The New York papers have been abuzz with stories of a homeless man who is being sued for a million dollars by Karl Kemp, a fancy Madison Avenue antique dealer in Neo-classical, Biedermeier and French Art Deco furniture and "objets décoratifs".
The antique dealer, who hawks $50,000 French antique chairs to an elite clientele, is irate because the bum, a Mr. Roger Greenlee, has taken up residence on his sidewalk - directly in front of Mr. Kemp's $200,000 window display!
During a freezing spell in New York, Mr. Greenlee was resourceful enough to find a warm air grate where the flowing air temperature is about 108 degrees. According to witnesses, Mr. Greenlee routinely dresses and relieves himself in this cozy spot, surrounded by two large garbage bags.
Amazingly, this story of power, money and survival of the fittest in the land of beautiful people, has ricocheted to 38 papers around the world including a dozen in Canada, a bunch in Ireland and England (including the Times of London) and some in Australia.
Mr. Greenlee is the latest media darling, courted by a gaggle of local and international reporters. He has become a celebrity and pitchman of sorts; both the Daily News and the New York Post ran large photos of Mr. Greenlee reading stories about himself in their papers. How much did they pay him? Maybe he needs an agent?
Certainly Karl Kemp Antiques has gotten worldwide publicity from this lawsuit. Too soon to tell whether this will result in new sales for the luxury emporium. After all, Gawker calls him "the world's biggest asshole."
January is the time of year when the papers pull out their stock homeless stories of women and children sleeping in cardboard boxes. Usually these tales begin to surface in time for the Christmas giving season, but this year, with the recent Gore Global Warming, the stories have not popped up until the onset of our recent cold spell.
But this year's story is particularly delicious because we have a real-life mean-spirited Scrooge - directly out of Dickens - at hand. The wealthy Mr. Kemp says that the bums, "can often be found sleeping on the sidewalk ... consuming alcoholic beverages from open bottles, performing various bodily functions such as urinating and spitting... and verbally harassing or intimidating patrons and prospective customers.''
The question is: "What law is it that these homeless people have violated?" asked Shelly Nortz of the Coalition for the Homeless, according to the New York Times. "This is preposterous. Until we see to it that every single homeless individual has a place to stay, this is our reality."
Kemp's attorney (who is also getting his share of media attention) agrees and explains why he is filing a civil suit: "They are not breaking any law besides being vagrants, and it's my understanding that vagrancy really isn't a reason to pick anyone up any more. The fact is that they are creating a nuisance. You are not my guest. I didn't invite you here. And they have attached themselves to my clients' property."
Good luck getting paid!
"He calls everyone a sonofabitch," according to a neighbor speaking of Mr. Greenlee. "I almost confronted him when he told a pregnant woman to 'burn in hell.'"
This reoccurring conflict - of how to treat lost people - has been going on for decades, if not longer.
But what is usually lost in the argument is the fact that most street people are alcoholics, drug addicts, psychotics or otherwise mentally impaired. (Mr. Greenlee, 64, left his wife and family 30 years ago to preach on the streets. His wife learned he was alive watching "Regis and Kelly" on ABC and described him in today's Daily News as having a bipolar kind of personality.)
Most political advocates go crazy when they hear such common sense truths bandied about. They fear that the public and media will not be as sympathetic to the plight of the addicted and the infirm. So rather than take this chance, they adopt a see-no-sickness attitude. In an incredible public relations coup, people who used to be called skid row bums, hobos, vagrants, junkies and whackos took on a new name - "the homeless" - and gained instant respectability, or at least sympathy.
The major cause of homelessness is not a mystery: budget cutting deinstitutionalization. 25 years ago there were over 550,000 people in U.S. mental institutions. Today there are less than 100,000. Many of these mentally ill have ended up in prisons, giving the US the highest imprisonment rate in the world. But many others were abandoned to fare for themselves on the streets.
Freedom proved to be a grim gift to many of these unhappy souls.
Out on their own, previously stabilized patients refused to take their drugs and the community mental care facilities were never built. Costs turned out to be much higher than anticipated, and psychiatrists didn't really have much to offer outpatients not in touch with reality.
A Harvard Medical School study by Ellen Bassuk found that 40% of shelter inhabitants were psychotic, 21% were mentally impaired, and 29% were chronic alcoholics. Most people are not surprised by such statistics, which were born out of seven other in-depth studies reviewed by the National Academy of Science.
People with temporary needs are usually helped by friends and relatives (or the welfare system) and given enough support to get them back on their feet.
But street people have no such ties. 73% of shelter inhabitants report no relationships with family or friends.
There is, of course, an obvious reason for this. All these woeful souls once had homes, mothers, fathers, brothers, aunts, cousins - but drugs and delusions caused the people who loved them the most to drive them away.
After severing ties to family and friends, these disoriented, infirm people try to feed their demons from the public trough, through begging, stealing, and otherwise making life miserable for the rest of us - just as they once made life wretched for the families who may have finally kicked them out or turned their backs.
Street people are not a new phenomenon. Public health authorities estimate that between 4% and 8% of the population of all societies is dysfunctional because of addiction or mental problems, a percentage that has remained constant throughout recorded history.
What is somewhat new is that such people, instead of hiding in hobo camps and out of sight, have become more brazen and bizarre, imposing their own private hell on the rest of us.
Several decades ago, advocates for the homeless decided that the most effective way to increase public awareness was to encourage and support the right of street people to congregate in public places - irritating the rest of us to the point where their plight could not be ignored.
Our streets and plazas and railroad stations have been turned into "open asylums" where all manner of anti-social behavior is tolerated: panhandling, public drinking, defecating in gutters or on subway cars and alleys, open drug taking and petty extortion. Street people live outside existing laws because the police assume they won't show up in court to pay fines. Also, most cops (understandably) don't want to get involved with such foul smelling human beings.
Homeless activists needn't be so frightened. Admitting these people are sick doesn't mean that we can't be compassionate.
Such a policy of public denial might be excusable, if it worked. But according to mental health professionals and experienced self-help groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous, this kind of permissiveness (called "enabling") sends precisely the wrong message. Addicts need to know that they will be held swiftly accountable. If you panhandle or defecate in the streets, you should fully expect to be locked up in a 28-day detox program.
What they need is a dose of reality - swift repercussions for criminal actions - and professional help and human shelter, not more babying or cash handouts motivated by guilt.
The danger: If we don't frankly admit that individual pathology plays a large role in creating grate dwellers, then many efforts to better the plight of street people will be misdirected.
On an average week in New York City, thousands of beds for homeless people go empty. The reason is not that homeless people don't want help, but that their illnesses prevent them from talking it.
If going to a shelter means giving up alcohol or drugs even for a night, some street people can't or won't do it. For them, a shelter is like being in the worst prison.
Denial is the central aspect of the disease called alcoholism. The alcoholic is the last person to know that he is an alcoholic.
Indeed, if street people were to acknowledge their infirmity, they would be well on their way to recovery. They self-medicate with alcohol and drugs.
Their excuses - that shelters are too dangerous - are preposterous given the alternative: biting rats in garbage-filled alleys, human predators, bat wielding thugs, diseases and subzero temperatures.
For street people there is one overwhelming problem with shelters. There is no one to give them money. Without money, the addicted can't drink or shoot up. So they congregate on ritzy streets, and at train stations and airports where they can panhandle or steal $50 to $100 per day.
Our public passivity and permissiveness has encouraged and "enabled" alcoholism, drug addiction, and other deviant forms of behavior. It's not hard to see why: it's too much trouble - and too dangerous - not to be permissive. It's easier to walk by quickly, dropping some coins in a cup and otherwise pretending that they don't exist, than to address the problem.
What should we do?
*Spend three times as much money on shelters, halfway houses and medical help. This is a moral responsibility. And make sure that reputable private groups distribute the money. Establish aggressive outreach programs to guarantee that street people register for the Federal Social Security payments to which all disabled persons are entitled. Currently less than 5% of the homeless receive such help, which can amount to as much as $1,300 monthly.
*Pass and enforce quality-of-life laws. No panhandling, no drinking or drug taking in public. Our current passivity encourages self-destructive behavior.
*Think about the Unthinkable. Asylums. When asylums were first begun in 19th century England, the idea was to provide protection and care. And they offered just that. Simply because many institutions degenerated into snake pits in the past, this does not mean that we cannot design caring, custodial institutions today. Given the alternatives, asylums may be the only humane choice, even if some form of drug use is tolerated. See my post Bunks for Drunks...Bringing Back Asylums!
We will never cure everyone. Nevertheless, with swift justice, self-help groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous, psychoactive drugs, and structured support settings, hundreds of thousands of disoriented souls can be stabilized and prevented from killing themselves and from hurting a few of us.
Street people are sick, and we must treat them as a public health problem.
jfleetwood@aol.com