9:46 a.m. - 2004-10-17
Do we need a \"Poor House?\"

The Poor House

I remember watching an old movie once called Tobacco Road. In the movie there was in independent Grandpa Hillbilly who was losing his farm and was terrified that he would have to go to the "Poor House". A government home where people too poor to care for them selves HAD to go so they wouldn't be homeless and indigent. It gave them a place to sleep and food to eat and medical care and it had rules!!!!
The rules were what the Grandpappy didn't like.

I remember my Mom telling me as a kid. "For heavens sake, don't use so much water...do you want to send us to the Poor House?" or "Be quiet, your Dad has to sleep to work the Midnight shift, if he can't work we will end up in The Poor House."

The Monopoly game makes a reference to The Poor House. So I guess there must have once been a place called "The Poor House".

I posted an entry a while back about finding a homeless man picking my apples and watching me lock my door and drive away from my home. When I called the police, the woman on the other end was horrified that I suggest we have a warm place with food to keep these people who live in the woods. When I said isn't there a Poor House or something they can go to she said "The Poor House...what a horrible thought."

Tell me....why would a poor house be such a horrible thought. Wouldn't it be better for these people, some of whom must be mentally ill, to have a warm place with a bed and food and medical care to go to? The police officer explained that these people don't want to go to a shelter because they don't want to live by the rules.

"They are harmless." she said, "all they want is to be left alone."

As a matter of fact, most of the churches that offer the PAD's program during the cold winter get people who come for the food and then leave because they don't want to stay in for the night away from their drugs and booze or follow the few simple rules.

We all have to follow rules. I have to follow rules to keep the roof over my head. I have to get up every morning and go to work. On weekends I have to clean my house and take care of my affaris. I have to stay drug and alcohol free in order to have the state of mind to do these things. Is it too much to ask that I don't have a homeless guy who might be mentally ill for all I know, living in the forest preserve 1/2 block down the street and then watch me lock my door and drive off?

Is too much to ask that someone mentally ill get treated like a real human being and get a warm place to sleep, food and medical care instead of living in the woods like a ferral animal?

During the summer when I have taken a ride or walk back into the forest preserve near my house, I have seen a tiny Asian woman with a shopping cart full of stuffed, black plastic bags sitting under a tree right near the entrance to the parking area. She sits all day in the same spot working on something. Her hands are busy as if she is knitting or something. She is always there....every day.

The weather is getting colder here in Chicagoland and I have been going back into the forest almost everyday to look at the fall colors and the lady is still there, shopping cart and all. Friday was the first real cold day. I didn't see the lady but her shopping cart was there with a make shift, black plastic bag tent over it and the tent was tied to a tree. I figured that she must have battened it down and gone somewhere looking for food or something.

Yesterday was very very very cold. I was worried about the little lady and wondered what she was doing and if she was still outside. The wind was howling and shaking the trees violently as I rode back into the woods and there was the cart with the tent lashed over it. I rode by and saw that the tent flap was open and there was the little lady, sitting IN the shopping cart tent. This lady is actually going to live IN a shopping cart with a plastic bag over it for a tent. As I pulled through to the next parking area to turn around a car pulled up in front of where the lady was sitting. A woman ran out of the car and up to the tent/cart and quickly handed the little homeless lady something, then dashed back to her car. I assume that the woman, taking pity on the little lady in the shopping cart tent had given her food. Feeding her like people feed a wild squirrel or a wild goose.

I can't get this image out of my mind. Does this woman really have freedom, tied down to a shopping cart tent in the cold wind in a place she has set up where people can see her and will feed her. Are we to feel that she should be there because after all...she has her freedom and may not want to follow the rules in a shelter? She is following the rules of the wild. Nothing to eat unless someone comes to feed her, no where to sleep but sitting bolt upright in a shopping cart. She is tied to that shopping cart in that spot so people will notice her and give her food. Isn't it cruel to not forcibly take this woman and put her in a place where there is warmth and food and medical care and a toilet and the basic things that a human being should have?

I am sorry, I know there are plenty of homeless people who are not mentally ill. They manage to find clothing to wear and a warm place to sleep and get themselves to shelters or manage to get to a Southern climate in the winter where they can live outdoors without freezing. These people want to live that way and I guess as long as they are not stealing from or hurting other people, then their business is their business, but wouldn't you call an old lady living in a Chicago winter in a shopping cart in the woods, being fed by humans like a ferral animal, someone in need of intervention?.....someone in need of a place like a "Poor House?"

P. I. Yarnsmith

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