Learning about the homeless, Sept 28, 2009

For people reading this blog entry that have not read my previous entries on the homeless, I encourage you to read Homeless Project Background. It will give you some background on my project. Briefly, I have made a commitment to give $20 each week to a homeless person and minimally ask their name and where they are from.

In the last couple of weeks I have seen more homeless back in my neighborhood in La Jolla. I saw Ron from Ft. Worth twice this week. He looks better than earlier in the year. I did not have time to talk with him, but he is tops on my list to get reacquainted with.

I did talk with Debra from Eureka today. She remembered me. Well, actually she remembered me by my bike that I park at Starbucks. I asked her what my name was and she looked at my bike and said Gary Fisher. That is the brand of my bike. It was interesting talking with her. She is a bit crazy. I am sorry that I can’t be more technical in my description. She had a form from the San Diego Sheriff’s Department that had something to do with tracking personal articles in the arrest process. She showed it to me and started talking about DNA injections and the space station monitoring her movements. I let her talk for a bit and describe this DNA injection process in more detail. Then I asked her to read the top two lines of the form she was showing me. I was wondering if she was capable. She read them perfectly and then got back to her DNA story. I gave her $20 and moved on.

I really want to reconnect with Ron. Talking with Debra is not really satisfying my desire to understand the homeless from their point of view. If I can sit down with a sober Ron, I will learn more. I really want to video tape him so I can show you all.