The public is rightfully fearful for their own personal health and safety by exposure to these conditions. We share the valid concerns of the public and equally fear for essential employees – including police officers and firefighters – as they are dispatched to interact with homeless individuals.” When looking for shelter, many homeless people find shelter beneath a bridge or freeway. While this helps protect people from the elements, it also creates dangerous living conditions. One major concern for people living under bridges is the threat of fire. Fires have happened beneath bridges in many cities, including Atlanta and Austin. “In March 2017, a homeless man was accused of setting a fire underneath the I-85 bridge. The fire then got out of control, because the Georgia Department of Transportation had flammable materials stored under the bridge. The bridge then collapsed.” (3 Fires Under Interstate Bridge So Far This Year, WSB-TV2 Atlanta) “A fire at a homeless camp reveals Austin’s hidden homeless. Thousands of people drive right past this camp every day without noticing. That’s because it’s just below ground level, literally carved into the creek banks.” (Fire under US 183 in NE Austin reveals elaborate hidden homeless camp, CBS Austin) “Conditions are worsening at the encampments in the underpasses and on First Street NE, and … people are worried about their ability to safely traverse these public spaces,” stated Robin Jasper, the president of the local business improvement district. She added, “Many report that they have been harassed as they walk by the tent encampments, where people frequently engage in aggressive panhandling and occasionally menace passersby. Used and bloody hypodermic needles and other drug paraphernalia, rotting food, trash, broken glass, public nudity, prostitution, sales of illegal drugs and human urine and feces are encountered by those whose routes take them by the encampments and pervade the space in which encamped individuals are living.” (D.C. Says Homeless Encampments Will Be Permanently Cleared From Under One NoMa Bridge, NPR) In a Homeless Camp or Tent City There are several sprawling encampments of homeless people throughout the U.S. These camps often exist in metropolitan cities and contain large numbers of homeless individuals and families living in temporary structures like tents, shacks or even vehicles. Community responses to camps and tent cities can vary. Some are cleared by police with no thought for the needs of those who live there. Other cities “sanction” these camps and offer utilities, waste disposal, and even healthcare. One of the most well-known homeless camps is located in Seattle and is called, “The Jungle.” At its height in 2016, The Jungle was known for drug crimes and its huge population of over 300 homeless people and 200 tents (Inside the Grim World of the Jungle, by The Seattle Times, June 17, 2016). For decades, The Jungle was routinely cleared by police and in 2020, only 30 homeless people and 75 tents were counted (Police begin clearing notorious illegal homeless encampment, KomoNews, January 28, 2020). California is home to the highest number of tent cities in the U.S. (Tent City USA, National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty, 2017). One such city exists in Santa Rosa in Northern California’s Sonoma County. The tent city is described as having “filthy, unsanitary conditions and the presence of rats and used drug needles” (Sprawling Homeless Camps — Modern ‘Hoovervilles’ — Vex California, NPR, January 13, 2020) A sanctioned encampment is permitted to exist by the city without the threat of arrest. Sanctioned camps often provide waste disposal services, running water, meals, and shelter for the homeless population. Most cities and communities resist sanctioned camps. Yet, due to COVID-19, many cities have recently allowed these camps within the city. Sanctioned camps exist in Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, and Phoenix. When I think back to the sixth grade, I knew nothing. I didn’t know what a soliloquy was. I didn’t know what a matrix was, nor that they’d be my biggest problem for two years. I didn’t know my best friend was living in the Red Roof Inn. Hailey always wore this purple tracksuit sort of jacket, with the white stripes up the arms. It suited her, I don’t know how but it did. She was always on the move. She always had a new word to say instead of “damn”. In English class we had to draw cabins in the woods. I think we were reading Hatchet. She put her house beside a lake. This wasn’t at all a part of the instructions, but she said she “thought it’d be nice to go out whenever you wanted to swim.” It made sense. It also made sense when she told me her family moved here from Iowa, and that they had a pond there. With fish and frogs in the summer. You could swim in it, but I thought it’d be kind of gross to swim with fish. Her brother didn’t talk much, but he wore glasses and looked like he was smart. Our brothers were in the chess club together. Her sister always seemed like she had a lot of energy. Like little sisters generally do. I only really met her once. It was at the hotel, it was her sister, her brother, her mom and dad, and Hailey at the hotel. She sometimes missed school. Hailey had a way about her that you almost didn’t notice if she wasn’t there. She was drifty, that was all. It became so frequent that you really didn’t notice. On a Thursday or Friday, she was asking what I was up to. She wasn’t at school that day. I had one of those Obama Care phones; you couldn’t call it a flip phone because there wasn’t anything to flip. It wasn’t any larger Page 14 than a lumberjack’s thumb. With the microscopic keyboard I told her “nothing much,” and even just that took a couple of minutes to type. Then she asked -- what I didn’t know people asked -- if there was a chance I could bring her food. I was in my house, on the sofa, a single floor away from my mom. I think not-so-deep down, I knew what she was asking and why she was asking it. But I still asked, like an idiot, “huh?” -- which was 9 clicks all on its own. She asked if I could talk to my mom; her mom can pay us back in a week or two; they didn’t have anything right now; they were staying at the Red Roof Inn; if I could just talk to my mom. I took the effort, I thought it out and everything. “I’m sorry, my mom is at a meeting, she won’t be home for a while.” 78 clicks. Regrettably, too many minutes. This message did not go to Hailey, but my mom. Just one floor up, making our dinner. She walked down the 4 steps, and we had a long talk about what it meant to help others. We drove to Boston Market, and got two family meals. My mom told me it was so they would have leftovers. That made sense. We met them outside the hotel, her whole family saying how gracious we were; how kind. They invited us to join them, but we had our own dinner to get home to, and so that’s what my mom said. I said goodbye, and that I’d see her at school on Monday. I saw Hailey that Monday, and one more Monday. I didn’t see her a third. She simply moved again. Hailey lives in Kansas now. Or Wisconsin. Maybe in another Red Roof Inn. Maybe in a cabin by a lake.
15 Publizr Home