Two Sundays ago, after many years off, I took my teenage son downtown to Andre House where the Catholics feed the homeless.
I ended up working on the serving line, plunking pieces of watermelon on plates, dessert to accompany the main course of rice and beans. There was no chili this Sunday. Not enough volunteers to cut up the ingredients, according to crew chief Lorenzo.
I ended up working on the serving line, plunking pieces of watermelon on plates, dessert to accompany the main course of rice and beans. There was no chili this Sunday. Not enough volunteers to cut up the ingredients, according to crew chief Lorenzo.
An argument broke out just before the food line shut down. A large disturbed black man was shouting at a tiny white girl, one of the devout college students who volunteer to spend a year at Andre House. He had violated one of the house rules and she was telling him to get back in line. The shouting became very threatening as the large man towered over the little girl. She stood her ground and didn't waver. The black lady who like me is helping serve whispers in my ear: "I'm really scared." I'm thinking I'm way too old for this and if I say or do anything I'll probably set off a fight. Wait. Maybe he'll forget why he's mad or just run out of steam. Eventually he does and leaves. The black lady volunteer asks the tiny white girl if she was afraid. The tiny white girl says... "A little. Sometimes they punch the male volunteers, but they won't hit a girl."
The majority of the homeless are mentally ill... inherited, bad luck, or induced by addiction, neglect or abuse. Fifty years ago they'd be locked up in a hospital. In our benevolence, we've turned them out onto the streets where the cops now have to play psychiatric social worker, a job they are not intended or prepared to do, constantly.
The crime isn't that some knuckleheads beat up a homeless guy in Boston. It's that a "benevolent" society has turned the mentally ill out into the streets.
