the spider living beneath the freeway

It was perhaps a month ago that I first saw him. His wheelchair sat rancid and idle while he struggled atop a piece of cardboard next to a garbage dumpster. He was naked from the waist down, and his legs, lean and crooked, were streaked with excrement. I have never seen someone so utterly debased, so helpless.

Since that first encounter, I have not been able to get him out of my mind. I have gone back to where he spends his nights a number of times since then, sometimes to see him folded sleepily in a twisted heap beneath a filthy blanket, but most of the time to find him absent from the pile of refuse and swarms of fat, black flies.

But tonight I worked later than usual, and on my way home I found him there in the dirt. He was resting, but I felt compelled to talk with him.

As I introduced myself he waved his hand awkwardly in my direction. The first thing I learned about him was that he is almost totally blind--cataracts. Once he found my hand we shook, and he told me his name was Spider. 

After mentioning that he was 60 years old, I asked him how long he had been roughing it. He mumbled his reply, something that sounded like "eight years". When I repeated it, he corrected me by telling me it had been twenty eight years. His nails had curved into talons, his hair had begun to dreadlock, and I kept thinking of the greasy mire on the hand with which I had grasped his.

Within the folds of his blanket was a radio, and as we chatted he went on to tell me that he regularly listened to a program about starving children overseas, and how terrible it all is, that you could see their tiny rib cages, that life is a four-letter word, that they were dying, that he prayed for those little ones, that he was grateful for every day, that he had no one to care for him, that Jesus saves.

What is perhaps most devastating about all of this is that Spider apparently receives disability payments--about $950 per month. That is only about $100 short of qualifying for the subsidized apartments a mere mile up the street from the squalor where he now rests his worn-out body; the price of my morning latte was all that stood between his worse-than-bestial existence and humane food, clothing, shelter, care, dignity, humanity. 

What's more, there is someone else who is managing his money for him. When I learned this I tried not to become angry. When I asked him if he would like his own apartment, he simply replied, "Yeah, that would be nice." I then asked whether anyone had ever offered to help him get into proper shelter: "No."

He has no papers, no ID, no proof of income; he kept telling me, "I can't read." I will post again after I take him to the institution that is in charge of his finances.

the price of a good night's sleep

Each night in our community, hundreds of young people find themselves abandoned to the streets. In most cases these youth lack any semblance of family, having come from the foster care system, dysfunctional families, or parents that are themselves homeless; they have been cut off from supportive institutions, such as schools and faith communities; and add to this the fact that a majority are struggling with mental illness or emotional trauma from abuse. 

These teens find themselves stripped of even the most basic of human needs, scavenging for food, going without medical care, and sleeping on the streets. But this last circumstance glosses over the reality a bit; simply stating that a teenager is homeless doesn't really get to the lived experience. What exactly, then, do we mean when we say that they must sleep on the streets? Where in fact, do they lay their heads?



There are, of course, the homeless shelters.

The largest of these is located close to Sacred Heart and can sleep up to 250 people. However, on any given night in our community there are more than 7000 men, women, and children without humane housing. This means that every night there are people turned away from shelters. What's more, because shelters can sometimes be rough places, many individuals with no place else to turn still find a bed at a shelter too great a risk.

So where do these most vulnerable youth go to rest?

For some, the answer is abandoned houses. For others, it is sleeping on the roof of the San Jose State Event Center, in the stairwells of public parking structures, along the Guadalupe River, in back yards, along railroad tracks, or beneath freeway on-ramps. For others, it is a night spent on the bus or in a car. But in all these places there is danger: there are others who would come to rob or harass, security guards and police to disturb, ticket, or arrest, and the hostility of the elements.

For all these reasons--in an effort to find some few hours of safety and security--others find a choice more extreme.

Some of our community's daughters--starting in their early teens--find themselves so afraid, so desperate for a safe place to close their eyes and sleep at night, that they take to prostitution. This is nothing like the picture that the media would give us, or Hollywood, or even some scholars. 

For these girls it is an ugly, shameful, desperate, and violent path, but it is one that is taken each night in an effort to raise the $65 it costs for a motel room.


-Todd Madigan

a solution to his transportation problem

One week ago, Ruben was eager to take whatever work he could get. At 23 years old he was facing eviction, hunger, and despair, and like many others who had come through the foster care system, he had no family to rely on if things became especially perilous.

Having endured a number of interviews, submitted scores of resumes, and made nearly one hundred inquiries, last week Ruben finally received his first job offer: a position as a stockroom clerk. He would work two four-and-a-half hour shifts per week at a pay rate of $8 per hour—he would gross $72 per week 

The retailer where Ruben was hired is located five miles from his apartment and requires two busses to get there when using public transportation (Ruben owns no car). But when Ruben received his first week's schedule, he learned that he would be starting at 4:00AM—a start time well before the busses begin running. At this point, what recourse did he have? Being so new to the employer, the last thing he wanted to do was jeopardize his position by complaining or trying to get his shift time changed. He would simply have to do whatever it would take.

On Friday, I let Ruben know that we could probably come up with a bike for him, but he was surprisingly hesitant to accept it. He said he’d get back to me.

Then on Sunday, he called me, telling me that he had come up with a solution to his transportation problem: he would get ready for work the evening before his shift, take the night’s last pair of connecting busses to the mall, then sleep next to the building of his employer until shortly before the start of his shift.

And yesterday, that is exactly what he did.

trying not to eat

When he awoke this past Friday morning, Luis was at long last beginning to feel optimistic: after ten weeks of unemployment, he now had less than 24 hours before the start of his new job. Happily (if not drowsily), Luis shuffled to his refrigerator for a bowl of cereal. But on opening the refrigerator he noticed that the light failed to illuminate. He stuck his arm in past the milk and felt that although it was cool, it was certainly not as cold as it ought to have been. Turning to his clock, he had the sickening realization that the power was out. Rushing out into the hallway of the apartment complex—in the hope that there was an actual power outage—he quickly saw that all the lights were on in the hall and that there was a notice taped to his door: “Your gas and/or electric service has been disconnected.”

On the day before, Luis had gone shopping for food. Having had no income for the past ten weeks, he was struggling to furnish his most basic needs. He had received the charitable gift of a $200 gift card to a local grocery store and had spent the whole thing, frugally buying in bulk enough food to last him several weeks, packing his freezer until he began drawing a paycheck.

But now, in the midst of a heat wave with temperatures hovering around 100 degrees, not only has Luis lost his air conditioning, but his very sustenance is in jeopardy. In an effort to save his food, Luis—becoming increasingly distressed—borrowed a 10’ extension cord to plug his refrigerator into the hallway of the complex, which required him to push the refrigerator right up against his door in order to reach; but he was told that this was not permitted, that he could face eviction for using the outlet in the hall; he relented.

As of tonight, he sits and waits, trying not to eat so that he doesn’t have to open the refrigerator or freezer doors, desperate to retain whatever cool air might be left. 

he was hungry

His right pant leg was ripped up to the thigh, and the first thing I noticed as I approached him was his bleeding leg. It was 6:24 this morning, and he was hungry.

For several minutes this man--more bones than flesh and blood--stood with his arm in the city garbage can, feeling his way around for something to eat. Within 200 feet there were restaurants, coffee shops, cafes, and convenience stores, all of which were open and providing food and breakfast to the customers who came and went. They, too, were hungry.

As I continued on my walk to work, a young man looked up at the dawn sky, inhaled deeply, and with a broad smile said, "It's a beautiful day!"








-Todd Madigan

there's no one left

Last week, late on my way to another meeting, I moved hurriedly down the halls of Sacred Heart checking voicemail with one ear and trying to think with the other. I had just received the latest numbers: during March of last year, we had served food to 13,336 individuals through our pantry program. Last month it was 19,103.

Rounding the corner to our Welcome Center I was stopped short by the crush of people pressing into the building. For a moment I stood and surveyed the jostling expanse: there were young and old, round and slender, black, white, and brown; there was a young man with an oxygen tank, a spidery boy with a bar of soap, a woman in a suit, a girl holding a baby, and all were waiting with impossible patience for the food they would eventually receive.

As I squeezed past this one and that, worrying that my polite pardon me’s were sounding less and less sincere with each repetition, I eventually made it to the half-way point across the room. There at the Welcome Center desk, with the phone on her shoulder and finishing a conversation with the customer standing before her, was my colleague, Eva.

Seizing the moment before she returned to the person on hold, I asked Eva, “What is the most notable thing you’ve seen over the past week? Something that surprised you out here.”

She thought about it, but for only an instant: “There are more men coming in.”

“What do you mean? Just more men in general?”

“No, I mean with their families. Entire families are now coming in, including the husbands and fathers. It used to be either single men or women with their children. Now it’s everyone lining up together. There’s no one left—no one is immune.”

survival strategy

After two months of unemployment, an eviction notice, and the loss of 15 pounds from want of food, Juan (one of our JobLink customers) landed an interview with a retailer at Valley Fair mall.

At 22 years old, Jaun had already lived a difficult and desperate existence. He had been in and out of eight foster homes and group facilities, had been incarcerated for a year, had been homeless for about the same length of time, and had become entangled in a life of gang activity. He had slept on busses, in bus stops, on rooftops, and had even paid people $20 per week to sleep in their parked cars at night. At 22, he knew of no relatives, biological or otherwise. He had no memories of brothers or sisters, father or mother.

But only some of his life's madness was now behind him. He had been in his own apartment fora mere 18 months when he lost his first real job; he had worked caring for the elderly in their own homes--bathing them, brushing their hair, listening to their stories--until there just weren't enough clients to keep him employed. Now he held onto his place by borrowing money from anyone and everyone, including strangers on the street. He needed a job and worked hard to make an interview happen--he honed his resume, completed on-line applications, got the proper documents in order, and persisted in following up on every lead. But an hour before his interview--the first interview in two months of trying--he had the sudden realization that his exposed tattoos would be a liability.

Making this judgement, Juan began asking for money in the mall--panhandling. He stood by the food court and asked each passerby for a dollar. After having raised $8, the security guards arrived and told him to stop. With the $8 in his pocket he searched for, found, and bought a long sleeve shirt off the sale rack--and made it on time to the interview.

With his tattoos covered, he went through with a very successful meeting, duly impressing the store manager: he begins work on May 16th.

Alone.


-Todd Madigan

A Ray of Hope

Like everyone else, Ray leaves the shelter at 5:30 each morning; but unlike many of the other residents, at that hour he has some place he needs to be.

Ray—although not a young man—rides his bike for 45 minutes to get to work, arriving nearly an hour before the start of his shift, “just to make sure I’m never late.” Once inside, he scours the restrooms, cleans the floors, and after the doors open, spends the rest of the morning washing dishes. Beaming, he tells me, “I do a good job, and the owner likes me.”

I have watched Ray struggle over the past ten months. I saw him panhandle enough money to buy a used bike so he could get around. I saw him come to Sacred Heart for clothing in order to look presentable, at first having used a bungee cord for a belt. I followed his small, hard-won successes as he obtained his birth certificate from the County Office of Records, then his California ID, then his social security card. He then created a resume, got his driver’s license, and after a string of rejections, finally gained part-time employment.

His discipline and determination had paid off.

But his job at the restaurant is minimum wage, and after six months he hasn’t found so much as a room for rent that he can afford.

After all of his efforts at carving out some sort of humane existence, he came to me the other day and told me, “Todd, I think it’s better that I take my savings and buy a car to sleep in.”

Now I watched his hope for a normal life slipping away.

I wanted to tell him all the reasons why this was a terrible idea, why it would make it harder to maintain his employment, why it was a waste of his resources, why it was a move away from stability, why he just needed to keep at it … but I wasn’t the one living in the shelter. So I said nothing.

“I’m getting old,” he said.

eating garbage

It is difficult for me, living in downtown San Jose as I do, to go for more than a day or two without seeing a neighbor rummaging through garbage in his search for food. It seems so clearly unacceptable that our community should permit the sort of poverty that would lead to this desperation, yet there it is, out in the open. The very act should be a rebuke, but a rebuke to whom?

For most of us, on the occasion we witness this loathsome act, there is an accompanying pang of something--maybe sympathy, maybe guilt, maybe disgust--but then it is gone. What we almost never do is hear the voice of the person who is doing the scavenging. Here is a fragment of that voice, the voice of Lars Eighner from his 1993 book "Travels with Lizbeth":

"At first the new scavenger is filled with disgust and self-loathing. He is ashamed of being seen and may lurk around, trying to duck behind things, or he may try to dive at night.... Every grain of rice seems to be a maggot. Everything seems to stink. He can wipe the egg yolk of the found can, but he cannot erase from his mind the stigma of eating garbage. That stage passes with experience."

It is difficult to decide which is the more disturbing portion of this excerpt--the repellent description and indignity of dumpster-diving, or the desensitization to it that eventually comes.

when I pass this

This is what I pass on my way to work each morning. A walk with leaves and branches and sometimes warm, dark air, and this is what I pass each day. How am I supposed to feel about this? How am I supposed to feel when I pass this?





A woman with food on her face--a refugee from Russia, I think--made a foolish little book in which she wrote, "Perhaps my tears make the desert bloom, although I don't perceive it."

Yes, I am willing to consider that perhaps they do. Perhaps her tears really do make the desert bloom. But what, then, blooms when this weeps?

-Todd Madigan