A few weeks back a homeless man hanged himself. His death was marked by cruel comments. His demise greeted as an opportunity for some to spew hatred at those they do not know, those they don’t want as part of our community. The old condemnations and stereotypes were circulated, with the old solutions offered: Put them on buses to Bakersfield, other places, any place other than here.
These sentiments were briefly floated a few years back as an idea to rearrange benches on State Street, so the homeless would have no place in Santa Barbara to sit. In reality, the citizens-as-consumers would not have to face poverty as flesh and blood. It’s always easier to hate in the abstract than to come face to face with one’s prejudices and fears.
Of course, there was an outcry by the better elements, but those in power felt threatened by the reaction. Within my own department, it was made clear that my outspoken opposition was a line too far and consequences would be forthcoming — and, in fact, they were.
I was deeply saddened that some of the perpetual hate mongers couldn’t, or wouldn’t, take a break and simply offer kind words of condolences. They would not or could not take this opportunity to reach across lines that separate us between the housed and homeless, between the poor and those better off, between those suffering from afflictions of the mind and those blessed not to be crippled by depression.
Try to think for an instant how much pain one must feel to die that way. To consciously put a noose around one’s own neck, to struggle for breath as the rope, belt or string cuts into your throat. The pain this individual must have felt as aloneness crippled his ability to see past the depression that painted his soul black.
Grieve for an instance children who may now be absent a father. Or a father or mother who may be without a son. Of course, we don’t know if he had living relatives, but that is the point. He was simply a man in deep pain, and he could only see one way out of it. Sad. Tragic. Sorrowful. So many feelings and emotions that we could respond to, and that I am sure many of us have felt.
Unfortunately, some took the tragedy to reflect a weakness within them, a fatal flaw that forbids them to simply see another human being no better nor worse than himself or herself. When we die, hatred should be left behind, not trail us as a condemnation of what the human race has become.
The Associated Press declared that a 2013 report from the National Sheriffs Association found that at least half of all people killed by police each year “have mental health problems.” The longer we refuse to correct the broken system that passes as mental health services to those in need, the more we sentence the mentally ill, and in particular the mentally ill homeless, to violent death. For many, mental illness is now a crime, in fact a capital offense, that leaves loved ones in shock and dismay. For some officers of the law, the last thing they ever thought they would end up doing is killing a gravely disabled person. More and more, these killings involve veterans broken by war.
We can either humanly and compassionately find a way to offer help and treatment to those suffering from a mental disorder, or we can continue to read about the deadly solution that we have come to accept as normal. It really is up to us.
The poem below is dedicated to the man who hanged himself in Santa Barbara.
Sitting and watching,
point of view, kneecaps to feet.
Slow shuffle tourists walking,
Millenniums lashing feet.
Hipsters plugged into “likes,”
Facebook making heartless faces.
Social media blinds by dislikes
love without a homeless face?
A wounded mind,
yet my soul intact.
Meandering thoughts full of mines
waiting to explode upon impact.
Delusions,
Hallucinations,
Hunger in bountiful abundance,
loneliness, all a way of life.
Death comes in stages,
families and friends stripped
away. Or an event singular,
Hanging like a freeway sign.
Last lullaby — rushing traffic
solitude’s punishing indifference.
Herd thinning
coldest hearts infer.
The pain of aloneness,
pain of mental illness?
Hurt by helping hands absent?
spirituality lived like an illusion.
“Freeloaders,” “bums”
dawn to Santa Barbara
To die?
or mirrors of reflection?
Mothers, fathers.
daughters, sons.
Loved ones don’t fit
are you so sure?
Swinging slow as sadness.
cruelty hurts.
Those who hide behind names — less
cruel sentiments tear my heart.
Parents without…
I, a son no more.
Children without…
a father no more.
Herd thinning,
you win.
I’m through
— Ken Williams has been a social worker for the homeless for the past 30 years, and is the author of China White, Shattered Dreams: A Story of the Streets and his first nonfiction book, There Must Be Honor. Click here to read previous columns. The opinions expressed are his own.