Ralph Peters: American Calcutta
ONE of the best ways to see a city's bones is to take a long jog in the hour before dawn. That's what I did in San Francisco this week.
The city reminded me of Calcutta.
By day, the camouflage of color and crowds makes the multitudes of homeless less apparent. At the chilly end of the night, though, they lie strewn on the sidewalks like plague victims, wrapped in filthy blankets and abandoned.
New Yorkers have no idea how bad a homeless crisis can be.
I didn't even run in the rougher sections, where old garbage fills the alleys and druggies prowl. My course ran from the slopes of Nob Hill, south of Union Square, down to the Embarcadero, up to North Beach and back. That's the better part of downtown.
My new symbol of San Francisco is a man with ulcerous calves exposed, head and torso thrust into a cardboard box in front of a Prada boutique.
What I saw as I sidestepped bodies wasn't just the failure of social policies, but a collective flight from responsibility. Shrugging our shoulders and declaiming The homeless deserve the right to make their own choices! just lets us all off the hook.
I refuse to romanticize the homeless - unlike those who live in San Francisco's multimillion-dollar Victorians and idealize the homeless from a distance, then cross the street to avoid giving a deranged beggar a quarter.
When it comes to the capable-but-unwilling homeless, John Stuart Mill's rule applies: The individual is entitled to the maximum individual freedom compatible with the freedom and well being of others. As long as he or she poses no criminal, health or aggravated-nuisance threats, the rest of us just have to suck it up.
My problem lies in our moral cowardice regarding those who aren't capable of making sane decisions. When we write off a man or woman who is clearly disturbed, incapable of basic sanitary practices and living at a level below that we accord our pets, we shouldn't pat ourselves on the back for giving him or her a handout now and then.
We're avoiding the hard moral choices, the questions whose best answers still leave us uneasy: We worry more about stray dogs and cats than we do about stray humans...
Read entire article at New York Post
The city reminded me of Calcutta.
By day, the camouflage of color and crowds makes the multitudes of homeless less apparent. At the chilly end of the night, though, they lie strewn on the sidewalks like plague victims, wrapped in filthy blankets and abandoned.
New Yorkers have no idea how bad a homeless crisis can be.
I didn't even run in the rougher sections, where old garbage fills the alleys and druggies prowl. My course ran from the slopes of Nob Hill, south of Union Square, down to the Embarcadero, up to North Beach and back. That's the better part of downtown.
My new symbol of San Francisco is a man with ulcerous calves exposed, head and torso thrust into a cardboard box in front of a Prada boutique.
What I saw as I sidestepped bodies wasn't just the failure of social policies, but a collective flight from responsibility. Shrugging our shoulders and declaiming The homeless deserve the right to make their own choices! just lets us all off the hook.
I refuse to romanticize the homeless - unlike those who live in San Francisco's multimillion-dollar Victorians and idealize the homeless from a distance, then cross the street to avoid giving a deranged beggar a quarter.
When it comes to the capable-but-unwilling homeless, John Stuart Mill's rule applies: The individual is entitled to the maximum individual freedom compatible with the freedom and well being of others. As long as he or she poses no criminal, health or aggravated-nuisance threats, the rest of us just have to suck it up.
My problem lies in our moral cowardice regarding those who aren't capable of making sane decisions. When we write off a man or woman who is clearly disturbed, incapable of basic sanitary practices and living at a level below that we accord our pets, we shouldn't pat ourselves on the back for giving him or her a handout now and then.
We're avoiding the hard moral choices, the questions whose best answers still leave us uneasy: We worry more about stray dogs and cats than we do about stray humans...