Urban Exile: Common Courtesy & Every Day Strangers

A2PNotes: In 2010, John Hieftje and First Ward Council member Sandi Smith both ran for re-election and patted themselves on the back for “doubling beds at the homeless shelter.” If you count a chair as a bed, Hieftje and Smith were telling the truth. In November of 2009, Ann Arbor City Council made an “emergency allocation” of $159,000 to “deal” with homelessness. I wrote about it here. A one-time allocation. Then, City Council suggested Ann Arbor residents “pray to end homelessness.” Suffice it to say, in a city heralded as one of the most politically progressive in the country, our elected officials resemble Ebenezer Scrooges—pre-Ghost of Christmas Future visit. “Are there no workhouses? Are there no prisons?” Winter 2011? No emergency allocation. Not a peep from John Hieftje, Sandi Smith or any of the other Council members, warm and cozy in their Council chambers, obsessing how to pay for skinning the Larcom Building so it will match the new City Hall, and looking forward to their new Council chambers when renovations are finished.

Homelessness advocates have told stories of city and county officials threatening to pull funding from services for the homeless to retaliate against advocates who are overly vocal on behalf of the needs of the growing homeless population. The panhandling problem in Ann Arbor merited the formation of a special task force, headed by First Ward Council member Sabra Briere. In the many months her special committee has been meeting (if it has) Briere has not uttered a word about it in her email updates sent to Ward residents.

In Fall 2010, The Ann magazine published a feature story on homelessness in Ann Arbor. It includes this:

And yet there was the headline in The Detroit News last month: “Ann Arbor struggles with homeless influx.” The story listed panhandling com- plaints from Ann Arbor police and cited praise for local food, medical and shelter services from a few homeless men who lived in tents or shelters in the city.

The story suggested that Ann Arbor’s excellent network of services draws a steady  stream of people from outside Washtenaw County, thus causing budget problems for the city and county. Three weeks later, workers on the front lines of the homeless effort were still huffing about the piece.

Here’s what The Detroit News published that had the Director of the local shelter association huffing and puffing:

For several years, homeless from around the state have descended upon the city because of a largesse that ranges from social services to the generosity of U-M students toward panhandlers, said city police, social service agencies and transients.

The number of homeless in Washtenaw County jumped from 4,212 in 2008 to 4,618 last year, according to the Shelter Association of Washtenaw County. A quarter of them are from outside the county, said the association.

The influx contributed to a panhandling problem that grew so severe this summer that the police chief labeled it the “No. 1 crime,” and the City Council assembled a task force to study it.

“We have people from all over,” said Police Chief Barnett Jones. “We’re on the cusp of being a victim of our generosity.”

To discourage outsiders from coming to Ann Arbor, the city’s 75-bed homeless shelter instituted a residency requirement earlier this year.

David Jesse and Tina Reed wrote a brilliant series about homelessness in Ann Arbor in 2009. Rose Martin, who has been working with low-income people in Ann Arbor for 30 years and is the founder of the Peace Neighborhood Center, was blunt when speaking to the reporters:

“The availability doesn’t match the need. They just don’t want it here,” she said. “They don’t want to have this deluge of low-income people here in Ann Arbor. They pay lip service while you’ve got a family with three kids sleeping in their car behind the trailer park (on Jackson). It brings reality too close. The numbers of people who need help are growing astronomically….If you don’t think it’s a problem here in Ann Arbor, you’re a damn fool.”

Urban Exile launches today. It’s a regular column that looks at various aspects of homelessness and poverty in our community. Written by attorney and activist Erika McNamara, the Urban Exile will, I hope, prove that A2Politico is no damn fool (at least so far as this subject is concerned) and neither are you.

I decided to launch this column by asking why you don’t give to the homeless every time you’re asked. I’m not talking about money or food.

Every day I’m in contact with people from different walks of life, and at least a quarter of them are strangers to me. But some of those people are what I consider everyday strangers I see on a regular basis. I’m sure you know people like this—you see them everyday. There’s the young man walking to his office building, the mother and baby on their morning stroll, the older woman with the two purse dogs, the barista at the coffee shop in the lobby. I do not personally know them, but I know them as I pass by everyday on the walk to work. And, as is the common culture of the Midwest I smile, nod, and say “hi.”

The everyday strangers return my greeting with a smile, nod, and “hi.” This behavior is repeated again and again with people that I don’t really know. It’s polite behavior, and is really not out of the ordinary in any way. I have even stopped and chatted with some of these everyday strangers on occasion. You do the same thing, I’m sure.

Despite our hellos, nods, and chats, these people are still everyday strangers to me—meaning I may not be inclined to go out to dinner with them or invite them over to my house, but chatting and learning their first names makes me somehow feel more human as I stroll down the street. There is a darker side to this kind of interaction, and this is the fact that it is very easy to not smile, not nod, not say “hi,” to ignore everyday strangers.

Everyday, I see the same homeless individuals at the Main Library, at the bookstore, and around Ann Arbor. They, too, are everyday strangers to me. However, on many occasions I observe people in this town pass by homeless individuals on the street with utter disdain and obvious fear. What never ceases to amaze me are the comments I hear people make about the homeless. I have heard homeless individuals called bums, dirty, scruffy, smelly, waste of space, hobo, street person, panhandler, drunk, wino, addict by people who describe themselves as political “progressives.”

Sometimes is not done discreetly, but rather loudly enough for the homeless individuals to hear. On one occasion I even heard a mother warn her child to be careful of the “bum across the street” as though the homeless individual was going to some how fly over two lanes of traffic and assault the two of them.

Why is that some people forget their manners around homeless individuals? Doesn’t common courtesy apply equally to everyone? If people don’t have permanent shelter, a place to stay, or a home to return to at the end of the day, are they somehow beneath others who do? Homeless individuals are human beings who have names—given them by their parent(s), same as the rest of us. Homeless individuals may have lost a permanent shelter space, but they have not lost their identities or their humanity.

I can tell you that a simple smile, nod, or low intoned “hi” may make all the difference in the world to some individuals.

Recently, one of the residents of Camp Take Notice (CTN is a local tent community where homeless individuals live) had a heart attack. The other residents of CTN aided him. Because of the fast action of those around him, he was able to be rushed to the hospital and survived the heart attack. After the ordeal, the heart attack victim told me that he was glad he’d not been out on the street alone. Why? He firmly believed that if he had been on the sidewalk in Ann Arbor no one, not one passer by, would have stopped to help him, and he would have died.

Why do you ignore the homeless in Ann Arbor you see on the street (if you do)?  Are you embarrassed? Afraid?

The smile, nod, and hello to the everyday stranger is an acknowledgement of the other person’s existence, her or his humanity. Maybe what I am suggesting is a modern twist to Decartes philosophy, “I think therefore I am” — that philosophy might instead be, “I see and acknowledge you therefore you are.” Perhaps the logic for those who routinely refuse to “see” the homeless among us is that if the homeless individuals are ignored, then there is no homelessness in our community. If we start to recognize homeless individuals as members of our community, we have to own up to the fact that there are homeless, there are individuals, families, children without food, shelter, without the protections most of us take for granted. It’s unthinkable in a community as well off as Ann Arbor, but true nonetheless. As Rose Martin pointed out in 2009, “The numbers of people who need help are growing astronomically….If you don’t think it’s a problem here in Ann Arbor, you’re a damn fool.”

We have to overcome the fear factor. Homeless individuals are, perhaps, perceived as lazy, needy, beggars, disease ridden, gross, stinky, unkempt, drug users, and high. Why would anyone engage in conversation, or extend common courtesy to people like that? I’ll tell you why. Common courtesy to homeless individuals you see, breaks through the labels that stigmatize individuals in need.

In many cases, the ability (or desire) to give money, food, or shelter to a homeless individual or family is just not there. However, the ability to give a smile, nod, greeting, and most importantly, a name and not a label, is something all of us can give every time we’re asked.

Erika McNamara was born in Ann Arbor and grew up in nearby Whitmore Lake. She attended and graduated from Whitmore Lake High School. Erika earned her BA in International Studies of East Asia from Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan, as well as a certificate of course completion from Tian Jin Foreign Studies University, in Tian Jin, China. After graduation Erika worked for an American/Chinese Joint Venture business in Chongqing, China. Upon return to the United States she attended Eastern Michigan University and earned a Masters of Business Administration. Erika continued her education at The Thomas M. Cooley and earned a Juris Doctor degree. She now practices law in Whitmore Lake. Erika is a member of the Michigan Itinerant Shelter System Out of Necessity (MISSION), and advocates for the rights of homeless individuals.