"They are among the invisible who have become part of the familiar landscape."

[Sapphire Blue]

Sleeping Couple, Invisible to Most, Stir Questions and Gratitude
Monday, September 10, 2007; Page B03

If you work in this city or almost any city the world around, this is a familiar scene, and the thoughts that cross Loretta Parker-Brown might be yours, too.

Only they themselves and God know where the homeless couple go after sunup, but I know where they sleep. Most weekdays, about 6:30 a.m., as the city awakens and throngs begin arriving for work, I walk past them. He and she are reclining on a cardboard box, on the sidewalk, in the shadow beneath the overhang of an office building.

Sometimes they are awake and talking softly to each other. But often they appear to be sleeping soundly, oblivious to gawking passersby and construction noises from the structure being renovated nearby. A concrete wall serves as their headboard while their legs and bare feet curl away from the curb. They are usually snuggled closely, side by side on their makeshift bed, beside the coffee shop, across the street from the Peace Corps building. Where, I wonder when contemplating the irony of that situation, do you find peace when your bedroom is a makeshift motel without walls?

They are nameless, faceless and invisible to many who see them daily but don't really see them at all. The coffee shop workers open their store before the crack of dawn and begin setting up tables outside for early customers, who drink their java only inches away from the pair. A uniformed custodian hoses the sidewalk in front of the shop, creating a horseshoe pattern on the sidewalk around them. And office workers, fast-tracking on their way to their jobs, steal glances at the vagrants, then wonder where they are on the days when they don't see them there. They are among the invisible who have become part of the familiar landscape.

It is difficult to discern their ages, but if I look beyond their unkempt hair, wrinkled clothing and weather-beaten skin, then I would guess that they are 30-something -- looking 50 because adverse living conditions have a way of making their victims look old beyond their years. Yesterday I noticed that his slightly overweight frame was wearing sweat pants and she, way too thin, wore short shorts. Both wore T-shirts.

Fortunately, the summer heat spares them the need for blankets, but on one recent morning, I noticed that he had a pastel-colored sheet thrown across his body, while she lay uncovered on her back with one hand tucked into the waistband of her shorts. Not unlike many couples who share a bed, I thought, one always hogs the covers.

Some mornings I notice that they are sleeping like lovers. He is very close to her, his arm thrown protectively around her waist, and her head is tilted back against his chest. When I see them that way, indeed whenever I see them, recurring questions come to mind. Are they legally married or just a couple married by circumstance, protecting each other against the mean streets? What happened that made them homeless? Were they like many of us, just one missed paycheck away from the same fate? At this moment, an even scarier thought shakes me: Did they perhaps, when their life was on an upswing, pass a similarly fated couple sleeping on a park bench, in a doorway or on a cardboard box on the sidewalk at a storefront and say to themselves, as I do now, "There, but for the grace of God go I"?


-- Loretta Parker-Brown, Washington


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/09/AR2007090901771.html

Letter to the Editor
A Homeless Couple's Dilemma
Monday, September 17, 2007; Page A18


Regarding Loretta Parker-Brown's stirring account of a homeless couple whom she passes on the street each morning <"Sleeping Couple, Invisible to Most, Stir Questions and Gratitude," Metro, Sept. 10>:

The article highlighted a gap in the District's shelter system that deserves immediate attention. I have never met the couple whom Ms. Parker-Brown eloquently described, but I have met couples who similarly are forced by the shelter system and the lack of affordable housing to choose between entering a shelter as "singles" or staying together on the street.

The District has two types of emergency shelter: shelter for families and shelter for singles. Childless couples do not qualify for family shelter and must separate each evening to enter the gender-segregated singles shelters. One might wonder why a couple would rather sleep on the street than separate to enter shelter. Unfortunately, in light of the poor condition of the District's singles shelters, it's easy to imagine why a loving couple would choose sleeping on the streets over facing the crisis of homelessness alone in bedbug-infested shelters often in disrepair.

The District must create a space in the system for couples while continuing to work toward both a shelter system that treats everyone humanely and an adequate supply of affordable housing.


ANDY SILVER

Washington


The writer is a law clerk for the Legal Clinic for the Homeless.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/16/AR2007091601147.html

[countmyvote4real]

1. Raygun's morning in America.

I lay the blame at him and the political "idiocracy" of his party. It's all too familiar and here it is again.