Officer M.S., meet Bluto

I wrote this a few weeks ago but forgot to hit the publish button. I’m not as good at technology as I want to be, but with enough patience, it all works out.

Last Friday I was on a panel hosted by OHSU medical students to talk about the barriers that exist between houseless folks and the medical world. Somebody asked what I would do if I had unlimited dollars to 'solve this problem'. I rambled for a while about ending capitalism and how we need to move beyond seeing humans as either deserving or underserving...It wasn't a great answer, but then this happened and I can't stop thinking about it:

8:30 on Tuesday my phone rings. I kind of recognize the number but it's not in my phone. Usually I would ignore, but I followed the impulse and picked up.

"John, this is officer M.S., we talked a while ago at the community house. You still in the Sunnyside neighborhood? You still helping folks on the street?"

Yes.

He continued, "I have a problem I wonder if you can help with. You were the best i could think to call. There's a guy you might know who was sleeping at 34th and Belmont. He is too cold. Do you have or know anything to keep him warm?"

"I do. I can get there in a minute. Anything else to know while I gather stuff?"

"Guy named J, you probably would recognize him...he got so cold this morning that he lit a fire on the sidewalk and fell asleep again. His blanket lit on fire and I just happened by and saw smoldering and pulled over."

I threw a few items in the bike and rode down there. As I arrived a fire truck was pulling away and Officer MJ was crouched down talking to a shivering man. A small pile of wet ashes lay on the ground. Another neighbor pulled over her car and was running across the street with two more blankets she had waiting in her vehicle to offer.

I immediately recognized Bluto! A man I've known for a long time... He is, like the rest of us, a complicated person full of the entire range of emotions and experiences. The last time I saw him he asked me to call his son to tell him that he was still alive. He was worried that his son might not want to hear directly from him, but he wanted to say I love you. He smiled broadly, "Yo John! Why's this cop got your number? Just kidding, thanks for the blanket."

Officer straightened up, let me take care of Bluto for a couple minutes then said, "He is so cold today. Clearly he doesn't need to go to jail for anything and the paramedics made sure he wasn't burnt. I'm going to work now to see about getting him in some sort of shelter inside as soon as possible. Is it okay if I put your number down, John? If my team has updates and can't find him, can we call you?"

Yep. What are the odds of getting him inside?

"It's the most heartbreaking and hardest...but I'm going to bat for him as much as I can. There's not enough housing that works for enough people. Thanks for helping me this morning."

I thanked officer for calling me instead of taking him to jail. I thanked him for knowing his name. I thanked him for stopping with concern for Bluto's safety instead of for the value of the property that was being burnt.

All of that sits like an example of the question asked at the panel. We certainly need more dollars and more housing and more help. We certainly need to shift dollars from police budgets to people whose job it is to look out for safety and community health.

But what we really need is to be able to work together, rather than as adversaries. We can hold the truth that things need to change AND that we can use what we have differently than we do. We seem to have a crisis of imagination running right alongside the humanitarian and health crises.

If the police see a sleeping body as one to harass into movement or as a body to arrest into jail, nobody wins. If citizens in houses see a body coughing from under a blanket and are too afraid to offer a bottle of water, we all lose. If houseless folks are so defensive from years of persecution and abuse that they yell at a neighbor who is otherwise trying to offer help, walls get built. When we watch each other as suspects to be wary of rather than people to smile at, I think we become a little less human. Or rather, we become a version of human that is farther from the reality that I want.