It’s Raining and Cold. The Homeless Are Still Outside.

by John Lawrence / January 16, 2019

I take a shortcut every day through Walter Way in my home town of El Cajon. It saves me from going through one stop light at 2nd and Madison. Walter Way is little more than a glorified alley paralleling 2nd Street. In between there’s a McDonald’s, a Walgreen’s a Subway and a few other fast food places. Walter Way has been home to quite a large homeless settlement for some time. The other day there were 3 dump trucks and 3 El Cajon police cars clearing out the homeless and all their possessions from Walter Way.

All the tents, shopping carts, dogs, tarps and other paraphernalia were gone by mid day. Walter Way remained clear for about a day and a half, and then the homeless were back minus some of their possessions which had been thrown in the dump trucks. I imagine they got to take at least some things with them before the workers heaved the rest of the stuff into the dump trucks.

El Cajon has a homeless problem. San Diego has a homeless problem. San Diego County has a homeless problem. California has a homeless problem. The US has a homeless problem. People just can’t afford skyrocketing rents. As a senior citizen, I worry about what will happen if my life doesn’t run out before my money runs out. My savings are finite. If they don’t last me till I’m dead, I will be joining the ranks of the homeless too. I hate to see old women living on the streets. But they are. Limbless veterans too. People in their eighties who can’t pay the rent. They will die on the streets with no one to care for them.

The San Diego Union-Tribune reported:

A 64-year-old woman who had been living on the streets of El Cajon since last fall is starting a new life in Riverside County.

The plight of Carol DeLaurentis, featured in a Feb. 5 story in The San Diego Union-Tribune, captured the heart of a Temecula-based developer.

Ginger Hitzke, who has built a steady stream of low-income housing in Lemon Grove and other parts of the county with her Hitzke Development Corp., started making arrangements on Tuesday to get DeLaurentis sheltered.

By Wednesday afternoon, Hitzke had found both lodging and a job for DeLaurentis, who has been homeless since Oct. 9 when the landlord decided to take back the Lakeside property she and a roommate had been renting for five years.

Some people think that homeless people deserve their plight because they take drugs or are alcoholics. But there for the grace of God go I, you, everybody. Everyone takes drugs of one sort or other. I did this morning when I had my morning caffeine without which I would not be able to function. Need I mention the opioid crisis? Desperate people take more drugs. Functioning people take less. So what? If you’re on the streets for any amount of time, you’re effectively unemployable. The lucky people have family who will take them in and help them to start over. Today so many people don’t.

The US is a majoritarian society. Minorities don’t count for much whether the minority is of the ethnic, racial variety or those who have been shot in school shootings or those who have lost their homes to wildfires or hurricanes or the homeless. All these unfortunate people are minorities, and society in general is not willing to go to bat for them. At one time there was a War on Poverty. No more. Now there’s a War on the Poverty Stricken. There are solutions to the homeless problem, but NIMBYism and taxpayer reluctance to part with their money to help those whom they consider to be worthless individuals prevents any humane solutions. The Town Without Pity has become a Society Without Pity.