We love to solve problems. We’re compassionate, and we like to help. So, naturally, when we see someone sleeping on the street, we get to work.
Over the past decade, I’ve been one of those helpers. I’ve given time, money, cigarettes, food, blankets, a listening ear and very occasionally shelter to individuals making their homes on the streets of Downtown DeLand.
There’s Roger, who, despite being homeless, was holding down a job before he got arrested for trespassing in Sunflower Park and lost his job because of the trip to jail. And well-mannered, unfailingly polite A.J., whose parents are both in jail, who nurtures his dream of getting a job and then an apartment.
We avoid telling him that even if he works full time at $15 an hour, he will still be unlikely to be able to find a place to live. Dreams are good.
Most notably, I tried to help Earl. You’ll remember Earl, who lived for years on benches along Woodland Boulevard, consuming orange soda and scribbling through reams of notebook paper.
I bravely signed up to be Earl’s payee, so he could get his Social Security disability check. We even got him a ramshackle house, with the help of a local landlord and the Catholic Church.
It all fell apart when I started being stalked by drug dealers — who had Earl in tow — around paycheck time at the first of every month.
After all of these years, it’s not easy to admit that all of my helping has not really helped. Oh, occasionally we do something that has a real impact, like when Gurrs & Purrs co-owner Kelly Hobbs learned that Reuben — you’ll remember the man who covered himself in plastic to sleep on the bench at night — really needed a ride to Moultrie, Georgia. Hobbs gave him that ride, and apparently Reuben connected with family and — we hope — is getting the help he needs.
Ninety-nine percent of the time, however, we’re not enough, and we need to bravely admit it. With very few exceptions, helping the homeless requires specialized training, experience, a facility, a team of professionals and a network of resources. And, funding.
It’s also time to admit that making it easier to live on the streets — blankets, cigarettes, food, etc. — is not compassionate. It’s not compassionate to leave a person exposed to assault, robbery, weather and illness. Just five days ago as this is written, a homeless man was shot to death on the east side of DeLand.
It’s not compassionate to our fellow business owners to exacerbate their struggles with individuals who lie in their entries, trash their restrooms and defecate outside their storefronts.
DeLand is finally, and humbly, coming to these realizations. New laws finding favor with the DeLand City Commission will give our Police Department the tools needed to assure that those sleeping on the street at least expose themselves to the possibility of real help, either at The Bridge, at the county’s First Step Shelter, or even in the court system.
These new laws are not everything. Doing everything we need to do to fix the problem of homelessness will require action on the local, state, federal — and even spiritual — levels.
Eventually, we’ll want a solution that’s led by social-services people and counselors, not police.
But DeLand is making a start. A humble and compassionate start, that requires the support of all of us to have its best effect.
I’m on board. I think it can really help.
— Shepherd is publisher of The Beacon.
