Ronald Thwaites | Mourning Chris: We have to rescue the homeless

HIS BEAT was on East Street, where it intersects with East Queen Street in downtown Kingston. Any weekday, slight, intense, clean, he could spot you far away in any line of traffic and through the darkest window tint. There was something naive, not hardened, about his approach to begging.

Chris needed money today to go to Bellevue to get his regular injection and tomorrow for some food. He said he wanted to take my daughter to the movies and wondered if he could marry her. “Dat no matter,” he responded earnestly when told that she was already married with a family.

I never asked Chris for his right name nor enquired where he lived, even though he told me that often “bad man” would steal his little money at night. Once, he reported to me that the night shelter was stink. He thought the MP should do something about that. Who else?

I guess I just normalised his homelessness like that of so many others. Years before, I had been overwhelmed when an old Rhodes Scholar with a mental condition had fallen on hard times and was living on the street, until the blessed Salvation Army took him in at nights.

As time passes, if you continue working in the inner city, you had better develop emotional scar tissue at the sight of homelessness, poverty and violence or you will become mad yourself.

(It’s worse if one is so tender or prescient as to compare the humanity of these outcasts with the careless extravagance of wealth just up the road! Better just give them a money, maybe a weak “God Bless you”, and hurry on.)

TAKEN FOR GRANTED

So I came to take Chris’ condition for granted. Just like Paulette Woods, ‘Lasco’, Paul, Carrol, ‘Redbumbo’ and many others. Try to get Mother Theresa or Father Ho lung to take in one or two –usually only possible when they were dying.

Well, Chris had his head bashed in and was stabbed multiple times last weekend, just behind the police station and almost in front of the courthouse.

One of the others butchered, the tall one with the barrel with precious (to him) junk in it, used to tell me that he had the biggest suing case of my career to give me. The tragedy of street life has intervened.

Something like this was bound to happen. So, too, the official hand-wringing, and the real and crocodile tears that have flowed this week. More sorrow for Chris and the others in death than compassion was extended to them in life.

By next week or so we will have moved on. Excuses will be proffered that people like Chris “prefer their freedom” rather than to be institutionalised. “And don’t you realise, Ronnie, that there isn’t enough money for more mental health officers? And in any event, since you are so mournful, why wasn’t more relief provided when ‘your government’ was in power”? Exactly.

Last week, too, Lloyd B. Smith wrote about the shortage of black, family-owned businesses. He is right; and there is a similarity between that reality and the street people. Strong families make both for good businesses and opportunities to care for weaker members.

The truth is that the deconstruction of many Jamaican family relationships is at the core of both situations. Public spaces, Bellevue, the public hospitals and the prisons, are full of mostly male elderly, some mentally challenged persons who lack the filial bonds to care for them and give them dignity.

THE CAUSE

Poverty is often the cause. Check the hundreds of thousands, evidenced by the University of Technology study, who do not have enough food. And it is getting worse. Old people, and those who are troublesome, frequently have to settle for the ‘what-lef’. For many, that means homelessness. Even if you have NIS, that can’t stretch for more than one week per month.

An inevitable part of our response to last week’s slaughter has been to find and punish whoever is the murderer. While that is work for the police, the rest of us must tackle the deeper social issues at two levels.

It must not be beyond us to afford temporary accommodation for a thousand street people in Kingston and smaller numbers in other towns. Ask those charities who have a history of effective caring to help. The money provisions must come in next month’s budget. What is the point of spending to pretty up Kingston, Montego Bay or anywhere, while ignoring the human problem of vagrancy?

Alongside that, starting now, could we prepare for Independence 60 with a national campaign promoting respect for life, uplifting everyone’s human dignity and responsibility, from the unborn to the street people : especially the most vulnerable?

President Biden has committed his presidency to recovering the ‘soul’ of America. Which of our political and social leaders –hopefully all – will make an equally fervent effort to enliven our ‘soul dance’ of kindness and genuine, not token, care for all ?

For then, we would have redeemed good purpose from Chris’ unfortunate life and cruel death.

Rev Ronald G. Thwaites is an attorney-at-law. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.