The Chaos of Street Living
By: Helen Cassidy Page
Tags: Compassion, Homeless, Living, Self, Life Lessons

A saga of life on the street where I live. Not a Julie Andrews song.

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

You’d be surprised at the number of household goods that fit in a trash can. Well, not my household goods. You’d never get a seven-foot couch or double-mirrored, antique German armoire in one of those rolling bins the street cleaners use to clean up after the homeless camps pick up and leave.

I don’t know the guys patrolling my street by name, but I recognize them by their neon-yellow vests, comfortable walking shoes, larger than healthier bellies, and wide brooms they use to sweep up the mess like the one I saw when I rolled up my blinds early this morning.

I don’t know the guys patrolling my street by name, but I recognize them by their neon-yellow vests, comfortable walking shoes, larger than healthier bellies, and wide brooms they use to sweep up the mess like the one I saw when I rolled up my blinds early this morning.

Funny thing, though, I went to bed with at least four people keeping house under two huge tarps and one camping tent across the street. I’d come to think of them as neighbors as I’ve observed them over the past several weeks.

The occupancy seemed a bit fluid.

During a storm several weeks back, I’d noticed an elderly, bearded guy who took pains every day to clean up his digs and then batten down his hatches for the coming wind event predicted on my weather app.

I don’t know his access to social media, but he probably just stuck his finger high enough in the air to feel the breeze freshening or noticed the branches bending on the nearby trees. At any rate, he was weighing down the corners of his long black tarp with jugs of water and such, coming up short at one corner.

I’d observed his meticulous housekeeping for several days since he moved into the neighborhood because, of all the homeless I’d seen take up residence across the street from my apartment building, he seemed to most closely take to heart the proverb that cleanliness is next to godliness. Or else he had a touch of OCD.

At any rate, his tidiness put my own somewhat lax housekeeping to shame.

On this particular morning, as I observed him through my living room window, where I often set up my computer to work, I became distracted by the unsecured corner of his tarp. He had an otherwise cozy redoubt safe from the elements, but as I saw the wind picking up, I could imagine it noodling at that corner and carrying the tarp away.

I’ve lived in San Francisco since the early 80s and can remember the first time in my life I ever saw someone panhandle. It shocked me to my core. Not even growing up in New York, when I made frequent trips to Manhattan, had I seen a beggar or homeless person, though they may have existed. And I grew up in the blue-collar Bronx, where the down and out certainly lived.

My first reaction to the appearance of the homeless was one of anger, and after almost forty years later, even as I remain a proud bubble-headed liberal, I have compassion, anger, and disgust enough for parties on all sides of the issue as appropriate.

I have about as much taste for people living, sleeping, eating, fucking, shitting, and fighting outside my front door as the next person. However, I also have great compassion for those unable to care for themselves who are thrust on the street with few resources to face a harsh, unfeeling world.

On the particular storm-tossed morning in question, compassion ruled my emotions, and I worried for the safety of the man who’d crept under his tarp to wait out the storm. By now, I’d seen him organize his belongings and keep them orderly on the piece of sidewalk he’d claimed for himself for a little over a week.

I remembered I had a gallon jug of water I didn’t need in the back of my closet. As the rain began to fall, I dug it out, suited up, and wobbled on my cane against the wind. As I placed the jug on the corner of his tarp, I saw two kindly eyes peeking out from a tear in the tarp. I explained that I had weighted down his tarp. He thanked me, and I wished him well during the storm and hurried off.

By the time I returned upstairs, I saw he’d come out of his warren, put my jug of water off to the side and the corner remained, at least to my eye, unsecured. Hours later, after the storm had passed, the tarp remained securely in place.

The man knew a thing or two about building a hut and clearly didn’t need my help.

While he hadn’t used my donation–it remained against the wall of the Buddhist temple where he’d set up camp (irony or merely incongruous?), we had a connection, at least on my part, and I looked out on him each day with concern as he crawled out to take care of his chores, sticking his trash in the curb for pickup by the streetcleaner during the night and so on.

Of all the homeless encampments I’ve seen in my wanderings through the city, his was by far most worthy of a Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.

All seemed cozy across the street. Occasionally, my neighbor would flip the lid on his little snug and air it out. I’d see pallets and pillows for 3 or 4 men or apparently shared the space with him, a pile of books and other belongings, everything neat and tidy. Several doors down, under an ungainly white tarp, a lone homeless person lived by himself in an unused alcove of a building, seemingly ignoring his neighbors several feet away. I never saw them visiting or chatting, though what went on during the night, I cannot say.

And then, drum roll — a woman appeared.

Before long, the roommates disappeared. The tarp was in disarray. Mess appeared around the site of the encampment.

One day, the woman, long gray hair flying willy-nilly behind her, layers of many-colored clothes askew, limping in mismatched heels, went running around the corner, the bearded man racing after her in apparent supplication.

What had happened, I wondered? I’d never seen him leave home in all the time we’d been neighbors.

The next morning, they were back, busily redecorating. They’d acquired some new possessions, notably a large mirror they had propped against the wall. Although the man kindly held a sheet of some kind to give her a measure of privacy during her toilette, those of us across the street passing by our windows from the first floor up had a 360-degree view of her stripping down to her dainties in front of the mirror.

As the weeks passed, the scene across the street became wilder and more erratic. The man under the white tarp continued to keep to himself, though occasionally he would come up for air and stretch and get a bit of exercise, walking around his spot of sidewalk, before retreating to his solitude, ignoring the chaos next door.

One morning, the black tarp had blown half-way down the street. The items it had hidden were now strewn across the sidewalk, under the guardianship of the woman. What had happened to the kindly-looking bearded man?

For several days, she appeared to live there solo. My city is on lockdown now because our COVID cases have risen precipitously. I had an urgent errand one evening allowed by the new regulations and walked to the UPS store after dark. On the way, I passed the elderly man, huddled on a piece of cardboard in the doorway of a shuttered shopfront. He had no other possessions with him. I felt a flash of anger as I hurried past to reach the store before it closed, though I have no idea why he was out in the cold, and the woman had taken over his domain.

Was it a matter of domestic violence? Or was she the alpha dog in that relationship?

In the following two or three days, I saw more and more disarray around her site until pedestrians had to step over her possessions, or the ones she had taken over.

Yesterday, I saw her preening in front of her mirror while the guy under the white tarp came up for air.

Last night, as I turned out the light, more mess than usual had accumulated across the street. The woman ignored it as she crawled under a camping tent she had acquired while someone else I didn’t recognize burrowed under a sleeping bag next to it. The usual movement under the white tarp indicated that its occupant was still alive and well and might have had an overnight guest.

This morning, utter devastation.

The camping tent was gone, the white tent flapped in the wind, and the possessions of that man had scattered far and wide, at least as far as the curb. To my surprise, he had acquired quite a haul, but now he was nowhere in sight. Gone also was the woman and the guy I’d seen sleeping outside her tent.

Something had gone down during the night while I had snoozed away. Here I’d been keeping a close eye on the drama across the street. I’m not a voyeur. I’ve been closeted in my apartment for nine months now. I have no deck or back yard. My only window on the world is in my living room. I look out at pedestrians, dog walkers, traffic. Sometimes I can see passengers in the busses. I’ve occasionally amused myself imagining what might be in the trucks driving by.

Some days I go nuts with boredom. I’m sure some of you know how I feel.

I’ve been sitting on this same seven-foot couch, staring at my armoire in my small, one-bedroom apartment for so long, I’m ready to scream some days. But when I look out my window and see a homeless encampment, as much as it angers me, or hurts my heart, or perplexes me that I can live in one of the wealthiest cities in the country and watch it ignore its neediest, I am reminded that I’m among the lucky. My conscience is pricked, and I’m grateful for what I have.

Two things come to mind as I’ve been writing this story, which by the way, took longer to draft than it did for the city to remove the offending possessions.

In Breakfast at Tiffany’s, the salesman tells Audrey Hepburn that some things are always constant. Or words to that effect.

That line came to mind when I saw the two city employees rolling up with their trashcans, a sure sign the site had been permanently vacated. With gloves, masks, and an extendable grabber like the one I use to reach things on a high shelf, they made quick work of tossing the trash on the sidewalk into their cans without touching an item.

The city’s pickup truck pulled up to remove the several trash bags the two guys had filled with larger items than the leftover clothes and personal stuff that went into the rolling bins. The truck pulled behind it a portable steam cleaner. The morning sun has now dried the sidewalk, and the casual stroller new to this stretch of the street would never know anyone had ever set up housekeeping across from my building.

Efficient, heartless, also mysterious. Where are those people? What drama unfolded during the night while I slept?

I’d guess I have five days, give or take, before I see another encampment shoot up. It’s prime real estate because the buildings across the street are vacant and no one will complain about the temporary homesteaders. Not like my side of the street whose apartment owners wouldn’t stand for it.

Such is the chaos on the street where I live. As I said, not a Julie Andrews song.