Draft Four: When life is like quicksand

Some thoughts on the homeless we’d rather avoid. And on fear.

A few nights ago, I was with my friend Andreea on a train in Chicago. It was about 9pm, dark, but not an hour you’d ever question when it came to venturing out. Still, I felt alert. On the way, we passed a man stumbling along the sidewalk, then a woman hurling insults at an invisible threat.

When we boarded, I locked eyes on the familiar sight of the poster urging passengers to move to the next car if they felt unsafe. Then, I remembered locals casually advising on Reddit that an empty subway car means you avoid it: either somebody defecated there, or there is a lone passenger having a mental breakdown. On a train ride just a few hours back, there actually was a passenger having a breakdown, yelling and cussing. When he would quiet, another would pipe up, loudly wishing everyone “Happy Mother’s Day!”.

On the train we got to talking, and, at one point, a woman holding a beer can appeared and asked all passengers for money – she told all of us to check our pockets for a couple of dollars. Just as she moved to the other car, the subway pulled into a station, and we heard a ruckus on the platform: police were forcibly removing a man from our train.

Nothing bad happened, no one threatened us, but my anxiety was having a field day, firing on all cylinders, accompanied by the shame of feeling this afraid next to people whose lives are broken.

*

It’s what has consumed me since I’ve been here: the stark contrast between us, living our daily lives in the hustle and bustle of formidable cities, and the pain and misery of some of their citizens. Two weeks ago, I mentioned the killing of Jordan Neely in the New York subway, a tragedy of two worlds colliding: a crisis of poverty and mental health, and our collective fears.

It wasn’t just New York, though. I saw the same thing in Chicago, and I’m seeing this in Vancouver, Canada – where I’m writing this letter from. It’s a crisis happening in many other cities, as Pulitzer-prize winner Eli Saslow writes: „Cities (…) transformed by a housing crisis, a mental health crisis and an opioid epidemic”.

This means more people living on street corners, in boxes, sleeping on subways, getting a fix in a park, breaking down or lashing out, cursing, panhandling, tents lined up dozens of blocks in downtowns, thousands upon thousands of people with little hope, little help, and nowhere to go.

This isn’t just a North American problem, but it’s where the contrast is often starkest. The first time I became aware of it was many years ago, in San Francisco, where in the span of a couple of blocks you went from the tech haven of glass buildings, Nordic-style coffee shops and designer boutiques, to boarded up shops, crumbling buildings, and people sheltering on the sidewalk.

I was heartbroken. And scared.

*

The fear is the hardest to write about. It felt shameful to mention even in my private journal. But I’ll bring it up, because I feel that without talking about the fear, we won’t be able to talk about a fix.

I’m always afraid in situations like these. I’m tense when people ask for money. I more or less panic when strangers appear out of nowhere to yell at me. Rationally, I know what’s happening, and I know the cycle of poverty that has brought them here. But the fear is instinctual – my brain is telling my body that we might have to fight or flee because this could be unsafe. At the same time, my brain is saying: what a duplicitous asshole you are – talking about supporting the vulnerable, and then being unable to self-regulate this fear out of your system.

But it's not the people I fear – it’s the randomness of these moment and my inability to handle it. Because I’m anxious and alert, I know I won’t make the best decisions. My brain fog always limits the options I see as being available. (There is a famous study about helping others that shows how this brain fog sets in: Princeton seminary students – basically Good Samaritans in training – are told they must deliver a lecture about caring for others. But it’s across campus. Some are told they have enough time to get there. Others are told they really need to rush, or they’ll be late. All participants come across a fallen stranger – a study confederate who pretends to have a health scare. More than half of those that are not rushing, stop to help. Of those that are rushing, barely anyone stops; they don’t even see the person struggling. We are not the people we want to be when our heads are flooded with our own chemicals.)

Plenty of moments have nourished my fear: in grade school, there was a local bully in my neighborhood, who had a talent for appearing out of nowhere and asking for my food, money, or whatever toy I had on me. Somehow, he always seemed to find me. What made it more frightening is that he sometimes joined us for football – and he was always peaceful when he did it. Similar experiences followed in high school, and when I moved to Bucharest for college my studio was broken into during the day (in a cramped building, with 99 apartments), I was pickpocketed on crowded buses, and threatened with a beating and “some cutting” in front of the National Theater. I am also convinced there are racist and classist undertones to my fears from the way I was socialized in the chaos of the post-communist 1990s.

Whatever it was, the fear is there, and it’s uncomfortable. Of course I want to make it go away.

*

One of Eli Saslow’s pieces is on the homeless crisis in Phoenix, where a street has become one of the “largest homeless encampments in the country, with as many as 1,100 people sleeping outdoors”. It’s also where Joe and Debbie run a sandwich shop, Old Station Subs, their business for 40 years now. All this time, Joe and Debbie have been the kinds of Good Samaritans we hope to be – doing their best to help some of transients coming through their neighborhood.

“They had given out water, opened their bathroom to the public and cashed unemployment and disability checks at no extra cost. They hired a sandwich maker who was homeless and had lost his teeth after years of addiction; a dishwasher who lived in the women’s shelter and first came to the restaurant for lunch with her parole officer; a cleaner who slept a few blocks away on a wooden pallet and washed up in the bathroom before her shift.”

But the pandemic drove rents in Phoenix sky-high, the drug problem got worse, and in the past couple of years so many people began camping out there that Joe and Debbie were outmatched by their suffering:

“They slept on [their] outdoor tables, defecated behind their back porch, smoked methamphetamine in their parking lot, washed clothes in their bathroom sink, pilfered bread and gallon jars of pickles from their delivery trucks, had sex on their patio, masturbated within view of their employees and lit fires for warmth that burned down palm trees and scared away customers.”

When gunshots entered the picture, Joe and Debbie began seriously considering giving it all up. The state authorities aren’t much help, although they’ve tried them all: city councilman, city manager, the mayor, the governor, and the police. “I’m realizing here lately that we’re living in a frigging hellhole,” Joe tells Eli. “Us, them, inside, outside. Who’s it working for? When does it stop?”

*

Getting off the street once you’re there is terribly hard. Take another story from Eli, of Abdul, a 64-year-old homeless man in San Diego (here, most homeless die before they are 50). Abdul struggles with a fentanyl addiction, but also watches over others: reviving them when they overdose, giving them haircuts, helping them find shelter, encouraging them.

The story features Abdul and Laine, the 29-year-old medic who looks out for him. One day, she tells him that as an Air Force veteran he might qualify for subsidized housing. To see Abdul trying to access his benefits is heartbreaking. (He needs a new ID, a new social security card, and a bunch of other paperwork). For all, he needs a phone. Just getting it working and using it is a day-long ordeal. He has one, but finding the right charger is a hassle. Then finding a place to charge for free is a hassle. Then finding someone to watch his stuff proves impossible. He lights up and drinks to lower the stress. Then someone needs his help. And so on, until the day passes.

“I spent all day trying to get off this sidewalk and never made it 30 feet”, Abdul exclaims. “This place is quicksand.”

Poverty – especially this kind of extreme poverty – is quicksand.

There have been numerous studies showing that poverty affects the brain, just pummels it, reducing cognitive capacity. Just as mine gets foggy when anxious, so a poor person’s gets foggy because of the lack of bandwidth that comes with not having shelter, food, and other essentials. In this state, planning and working towards a future goal becomes a nightmare. (Growing up in poverty actually affects the very development of the brain as an organ, and implicitly one’s capacity to learn and socialize.)

So then, what do we do? It’s a complicated answer, but it can’t start and finish with more and stricter law enforcement.

*

We get rid of the fear – and the sight of poverty – by asking our cities to “clean up”. In many places, the first answer city officials have is more police in subways, on the streets, more taking down encampments, more fines, more threats.

This doesn’t work, as it tackles a symptom, not the cause. And it often does it through more violence, even though punishment is not long-term fix for anything.

On my first couple of days in Vancouver I felt that the city doesn’t struggle the way New York or Chicago are (granted, they are larger in population). But then I took a tips-based tour (I love them), and the guide told me, privately, that homelessness is on the rise, and the city has become less affordable. One area in particular has become an open-air encampment. I watched a YouTuber stroll through those streets for 20 minutes, and it looked horrendous. And this was after the police came in to evict everybody. But evict to where?

A letter signed by more than 700 academics and experts reminded officials this is sucks as a solution, as forced displacement only increases risks, especially risks of death. Comments to the newspaper story about the letter speak of people’s fears. (“It is so easy to criticize and condemn without offering actionable solutions.”)

*

Downtown Bucharest, where I live, has also seen an increase in homeless population after the pandemic. I know people have been going through trash bins in my building, as I sometimes must put it back. I also had to secure the bins with a bike lock, as two disappeared. Recently, my neighbors complained me there were homeless coming into the yard; one event slept underneath a staircase outside and scared some of them at night.

They complain to me because I am the building president. I have no clue what to do. I pushed back against us locking the gate to the yard, but we did block the access to those stairs.

I worked with many journalists to tell various stories of poverty over the years – including this narrative podcast that shows how tough it is to break the cycle. What always shows up in these stories is a conflict between people: those at the margins, and the rest of us. And it’s almost always up to us to manage it, to get together to mend or mediate what our institutions are not willing (or are incapable) to do.

Most recently, Andreea, one of my journalism students, begun spending time at Carusel, one of the most important Romanian NGOs delivering social services to the most vulnerable. In the functioning social-democracy I sometimes fantasize about, they should be made redundant. (This spring, in Amsterdam, I saw posters in the city saying something along the lines of: don’t give money to panhandlers, the city is already taking care of them. I’m sure there’s more to that story, but I also believe it’s not completely bullshit).

Carusel is far from being made redundant. On the contrary, they have more work to do than they have resources for. Their day center/soup kitchen is among the few places the homeless congregate: they come for a meal, they come for hot tea when it’s cold, they come to wash their clothes or take a shower. They come for community, and often to share their own stories of shame and fear of being so vulnerable all day long: to weather, to theft, to violence, to lack of empathy.

In this story we produced in a weekend journalism hackathon, Andra profiles Mister Steven, who hangs out around Piața Universității. He says that at one point he lived and worked in America, but then life happened, and life fell apart. Now he has a network of people helping him with food, but often feels he is set back by people who steal his stuff (storing stuff is one of the greatest problems of the homeless). He is also lonely. (“Loneliness is death’s twin sister”, he says.)” What he desperately needed the day Andra met him was nothing more but a pair of nail clippers for his toes.

*

If there is one thing I’d like you to take away – and it’s something I’m always telling myself – is that most of the ills of modern society are the result of interlocking crises. It’s systems theory in action – one loses balance, others will as well, and the social fabric could unravel. You will rarely solve a systems problem by just by treating a symptom such as an unruly person on a train.

Two narrative podcasts we did at DoR aimed to show systems simultaneously at work: in Satul Mădălinei, the young mother panhandling in the subway is the result of decades of family poverty, public health failures, infrastructure woes, and impenetrable bureaucracy. In Obiceiul Pământului, the racism directed at Roma is a consequence of hundreds of years of slavery, which in turn has led to rootlessness, generational trauma, and poverty, which sometimes manifests as antisocial behavior.

This doesn’t take away from personal agency, grit, luck, hard work or whatever you want to call an individual’s struggle to break free from a cycle of pain; but it does highlight that these individuals are the outliers.

I’ll close with a story from Canada that brought it all together.

Many of the homeless here are First Nations people, descendants of the indigenous tribes that lived on this land before colonizers of various stripes took it over. Alcoholism or drug use or whatever social ill you ascribe to them is also the result of trauma, passed on from generation to generation. Not just the trauma of losing one’s land, but of having to survive your new neighbors. For more than 100 years Canada built oppressive systems to “get rid of the Indian problem”, as a civil servant once said. Because they were savage, they had to live on reservations, and the children had to have the savage educated out of them.

This is why the state mandated that all attend a “residential school”, a project of the state and the Catholic church. More than 150.000 kids attended these schools, many taken against their families wishes. In some of these schools, they suffered abuse of all kinds. Many died – estimates range from 10 to 20.000. A great deal are still buried in unmarked graves that have only recently began to be dug up.

The reckoning warranted a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, apologies from the current government, and one from Pope Francis himself last year. (He called the system “evil” and “catastrophic”). Pope Francis had with him a pair of moccasins, which, along with other kids’ shoes, are now placed at hundreds of sites of former residential schools across Canada, as a memento of suffering:

„The memory of those children is indeed painful; it urges us to work to ensure that every child is treated with love, honour and respect”, the Pope said in his apology. “At the same time, those moccasins also speak to us of a path to follow, a journey that we desire to make together. We want to walk together, to pray together and to work together, so that the sufferings of the past can lead to a future of justice, healing and reconciliation.”

How we can reconcile with the complexity of all these crises is the big question facing us.

The rise in homelessness, drug addiction, mental health problems is not just a problem of individuals – of their choices, or of my fear. It’s also inherited trauma, it’s spiking rising rents in big cities, it’s inequality driven by late capitalism, it’s poor public health interventions, it’s polarization, and more. It’s a series of broken systems needing to be healed, all while we all go about our daily lives, with underlying anxiety but also hope for a better world.

A two-year-old memorial installation on the steps of the Vancouver Art Galery. The shoes commemorate indigenous kids who died in the residential school system.

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SIDE DISHES

1. If you want to learn about Canada’s role in the plight of indigenous children listen to Finding Cleo, a narrative podcast that tells the story of a missing girl, and the untangled and messy lives of those she left behind. The host, Connie Walker, just won a Pulitzer Prize and a Peabody Award for another podcast on the topic, Stolen: Surviving St. Michaels.

2. Especially when it comes to hard topics like poverty, we might feel the urge to rage. But don’t forget: activism leads to burnout, which leads to checking out. As the wise Arthur Brooks writes: “No amount of sharing rage at the state of the world can make us happy. But any amount of sharing love with someone who needs it may help us find the happiness we seek.”

3. There is plenty of great solutions journalism on poverty and homelessness. Here’s a huge list of stories showing what cities around the world are trying. And here is one from Boston that shows what one person can do over a lifetime of working for a cause.

4. My former colleague Andreea Vîlcu wrote this amazing essay you might have read: it’s about the poverty she grew up with, the debt that never seemed to go away, and what it feels like to be in that moment when, at 26, you might actually break free. I’m sharing it again because it just won an important Jury Prize at the Superscrieri journalism awards in Romania. (DoR won a lifetime award).

5. And if you’re in Romania, especially if you are in Bucharest, Carusel is raising 50.000 lei (10.000 euros) to buy extra washing machines for those without a home. (If you happen to work for an appliance company, this is your chance to give them a couple of more machines, actually). You can help them reach their goal by donating here. (Donations for this particular project open May 25, but you can always give directly if you don’t want to wait).