"Not In My Backyard"

Meet "Robert" -

After an evening out with friends, I encountered Robert while walking back to my car. He was wrapped as you can see in the picture above in a striped blanket under a brightly lit bus stop awning.

Homeless people are everywhere in Los Angeles, but I took pity on Robert because it was cold out and he was coughing violently.

Robert wasn't far from where I was parked and I happened to have a case of water in my trunk. I pulled out a few bottles and returned them to him, quietly leaving them by his shoulder. I did not want to interact. I was tired and just wanted to hurry home. But upon my third or fourth step away I heard a muffled and raspy, "thank you" from beneath the blanket. I returned to him and asked if he wanted a ride to a shelter or to a hospital to which he replied, "No, thank you. There's no space. There's never any space. I'll be fine. Thank you."

I don't know how Robert ended up in his situation nor do I feel it matters very much. What alarms me is that his plight is the same as over 51,000 other people in Los Angeles county and in relation to volume, little is being done to combat this crisis.

It is very common to hear people complaining about the dense population of homeless people. "Something needs to be done," is the typical assertion.

Well, according to many government officials and homeless advocates, more shelters need to be built and more resources need to be allocated. But this requires space being provided or zoned accordingly and the reason why these shelters have not been built nor the resources allocated is because while people want the problem to go away, no one wants the problem addressed in their neighborhoods or in their local public spaces.

"Something needs to be done, but do it some where else." This is the attitude facing the unsheltered homeless population in Los Angeles county.

So, what are people like Robert to do? Where should he legally go to stay out of the way while trying to recover his health, his dignity, his livelihood and his morale?

We so often forget that Robert could very well be you or me with the loss of a job, a foreclosure or life just taking a turn for the worse. Mental illness or drug addiction could lead to homelessness. A series of frivolous poor decisions may even factor into the equation. Whatever the endless number of reasons may be, there are unfortunately far fewer solutions being offered and hands being extended to help.

If you read this and you have any compassion in your heart, please do something. Where ever you are. Every kind gesture, no matter how small, matters.