FAUST: So, I drove by this homeless camp at Harrison and 22nd today. It really looks like hell back behind the (grocery store). What can The Tunnel do about something like that?
ME: Nothing. Well, I shouldn’t say nothing. A few of the initiatives help prevent homelessness from occurring, and the awareness aspect helps, too, but this is where the resources can easily be spread too thin. Think about it, if you had a few grand available to help out, what could you reasonably do to deal with a situation like that? Not much. But what if you had a few hundred thousand available? Now you’ve got some power to get things done. So, what would you do?
FAUST: I don’t know, maybe look at buying a place where they could live. I’m sure there are houses for sale in the area. The city probably has some abandoned buildings downtown where they could set up camp instead of being out in the open. I know they’re not going to stop doing drugs, but the trash and open air drug use would stop.
ME: Ok, so you’re not unrealistic about it. You know you’re not going to solve the problem, but at least you won’t have to see it. That’s actually where a lot of cities are right now. They’re building housing complexes and they come through and clean out the tarps and tents every now and then. They’re making the effort to clean up the cities, but it’s not working. The problem is, they can’t quarantine the people. They can’t force them to stay in the buildings, and they don’t have the manpower to keep them from rebuilding the tent cities. All we’re doing is spending a ton of money to move these people around from place to place.
If you bought a house and put twenty people in it, they’d have it wrecked in two weeks and be back where they started. A few of them would try to keep it nice, but the mental illness and drug use would collapse the “societal structure” of the place.
FAUST: Sure, but after a while, the crappy drug users and mentally ill people would keep going back on the street, leaving only decent people who want to keep it nice. You’re right, it wouldn’t help to eliminate the tarps and trash, but a few people would be helped and actually appreciate it.
ME: Now you’re starting to get it. We can’t help everyone. In fact, if you were to walk through any of the encampments around town, you’d probably find that at least 80% of people don’t want to leave the lifestyle. They’re mostly drug addicts. They’ve been on the street for years, even decades, they’re fully aware of the programs and institutions available to help them get cleaned up, get housing, get a mailing address, get food and medical treatment, they can even get help finding Jesus. But they don’t. Food and medical, yeah, but the rest has no appeal to them. If it did, they’d be out of there.
So instead of spending a ton of money trying to put lots of people in places they don’t want to be, the plan is to spend a ton of money putting people who do want to get out into places where they can get out and stay out.
FAUST: But if they’re fully aware of the places that offer help, why aren’t they already taking advantage of those?
ME: Typically, it’s the newbies who aren’t aware of the systems that are already in place—they just need to be made aware. They might not be on drugs. They’re more likely to be living in their cars or with friends or relatives. Then there are the hard cases—the prideful ones who won’t accept help—these are usually addicts who still have some pride, but are delusional enough to think they’re going to work their way out of it. Sometimes I get a response to a business card, where someone goes through something horrible and they say “enough!” and call the number on the card. These people are salvageable, but usually need to detox and get their head on straight. There are places for each of those, and then we can help them get back on their feet if they’re decent enough people.
FAUST: What do you mean by “decent enough?”
ME: Well, if the person’s idea of getting back on their feet is resuming their work in the flesh-peddling industry, we’re not going to invest in that. Someone like that is going to have to put in a lot of time showing that they’re turning over a new leaf. That’s pretty rare. What usually happens is the person is a vet—they’re the most likely to pull out of the funk and react well to the treatment people are offering. Until we’re more capable of giving them the help they need, we get them over to Tunnel to Towers or Wounded Warrior, or the VA if they need immediate medical attention. Sometimes things get pretty bad. Of course, we’re willing to help anyone who legitimately wants and needs it, but honestly, the help most of these folks need first is psychological, but that’s not going to happen unless they’re clean. That’s easy enough to get. There are plenty of ways to get help with detox treatment, then the psych therapy starts. We get updates along the way, and when they’re ready, we can help in a lot of ways—whatever is needed to make sure they have the best shot at becoming a success story.
FAUST: That’s pretty awesome. Are you stuff like job placement or just housing?
ME: Whatever we can do. If job placement is necessary, we’ll do that. Most people have what it takes to get a job, they just need a mailing address. They’ve learned that they can live with pretty much nothing, so saving money is easy. Housing can be tough. The best thing is to get people reunited with family, as long as they haven’t completely burned those bridges. If that’s not possible, the next best thing is to relocate to another city or town—somewhere where they can’t easily reconnect with old friends and bad habits. They really do get to start over. The plan is to stay in contact with them so the success story remains successful. I don’t know how realistic that is, but I think that would be cool.
FAUST: Where did you come up with all of these plans? I mean, how do you know this is what they need?
ME: Talking to people—to them, to health care workers, to volunteers, to cops. Spending a few nights in the tunnel changes your perspective, for sure. It’s a lot.
FAUST: ???
ME: Like, when I first spent the day just walking along the river, I thought, sunscreen, beef sticks to offer people, bottles of water, a little cash, my knife, my phone, and a hat. That day—day friggin one—I met a lady with two kids who was afraid to go home. That all went pretty well, but after all day walking with my sunscreen and beef sticks, I have one word for you, my friend: chaffing.
FAUST: Oh s***.
ME: That’s just one small thing. Like, When I was sitting on a little wall talking to a lady with a small dog—a Jack Russell named Abraham—that was all good, and Abraham came and sat on my lap. She said he never does that, but you know me and dogs. So that was a nice, simple interaction, but later I was thinking Abraham could have had fleas or something. I mean he didn’t, but he could have, and what would I have done at that point? So then I was thinking about those tent cities and all the donated stuff—what are the odds that none of it has any bed bugs? To quote Sweet Brown, ain’t nobody got time for that!
FAUST: Sweet Brown! I forgot about her. Yeah, I’m not down for bed bugs. I wonder what happens to them if they feed on somebody who’s high on fentanyl.
ME: That is something I hadn’t considered. Maybe you could get some government funding and assemble a research team to find out. You could make a lot of addicts’ lives much more comfortable in their tents.
FAUST: I am nothing if not humanitarian.
ME: Indeed.
FAUST: What about bigger things? What’s the biggest thing you didn’t expect so far?
ME: Hard to say. There are a few big things. The amount of drug use is pretty amazing. I knew it would be bad, but I didn’t realize how widespread it is. I thought I’d find more people who were just down on their luck or overwhelmed by bills, but it’s mostly drugs.
The hopelessness is pretty bad. It’s amazing how much money it costs to be homeless. When you walk away from your mortgage and credit cards and whatever else you had before hitting the street, those debts are still there and accruing interest. Your credit is shot. Any hope of buying a car is at least seven years out once you file bankruptcy, and filing bankruptcy is the last thing on anyone’s mind. Legal and financial aid are things I didn’t expect to have to provide on the road to recovery.
I think the biggest thing is the monotony of it all. As diverse as things can be—I mean every day has held some bizarre new situation—the majority of the daytime is just the same. You see bodies passed out here and there, wonder if they’re dead or alive. You have this constant distrust—they don’t so much, but I do—because you never know who you’re walking up to. It’s a constant state of negativity, whether it’s fear or sadness or pity… it can really drag you down.
FAUST: That sucks.
ME: Yeah, but there are good things. As bad as things are, it makes the good things that much better. When you find someone you can help, it’s fantastic! It’s like every one of these people is an unscratched lottery ticket on the ground, and most of them are interesting to pick up and scratch off—you think you might have a winner, but usually no. Sometimes you might get a buck or two out of it, so it’s worth the effort. But then you find a winner—a big winner. It’s like that.
There was this Navy vet who had been on the street for eleven years. He’d never heard of the Tunnel to Towers Foundation. I think he’d been on the street since before its inception. He’d been keeping far away from the drug addicts, living on whatever was coming in monthly from his service. It was more than he needed, but also far less. I told him about T2T.org and it was a little kid tasting ice cream for the first time. I told him as much as I could remember about them. That was a lesson learned for me, too. I didn’t know their “homeless vet” team isn’t available on weekends. When we called, it was a little bit of a setback, but luckily he understood and was anxious to get in touch on Monday. This dude had no idea who the president was. He’d never heard of Joe Biden. He knew about Trump, but he was so disconnected from society for so long, he’d missed three years of the Biden presidency. That’s crazy!
FAUST: That is unbelievable. Hopefully you’ll find more like him. It’s like a whole weird subculture existing right in front of us and we don’t even know anything about them. I hope this thing works out for you. It’s a monster of a mission. Keep me posted.
ME: Get yourself a subscription and you’ll be up to speed on a lot of it. I hope it works out too.
END OF PART TWO