I was blessed to win the lottery—not the one you might be thinking of, but the affordable housing lottery. I was then able to leave Sonoma County and return home to the city where I grew up: San Rafael.
More precisely, I hail from Santa Venetia: Scabo, in the vernacular of those who hiked the hills behind Tweedies General Store (now the 7-11 store) and paddled their rubber rafts on the Civic Center lagoon. As a girl, I loved being out there on the water until one day, a boy I knew drowned there, chasing geese. That cast a pall over the entire neighborhood. Kids were supposed to live forever. That irreparably broke the paradigm.
We were children of the 1970s, taught to play New Games at school that involved bouncing balls on parachutes and learning the spirit of cooperation instead of besting someone because that would make someone feel bad. Many of us kids felt bad during that decade, as our mothers found feminism to be the escape hatch they needed and freed themselves from loveless marriages to find their own happiness.
At the time, I couldn’t fully appreciate how this benefitted my mother: I just knew that splitting us into two separate households meant our middle-class aspirations were shattered as I shuttled back and forth between both my parents’ homes, as was required by law and that they were tasked with making rent/mortgage for two separate households on just one income.
Back to the lottery: I was thrilled to have the privilege to move back to my hometown last year and see how I could make a difference here. Though I’m Buddhist by practice, I’m Jewish by blood, and I aspire to live by the Jewish precept of Tikkun Olam. I want to heal the world of its ills. There’s a palpable need for that in my new/old neighborhood. Few people have the good fortune to move back to Marin, once having moved away for monetary reasons. Here’s what I found when I did:
A young woman who lives on the streets of San Rafael, no more than 30 years old, about four feet, five inches tall, and has matted hair. You can smell her approaching, as she likely hasn’t seen soap and water for days, maybe weeks. On a 95-degree day this summer, I bought her a gallon of water, for which she was grateful. The following day, she was passed out in front of a liquor store on 4th Street, without even a coat or a blanket to shield her, with a half-drunk bottle of vodka neatly placed beside her.
The other day, I saw a young man, high as a kite, no older than 30, dragging his unrepaired broken ankle and foot along the street. The foot was at an impossibly perpendicular angle to his ankle. I felt nausea rising in my throat just looking at it. Was he turned away from doctors due to his inability to pay for its repair? Or did he not bother to ask, fearing the answer would be no?
Another day, I saw a woman running out of Walgreens on 3rd Street without paying for an armful of lotion, candy, and other sundries. The employees called out impotently behind her, “Hey, come back here with that stuff!” The cashier, who’s been there for 23 years, said he used to leap over the counter and tackle those scofflaws. As he’s aged, the notion of hurdling the counter to nab the thief is off the table, lest he be sued for touching her.
Since the law was passed that made stealing less than $950 worth of merchandise from a business a misdemeanor, it’s put most drug stores at risk of bankruptcy due to attrition, which is a fancy word for the tremendous loss of inventory those stores are now experiencing due to rampant shoplifting. Growing up here, it was unthinkable to take anything from a store. I was a Girl Scout, and I knew that if I did, there would be moral, ethical, and legal consequences for such an act.
I told the Walgreens thief (now seated at the traffic signal, picking at her meth scabs) that I saw what she did, and I asked her how she was doing. She said, “You’re not a cop, are you? I don’t care what you saw.” And I said, “No—I’m not a cop. I’m just concerned about you.” Hearing that, she immediately softened her approach, thanked me for my concern, wished me a nice day, and walked quickly away to find her next fix or John.
I sat down at the Pink Owl café at an outdoor table. An adorable young man with an equally adorable dog approached me and shared some concerns with me. Primarily, he wanted to get rid of his “gay voice.” I encouraged him to accept it as part of his genetics and that without it, other gay men’s gaydar may not recognize him so quickly as being a member of “the tribe.” Then, in an instant, his mind had floated out into space. He was referencing the universe, rattling off numbers at break-neck speed, talking about Satan, and accusing me of crimes I hadn’t committed.
He, too, was so young—Just 26, or so he told me. Seconds before I ran into him, I noticed him smoking a vape pen. What was in it? Fentanyl? Meth? Pot? Hash? Perhaps he had uncontrolled schizophrenia or mania, unmitigated by medication? He was reeling out into the universe, and I wondered if he had anyone to reel him back in. Or was he, too, one of the many folks here struggling with some mental/behavioral health challenge who was unwilling to seek support, or perhaps he had but wasn’t capable of being compliant with treatment?
Across from my affordable housing complex is a dilapidated bank that’s been closed for years. The parking lot there is a gathering place for drug and alcohol users and the unsheltered. The other day, I saw a man flat on his back in the blazing afternoon sun. I gingerly approached him, looking for signs of life. I carry Narcan with me, the nasal spray used to revive people who have overdosed on opiates. Would he be a candidate for this? I waited for what seemed like an eternity. Then, the reassuring rise and fall of his breathing resumed. He’d live one more day to die another.
We’ve lost a whole generation of people to the scourges that are drugs, alcohol, and untreated mental health issues. Alcohol, I fear, is truly the most insidious drug, as the man takes the drink, the drink takes the drink, then the drink takes the man. The other drugs can also be easily had on the street for the price the junkie wants to pay or, if lacking the money, the turning of a trick. Decades ago, kids would take a pill, have a new experience, and live to tell about it. Now, with the influx of fentanyl, that pill may be the last one they take. If it could happen to Prince and my ex-boyfriend from childhood, no one is immune.
Many of the street folks I encounter were emotionally, sexually, or physically abused or neglected as children or thrown out of their homes for being LGBTQ+. Quite a large number of them are veterans who saw combat. One cannot underestimate the soul-crushing nature of those experiences, and some of them live their lives unable to extricate themselves from the PTSD that resulted. They forever drag it behind them like a broken limb, evidence of their forever scars, never to be healed.
These people are still worthy of love, or perhaps even more deserving of love than one who’s not been so severely broken and torn asunder. Only through recognizing their humanity and attempting to connect with them can we make a difference in their lives, even for one precious moment.
Susan Kay Gilbert M.A. Edu. is the facilitator for a dementia caregivers support group.
