The Healthy Homeless in Philadelphia

Thom Nickels Thu, Nov 19, 2020 By Thom Nickels Contributing Editor Mark and his brother Keith are from Delaware and have called Philadelphia their home since the early summer. Mark, 36, and Keith, 27, are both homeless and have a drug problem. Their drug problem is responsible for their homelessness. In his former life, Mark had a substantial income, two cars, a wife and family. As a general rule, he has always taken care of his younger brother Keith, the "baby” of the family. Throughout the summer I’d observe the brothers panhandling in the middle of Aramingo Avenue in the city’s Riverwards neighborhood. Mark is known for picking up litter and trash along the Avenue, and passing drivers often reward him for this by handing him large bills. On summer days, panhandling isn’t so bad yet it still necessitated Mark having to "prep up” for his daily ‘work out.’ He told me he has to prepare himself mentally for the abuse, insults, obscenities and the many objects sometimes thrown at him from passing cars. The pay off at the end of a good day is often worth it; he makes as much as $60 to $80. Keith tends to bring in more cash, earning as much as $100. The bad days are often horrendous: $10.00 for 4 hours of panhandling. Periodically a driver will stop and give either Mark or Keith a $100 bill. The police are generally tolerant and understanding and leave the brothers alone. "But there is always that one cop,” Mark says. "That one cop out of ten or twenty who has a bug up his ass and who likes to harass and show off his power.” Currently, Mark has one such cop on his tail. Mark and the cop have played cat and mouse all summer long. Mark and Keith live in a little cardboard condo they built inside an alcove at Arby’s restaurant located just off the Avenue. The condo is in the rear of the restaurant so it affords them some privacy. The little condo for two has two mini mattresses side by side with a headboard shelf filled with personal care products and small pillows. Mark constructed a cardboard screen to block views from the driveway as there are often passersby or rogue cars that circle about aimlessly. Mark was able to construct this little home away from home because he made an unofficial deal with security: he cleans up the Arby’s property and acts as unofficial night watchman in exchange for overnight sleeping privileges. At the crack of dawn, the condo has to be packed into large duffle bags and either placed in a hiding place until evening or carried on the brothers’ back. Mark and Keith keep to themselves and don’t hang around other homeless people. Other homeless people, they say, are not to be trusted. It’s world where friends steal from friends. "They will take the shoes and socks off your feet when you are sleeping. They will steal your cell phone, go through your pockets,” Mark says. Because they are brothers, Mark and Keith trust one another but trust is almost impossible to find on the street. Both Mark and Keith wear face masks when they have to, such as when they go into the local WAWA or Rite Aid, but when they canvass Aramingo Avenue they do not wear masks. They haven’t worn masks while panhandling all summer, and they are not wearing masks this fall nor do they plan on wearing masks into the dead of winter. The brothers are not paranoid about catching covid-19 unlike many of the millennials who live in the area who wear face masks while driving alone in their cars (with the windows up) or when they jog or cycle alone, far from the maddening crowds. Mark and Keith seem to be incredibly healthy. Their meals consist of bought deli sandwiches, soups, and various delicacies passed to them from drivers along the Avenue. They use public restrooms to wash up. These sink baths somehow manage to be enough to ward off any unpleasant smells. The brothers always have an extra bag of clean clothes in their duffle bags but they prefer to panhandle in ratty clothing. A panhandler in rags will elicit more sympathy than one who appears to be well dressed. One time, Mark was given a Brooks Brothers outfit—a striped crew-style sweater, khakis, and a casual golfing jacket--- and while he felt good wearing it, he made much less money panhandling. When he went back to his ripped blue jeans and dirt encrusted white sneakers, the money once again poured in. Mark loves Philadelphia and says that one day he hopes to be able to afford a small room or apartment. He says he has worries about his brother Keith because Keith will panhandle all day and all night just to get more and more drugs. "Keith doesn’t know when to stop. Me? I just get what I need everyday so I don’t get sick but Keith will ride that wave forever.” For months now Mark has been saying how much he fears the winter months when panhandling will become difficult if not impossible because of the cold. Sleeping in the cold is hell. "I need to get my brother and me into rehab before the cold weather months,” he said. But that has not happened yet. The brothers make daily runs into Kensington to get their drugs then head back to the Avenue to panhandle. Their days are highly structured: Mornings are for getting "medication” (code for fix), then something to eat. Free stuff is also available in the mornings. Food, clothing and snacks from various agencies used to be available all day but since covid -19 the hours have been restricted. Some homeless cannot make the tight Some homeless cannot make the tight time guidelines because living on the street isn’t always conducive to a fixed schedule. Mark and Keith see their mother in Delaware about once a month. At home they can shower and wash their clothes and get home cooked food and watch TV, but because they are addicted and haven’t been to rehab they have to go back to Philadelphia. Mark often talks about his mother and how growing up, she seemed to favor and spoil Keith because "he was the baby.” "I won’t go to rehab and leave him [Keith} here alone,” Mark told me. "If I go to rehab, he comes with me. " Mark likes to say how none of the homeless people he knows has ever had covid-19. The people he has seen dying or dead have all been victims of violence (gunshots), but covid-19 doesn’t even seem to be on his radar. I’ve heard this from other homeless as well. In the beginning of the pandemic great fears were raised about covid-19 decimating the homeless population. The homeless were even perceived as possible covid-19 vectors for the general public. Horrible scenarios were forecast that never materialized. The homeless seem to live their lives to the fullest—it’s survival at its most primitive and original—panhandling, eating take-out on city sidewalks, taking sink baths in public washrooms (or not taking sink baths), and sleeping on the ground in unsavory places. In some ways, it seems that many of the homeless have built up immunity to covid-19. Talk to any homeless person and you’ll likely hear the refrain, "I don’t know anyone on the streets with covid-19, but my grandmother died of it.” In other words, a much older person living in a protected germ free "bubble” environment where there are never any dirty hands or meals being eaten on the sidewalk. Perhaps the moral here is that when you "bubble up” or protect yourself to a fanatical degree, your immune system becomes a moving target for invasive viruses. "Back in mid-March,” City Journal New Yorkreports, "the Los Angeles Times warned that ‘coronavirus hitting California’s homeless population could be what finally breaks hospitals,’ as one headline put it. Fears of such strain on the health-care system have long since receded. The hospital overflow system that Washington State’s King County built to accommodate the homeless, which was highly touted by the federal government, never came close to using its full capacity.” One day Mark informed me that he was fighting off an annoying cold. He complained of headaches and said that the night before he went to bed early in his cardboard condo to "sniffle it out. The next day he was feeling better and by day 3 he was back to normal. Never once did it occur to him that he had to run, panic stricken, to the nearest covid-19 testing station. Hearing Mark’s story, I imagined a 24/7 indoor/outdoor mask wearing millennial experiencing a similar cold and racing against time to get tested, all the while fearing the worst of events---death and destruction as the sky overhead, Chicken Little style, began to hurl towards the earth. While the poor homeless may not be able to teach us much in the way of keeping away from drugs, they have so many other wise and sensible lessons to impart. "And he said unto them, He that hath ears to hear, let him hear…”