For Us And For Them

It was the pickaxe over his shoulder that bothered me. He stood shirtless in faded jeans near the railroad tracks with his back to my wife Amy and I as we walked our dog Jenny on the other side of the tracks. There were mirrored tattoos below each shoulder blade that looked like wings, but I wasn't sure because my eyes kept going back to the pickaxe.

We were on one of our usual walks where we take Jenny not too far from where we live. Jenny was oblivious to the man standing there, and if Amy noticed him, she didn't say anything at first. He faced a vacant lot where there was a makeshift wooden shelter semi-covered with palm fronds, which I assumed was his. The camp had been there for a few months already. Nearby are various businesses and a combined middle and high school (not where our kids go). 

The shirtless man with the pickaxe moved and headed toward his encampment. As he moved, I heard him say:

"These children with wicked tongues..."

And then it trailed off. I heard him say the first part again and then we were moving away from him as we walked our dog.

I asked Amy if she heard what he said and she did. There were teens everywhere being picked up along the street in front of the vacant lot, and it made us both very uncomfortable. I told her I should call the police department. Not 911, because there was no emergency; he didn't threaten anyone as he walked back to his camp. I called the non-emergency line to ask for a mental health check. They said they'd send an officer to check it out and would call me back.

According to the 2022 Homeless Point-in-Time (PIT) Count in Santa Cruz, there was a 6% increase in the number of people living unhoused in Santa Cruz County since 2019. The survey data indicated dramatic changes in health outcomes compared to those reported in 2019. For example, numbers of people self-reporting alcohol and drug use increased from 30% to 67%; reports of physical disability increased from 26% to 57%; and reports of chronic health conditions increased from 21% to 49%. These are quite dramatic increases since before the pandemic. 

Plus, nearly 40% of people experiencing homelessness self-reported psychiatric or emotional problems. The key here being self-reported (imagine how many of us in homes suffer from increasing psychiatric or emotional problems who aren't self-reporting). And maybe the shirtless man with the pickaxe wasn't really a safety problem for us and the teens getting out of school that day. The fact is we didn't know. 

When the officer called me back later that day, he asked me again to share with him what happened. Then he told me he'd check it out (although I thought he would've already done that), but there wasn't much he could do since it was private property, unless the man exhibited being a threat to himself and/or others, which he didn't when we saw him. I thanked the officer and still worried about what if -- the homeless camp is still there housing the man with the pickaxe who said out loud "these children with wicked tongues" while dozens of teens were getting picked up from school.

We've always supported allocating more resources to house and heal those who need help. We're also seeing more people breaking down everywhere resulting in senseless violence. We certainly don't want to live in fear, which is why being safe is so important to our family, and why I called for a mental health check on the homeless man. Too many times people won't call because it's inconvenient and they feel like there's always somebody else around who will (i.e., the bystander effect). 

We just can't do that. Amy and I are all about Kidpower's founding principle: Our safety and well-being of ourselves and those in our care are more important than anyone's embarrassment, inconvenience, or offense. That includes our own. This is something we live by every day, because our ultimate safety is for us and for them.