IGNORING THE HOMELESS

He curses me as I pass him without a glance, but he knows I have seen
him. How can I not? He's sitting in front of the drugstore on a main
street, dirty, smelly and obnoxious, with filthy ball cap set out in
front of his jeaned legs. He's obviously been sleeping there all
night under a dirty blanket on top of a filthy sleeping bag. And
while the drugstore personnel safely do their business inside the
store, he does his outside.

He greets passersby pleasantly enough. But when they ignore him, he
hurls harsh curses after them.

Every once in a while, the police come by and move him along. So,
instead of sitting, sleeping and panhandling in front of the
drugstore, he moves to the liquor store, then to the small park on
the corner, then to the sidewalk in front of a nearby restaurant.

People step gingerly around him, but the trouble is there are too many of him.

Where once he was the town drunk, the local ne'er-do-well whom people
occasionally took pity on, giving him clothes and food, he is now the
big-city panhandler. He is the druggie, the mentally ill and homeless
person, the drunk in every big city and many small towns across Canada.

He sleeps in parks or on the streets and he sets up tent camps which
wreak havoc on local businesses.

Sometimes, he shoots up openly. He often reeks of cheap booze, he
swears at anyone who refuses to put money in the dirty ball cap, and
he scares away customers and tourists. Sometimes, he invades big
expensive hotels, sneaking into washrooms to harass people into
giving him a few bucks. And sometimes, he just sits on the curb
mumbling, hardly aware of his own existence.

And while he remains much the same, it is I who have changed. Where I
used to at least look at him, perhaps give him a loonie or two, and
perhaps smile, I now avoid his gaze. I walk by or around him as
though he is invisible. I don't know what to do about him because
there are just too many of him.

There are, however, some city councilors in Victoria and in Montreal
who believe they know exactly what to do with him. They, and many
other municipalities across Canada, wish to render him illegal. Or at
least they want to criminalize his actions, to make it impossible for
him to sleep or beg on the streets or in the parks.

For example, Montreal enacted a new bylaw last week outlawing staying
overnight in public squares, and Victoria already has such a
prohibition in place - one that is being tested by a court challenge,
which argues such laws violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

So far, no Canadian city has tried to follow the lead of Las Vegas,
which recently made it illegal to feed homeless people in public parks.

In Edmonton, city councillors have expressed little interested in
creating more laws directed at the indigent.

"I don't think that more bylaws are going to give us the direction we
need to go," said Coun. Michael Phair.

And, of course, there is something ironic about enacting laws to
control the homeless, the drunks, the druggies and the mentally ill.
Shall we fine them for disobeying those laws? And then, because they
have no money to pay the fines, shall we throw them in jail - after,
of course, building lots of what used to be called poorhouses in
Charles Dickens' time.

"Build more shelters" is a popular rallying cry, one which does
little to solve the problem, because many shelters are dangerous
places where people get assaulted, robbed and chomped on by various insects.

"It's safer on the streets" is often the homeless person's reaction
to the concept of shelters.

Is there, then, any solution to the increase in homeless people on
our streets? There is no instant answer, but there are a couple of
starting places. One can be summed up in two words: affordable
housing and the other in five: more substance-abuse treatment programs.

Or, do we as a society continue to ignore him, to walk by him,
silently cursing his very existence?