You Are Someone

On Thursday evening I had a last minute change of plans that took me into New Haven. I dropped my younger daughter off at her lesson and headed up the block to a coffee shop I like, to wait. It was 8:00 pm and about 90 degrees outside with thunderclouds rolling in but there were a few people at the outdoor tables. I was next in line when a woman came in, a little older than me maybe, looking distraught and angry. She addressed the barista behind the counter:

"You have to call the police! There's a man falling down drunk on the sidewalk!" 

The barista and she exchanged details but the barista did not appear concerned. It turned out the man was not unconscious on the sidewalk but asleep on one of their outdoor coffee tables and she seemed more offended than worried. In downtown New Haven this isn't as common as, say New York, but it happens. She was insistent that he was clearly drunk and needed help and needed to go to the hospital. When the barista kind of drifted off she stayed, so I asked her if the man was on the city sidewalk. She said he was sitting at the outdoor tables. She felt he should be taken to the hospital to be taken care of. I pointed out that there was a police car across the street when I came in, maybe she could ask them to do a well being check. She insisted that the coffee shop should call the police and have dispatch send them over here. Across the street. 50 yards away. Because it is their table so it is their responsibility. She said, "Someone has to do something!"

Maybe it was her angry attitude. Maybe it was my several months of doing charitable acts. Maybe I was just wanting my tea. I said, "You're someone."

She looked at my like she was Bambi and I was tractor trailer headlights. 

She wasn't offended, she wanted to help. But the reality of the situation in front of her was more than she knew how to handle. I took pity on her and said, "Let's go see what the situation is." For all I knew the man was in respiratory distress and we were wasting valuable time.

When I stepped out I saw an older, black gentleman in sweatpants and a flannel shirt with Yale bookstore bags around his feet. He had his head down on the metal table and he was asleep.There were two men at another table and several people walking by.

I recognized the older gentleman; he had been at a bagel place and other places in the neighborhood when I had been here for committee meetings and dinner. I remembered he had walked with a severe limp and there was a cane on the table now. At the bagel place he had spoken to me at length about something I couldn't understand except "God bless!" and handed out flyers on the United Negro College Fund and promotional notepads from a bank. I still have the flyers and notepads in my tote bag; he was so sincere that it felt wrong to just throw them out.

I explained to the woman that I had met him before and that he was senile, or mentally ill, and probably homeless. Maybe drunk, maybe limping. The best thing to do was let him sleep or direct him to a shelter. That the coffee shop probably knew him, as did the cops in the area. She was much less angry and turned to me with a scared look on her face. "I just want to help him but I didn't know what to do."

And that was really what it was about. 

It is no secret that a a large number of homeless on this country are people who are mentally ill and have fallen through the cracks of the health system - by accident or choice. The emergency rooms are overwhelmed already and I didn't think having the city (therefore us) pay for an ambulance to pick this guy up so he could nap or dry out in a bed already needed for someone truly in medical distress and then be sent back out to he street two hours later was the answer. There is no easy answer. As an individual, we can join outreach programs, volunteer in soup kitchens, make Blessing Bags, donate to shelters and churches and programs. But when faced with that one guy asleep on the street, what do you do?

In the end, she seemed calmer and I went inside and got my tea. I decided that when he woke up I would offer to buy him a sandwich. I should have expressed that to the woman, but didn't. When I came back out she had gone to get the police officers across the street. An officer was very calmly speaking to the man and explained he couldn't sleep on the street. He eventually walked the man around the corner - probably to the bagel place. The woman was clearly trying to help the officer during all of this, though it was kind of dramatic. In the middle of it all a young man in a wheelchair came zipping by, called her name and said, "Let's go!" and she walked away. But I guess she had taken my advice, that she was someone. And that's a step in the right direction.

After the situation moved on, the two gentleman sitting at the other table started a conversation with me about it. One of them said, "He probably needed the sleep in a safe place!" and he pointed out that one loss of a paycheck or one mental breakdown or crisis and any one of us could be in that situation. 

I don't count this as a charitable act, but I hope I helped one person realize they don't have to wait for someone else to do something. And I learned that I could do more that think about doing something and then the opportunity may pass me by - I have to speak up or act first. I resolved to pack some more of the Blessing Bags I posted about on Facebook a while back and make sure I had a few in the car. I'll watch for this homeless gentleman when I'm back in the neighborhood, I'll buy him a meal and give him a bag. Because I am someone.