Category: January 2021

My brother Steven sent me an email this morning, which I’m reposting with his permission. Steven lives with his family in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Here’s what Steven wrote:

There’s a middle-aged homeless man named Jim who hangs out on a busy street corner a half dozen blocks from our house.  I pass him when I bike or walk to work, and he’s been there since early summer or so, so I’ve gotten to know him a bit.  He’s friendly and very polite and seems like a nice guy all around.  One of the first things I noticed about him was how neat and clean he kept his area, always making sure that his trash was picked up and his few possessions were tidily arranged, and how he always made sure not to be in my way when I was coming through on my bike.  Overall he seems very thoughtful and responsible.  

He spends his time panhandling for change or temp work to buy food, coffee and cigarettes. Some nights he would sleep there on the corner in a sleeping bag, although other nights he seemed to be elsewhere (when I asked him once he indicated that a gas station down the street let him sleep on their property.  He may also have other places; certainly I don’t know everything about his life).  As the weather turned rainier in the fall I gave him an old tent we weren’t using to help him stay out of the rain.  I haven’t seen him use it (maybe it’s at his place by the gas station where he has more room?) but he was quite appreciative and became chattier after that.

One day in the early winter as I stopped by and chatted waiting for the light to change he mentioned he had been in the hospital and showed me where his hands had been badly burned during an accident when he was doing an odd job for someone.  How unfortunate, to have to be discharged from the hospital onto a street corner! But he seemed reasonably chipper about it – his hands were healing.  He was even more excited a week or two later to tell me that he had just that day signed some papers and he was supposed to be in an apartment come Dec. 7th – something through the help of the local government or charity, I presume.  I was also quite relieved to hear that, and excited for him.

Unfortunately, mid December I saw him out on the corner again.  He said there had been some sort of delay, and now they weren’t going to have the apartment ready for him until the end of January.  That’s a big difference when it comes to winter around here.  He also told me that day that he was going to be in the hospital again – he was going to have surgery for  advanced stage lung cancer.  Now, maybe this wasn’t a big surprise considering that he had two unlit cigarettes in his mouth as he was telling me this (though he was quick to point out that it ran in the family), but still – homeless and dying of cancer!

In a few weeks his surgery date came and I didn’t see him for a little while, until yesterday when he flagged me down on my bike a block or so away from his corner.  I asked about the surgery and yes, he had had it – showed me with his hands how much of his lung they had removed, and said they got 85% of the cancer. Now he’s on chemo for a few more weeks, and then it will be radiation, and then maybe more chemo, depending.  In the meantime, he’s still homeless, still waiting for that late January apartment.  I asked about side effects of the chemo, and he said they were bad – tired all the time, and sometimes throwing up.  I asked him if he needed anything, and he said as long as he could afford coffee to keep himself warm he was doing fine, so I gave him a 20 and told him I’d pray.

I’ve been thinking about him a lot, even before this last encounter.  I’m sad for him, but also amazed at his resilience and how he manages to have a pretty chipper attitude and just keep on going even through all of this.  I’m also just wondering at the crazy stupidity of a system that treats people for cancer and then discharges them onto the street corner.  Admittedly, he is clearly getting some help and services; one day I saw him loading his few belongings up into a van with some government logo, and of course there is the promise of an apartment, and the medical treatment itself.  But how is it that we as a society can afford an expensive surgery and chemo for him, yet not be able to find a place for him to stay while he recovers?  I don’t know all of his story, and I know from other situations that sometimes the homeless don’t make it easy for themselves to get lasting help or a stable situation.  But he seems to be of right mind, and easygoing and so responsible it’s hard for me to imagine what the hangup would be.

I also don’t know what I can do for him other than being friendly and giving a little change now and then.  Maybe that’s all he needs from me; that’s all he asks for when I inquire.  He does seem to have a warm coat and winter gear.  But I don’t know.  It all seems so crazy to me, and I’ve been thinking about it a lot.

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