What More Shameful Than Picking On A Homeless Guy?

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Observations from 3rd and Church

Headed to Huntsville, Alabama tomorrow then on to Jacksonville for the Gator Bowl on January 1st where I will be a Cornhusker for a day. Current location: King's Market, a convenience store with cheap coffee and free WiFi at Church Street and 3rd Ave. North. This is also a favorite corner for the local homeless people to hang out and swap news. It’s a perfect listening post for what's going on in their world and what cities are having crackdowns or enforcing panhandling laws. Atlanta is cracking down again, so we have some new faces. In Nashville, even the homeless are noticeably polite as a rule, so you can sit and listen.

"Kitchen", a local, explains to a newbie where to find the rescue mission and the general rules of the place. Kitchen is perfectly coherent when he's on his meds but tends to shout obscenities at people who are not there when he's off them. Kitchen says the new cameras at every corner have made it a lot safer around here, not that it was ever like East Memphis to start with but the little flashing blue lights seem to act as a deterrent. This is important when you are planning to sleep on a grate. Especially if you are a stranger. He also explains the local panhandling ordinance and how it works in practice. The law allows you to approach strangers and ask them for money, cigarettes, etc. as long as you are not "aggressive" about it. What constitutes "aggressive" panhandling obviously must come down to the officer's discretion which does not tend to favor vagrants. So anybody who's well dressed can complain about Kitchen’s behavior. Kitchen is opposed to this.

I remember when Nashville passed its version of this increasingly common ordinance about panhandling. The Scene (our local Village Voice subsidiary in case you‘re wondering what style guide they‘re using) was generally opposed but, predictably, attacked it in the overstrained, emotive manner common to graduates of The Hamfist School of Journalism. “A Darwinian Battle” between haves and have-nots, they hyperbolized; or maybe it was “an epic struggle”, I forget. Heaven forbid we should omit a modifier and forget to make our struggles “epic” or our majorities “vast.” I wonder the subeditor doesn’t have a giant salt and pepper shaker set on his desk marked “adjectives” and “adverbs” for sprinkling arbitrarily over insufficiently hyperventilating manuscripts…but I digress. The author closed his opening paragraph with what, I can only assume, was intended to be a snarky observation, “Wonder who’s going to win that one?”

Funny you should ask, I have it on pretty good authority that the poor are always going to be around here somewhere, so we really ought to figure out intelligent ways to address this chronic social concern. This puts me in the uncomfortable position of admitting that The Scene may have a point here, however clumsily they choose to make it . In fairness to Kitchen, when did it become a crime to be poor?

I mean, sure, as a rule I avoid talking to Kitchen (especially when he’s shouting at people only he can see), and, sure, the truth is I consider him an example of the kind of minor nuisances you just lean to deal with if you want to live in a city. Like pigeons, construction noise, and local hack journalism, you deal with it or find yourself a nice suburb and settle down to your chosen commute and USA Today. If this sounds crass, consider this: while I could do without Kitchen slinking around 1st Avenue looking for parked cars without alarm systems for the occasional smash-and-grab opportunity, I can’t abide a law that, in practice, draws a distinction between me sitting on a public bench and him sitting on a public bench should I perceive that he’s being “threatening.”

In case I wasn’t decided on this issue, next came an interview with a spokesman for something called The Urban Resident’s Association. The spokesman, whose name I’ll leave out in hopes that he is now ashamed of himself, explained why he and other members of this organization chose to live downtown. It’s all about something called “lifestyle.” If you are experiencing flashbacks to dialogue in Fight Club right now, you aren’t alone (“which dinette set defines me as a person”). It seems that Kitchen was not part of the “lifestyle” he “envisioned.” Then he referred to himself as an “urban pioneer” and before I could help myself I was shouting at someone who wasn’t there. Urban pioneer? Daniel Boon was a pioneer. Neil Armstrong was a pioneer. Even Louis Armstrong was a pioneer in a certain sense. A guy shopping for the condo that offers him the best amenities for his dollar so he can have the “lifestyle” he “envisioned” is not a pioneer in any sense. He just a self-absorbed materialistic yuppie without empathy who wants to make it illegal to ask him for a dime because it makes him feel threatened to have to say “no” firmly to a guy who looks like he’d rob him for it if he thought he could get away with it.

Given the choice, I’d prefer the guy who would rob me if he could get away with it to the guy who wants to make it a crime to make him feel uncomfortable. The bum with the knife can only take money from me, and he has to stand toe-to-toe and take his chances. The yuppie with the inflated sense of the importance of his lifestyle can take a lot more than money away, and he does it while hiding behind armed policemen who have other things to worry about.

So I’d prefer to let Kitchen hang around, but I’ll keep a careful eye on him.

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