Timeline photos
Do you know this metaphor? Crabs in a bucket?
The idea is that anyone who tries to do better for themselves will be pulled down by all the people they are leaving behind.
It's a very real phenomenon. I see it all the time in people trying to quit addictions, trying to get out of homelessness., trying to leave a gang. It's everywhere.
I see it constantly in the work I do with homeless people.
I do something that upsets a homeless person, and then they get mad and then they try to destroy the entire thing for everyone else.
Several years ago, I was hiding some homeless people in my building. They were living in the building. I also wanted to try to open a thrift store run by homeless people. I had a couple run it. It never actually was a thrift store. It just became a hoarder's paradise. They just moved into the space. Because of the location of the store, I couldn't keep it that way. So I made them leave. As the man was walking away, he yelled: "If I can't live here, then no one can!"
He called the police and the city and told them I had people living in the building. That was the beginning of the end.
We kicked a woman out of our homeless tent village. On her way off the property, she set the porta potty on fire and caused thousands of dollars of damage to my building.
Right now, I have been slowly rolling out the bicycle repair shop in my building. I had one night watchman because people are constantly trying to break into this area of the building. (Someone tried to pry open one of our doors just last night.)
A person was angry at the way I was running things and they called the police on us at least twice for things that were made up.
I have a police officer on video saying: "I closed down the last place and I'm going to close down this place."
So, until I officially get my occupancy permit for the bicycle repair shop everything is closed down. I can't have the night watchman there. So I guess I'll just have to let people break in.
It's one of the more confounding parts of this work.
But it's not hard to understand. Homeless people are just a very glaring symbol for all of humanity. Maybe for some of you this all seems terrible and outlandish. "Why bother helping people that are so terrible?"
I'll tell you why. Because we are all this way.
Joe Biden has taken away Democratic primaries to "save democracy."
The Cleveland Catholic Church has banned Pride Flags and other forms of LGBTQ+ expression at Catholic churches and schools in Northeast Ohio.
Governments worldwide are attacking social media platforms and desperately trying to make them ban unapproved language.
And then it gets really dirty.
The FBI tried to get Martin Luther King Jr. to kill himself.
The CIA constantly undermines democracies in other countries that they don't like.
We all are destroying things that we don't like.
Last night, I was reading on Reddit about a 20-year-old who stole some things from people's porches (A porch pirate). You would think this guy was stealing babies. The amount of vitriol and hate they have for this young person is so much more disgusting than anything the robber was doing.
When you start looking at the terribleness of humanity, it's not hard to think that maybe nuclear annihilation of all of us might just be the best thing.
But that's not the answer. Giving up and hating and killing and destroying is never the answer. Those are all false shadows created by fear of things we don't understand.
True humanity is the face of creation. It is love, hope, and faith that things will get better.
We must never give up. We must never quit. Because the heart of humanity and life is so beautiful and magical and amazing. It's worth whatever fight is necessary to keep it alive one more day.