a promise of one thing and was told you have to get your ass fucked or get out and then subsequently wind up homeless and on the street then you have empathy and compassion- again all the qualities the grown Christ who people pretend to give a damn about will sing to in churches tonight and tomorrow.

If the people that passed that man by new what it feels like not to eat for days and yet see people eating at restaurants they would have given the man a dime.

If the people that passed that man by new what it feels like to belong nowhere- to be basically a non-person while cars, people and the whole world seems to pass you by un-noticed they would have given the man a dime.

If the people that passed that man by new what it feels like to watch someone lie- say they don't have money but then re-emerge from a store with bags of merchandise they would have given the man a dime.


The point is that because they haven't been there most people don't care. But trhe thing is they can be- especially the way things are going in this country.

I hope for their sake, if it evcer happens to them, that they are served up as much cruelty and indifference as the man I helped experienced yesterday.

Christmas is really about the birth of Christ, but more especially the act iof giving. Not goingt to Macy's and spending a fortune on crap that will probably get returned or re-gifted but giving the little things like love, compassion, understanding or just a smile to someone who needs it.

We all can afford those things- they cost nothing and you just might get something back in the long run if you try that today.

It is not Christmas without Chjarlie Brown and here is the video I was looking for the other day...



I am going out to make sure that guy with the torn up pants, if I see him, has decent clothes for Christmas...take care and give some love today to those that need it most.