Lee - Proving the Misconceptions Right
In December, on my way home from abroad, I met a man named Lee. Lee was walking in the opposite direction when he stopped me. I was exhausted and longing to be home but turned off my music and engaged in his story.
He was rambling in a panicked tone. Before I could even understand what he was trying to say, his voice started breaking up, as if he was going to cry.
I tried slowing him down so we sat on a bench to talk. Lee told me his story.
He has a son who he lost custody over after a horrible divorce which also cost him his job. He had been homeless for 3 months and had “settled” on what seemed to be his old employers’ route home. After walking passed Lee for months, one day he stopped to talk to him. He apologised for disregarding him all these months and explained how he did not know how to approach him. They talked and he felt so bad to hear the story behind Lee’s firing that he invited him for a job interview, determined to help.
His interview was ‘tomorrow’ and as he put it “look at me”, he was not presentable for a job interview.
Our conversation had been going on for quite a while at this point so I decided to tell him about my idea for a project and how I hope it will be a successful institution that would permanently save people from the misfortune of being homeless.
Looking him in the eye, I told him “I want to help you in any way I can, but for that, you have to help me out too. Show me that people are wrong, show that the common misconceptions are indeed wrong and that helping the homeless is not ‘pointless’. You will be the foundation of my future development in creating this program.” I practically begged him to be truthful, in the hope that he will get his life back on track.
So I gave him £30 to find a hostel to shower and eat and prepare for his interview. I asked him to call me after to tell me how it went and invited him for lunch at the end of the weekend to talk about it all, hoping he would be open to helping me help others.
At this point, we were laughing and joking around as if we knew each other. He gave me his phone number and asked me to call him, as he was very proud of his voicemail. It was a joking vocal message that acted as if he did pick up the phone which made us both laugh a lot. It’s funny to think that my brother has the same type of voicemail. It was a little reminder that he is still human, that he enjoys what we enjoy.
We hugged, parted ways and I left feeling really hopeful that this would be Lee’s ticket to rejoining society. If that is the case, then we could work together to tackle the homeless crisis.
The next morning came but I was without news. I waited another morning in case he had gone to his family to share the news or whatever other feel good lie I could tell myself. Eventually I called him and just as he had shown me, I immediately land on his voicemail. Half wishful, I left him a message, although I knew I had been fooled.
It became so obvious so quickly.
Lee had done everything my dad had forcefully repeated to me as a child. “They don’t want to be helped, its an act, they spend all their money on drugs”...
There is no better way of explaining this feeling of naivety and ‘betrayal’ than a child finding out Santa isn’t real.
For 2 years now I had been revolting against anyone supporting these kinds of opinions, convinced they were ignorant and wrong. And there I was, fooled by a great storyline and a practiced route, a con artist of the street.
My stubborn self was not about to give up so easily. So I kept calling him every few days, every time landing on his same voicemail, although my messages varied. At first I called him out, frustrated by the idea that the common ground on which I thought we had landed didn’t exist. There is no cooperation or beneficial relation to establish as there is no trust to begin with.
After a while, I realised this is at the core of this inhumane relation between a city’s homeless people and its citizens.
We treat them to the conditions that we as society’s players adhere to, while ignoring that we regard them as less than human.
More importantly, we do not give them the necessary credit or patience to establish human relations as we / our society expects.
Although we at large disregard them and do not treat them like humans , we expect them to behave like ordinary citizens.
I still call Lee’s (voicemail) every one in a while in the hope that one day he would hear it and realise that this is not the way to survive.
(A note I hate to add is that when I met Lee, the first thing I noticed was his skin. He had scars that would indicate abuse of substances such as heroin.
This is why before giving money, think about giving them a warm meal or a cup of tea. The idea that I might have indirectly brought someone drugs, it's not a great feeling).
by Céline Mercier
He was rambling in a panicked tone. Before I could even understand what he was trying to say, his voice started breaking up, as if he was going to cry.
I tried slowing him down so we sat on a bench to talk. Lee told me his story.
He has a son who he lost custody over after a horrible divorce which also cost him his job. He had been homeless for 3 months and had “settled” on what seemed to be his old employers’ route home. After walking passed Lee for months, one day he stopped to talk to him. He apologised for disregarding him all these months and explained how he did not know how to approach him. They talked and he felt so bad to hear the story behind Lee’s firing that he invited him for a job interview, determined to help.
His interview was ‘tomorrow’ and as he put it “look at me”, he was not presentable for a job interview.
Our conversation had been going on for quite a while at this point so I decided to tell him about my idea for a project and how I hope it will be a successful institution that would permanently save people from the misfortune of being homeless.
Looking him in the eye, I told him “I want to help you in any way I can, but for that, you have to help me out too. Show me that people are wrong, show that the common misconceptions are indeed wrong and that helping the homeless is not ‘pointless’. You will be the foundation of my future development in creating this program.” I practically begged him to be truthful, in the hope that he will get his life back on track.
So I gave him £30 to find a hostel to shower and eat and prepare for his interview. I asked him to call me after to tell me how it went and invited him for lunch at the end of the weekend to talk about it all, hoping he would be open to helping me help others.
At this point, we were laughing and joking around as if we knew each other. He gave me his phone number and asked me to call him, as he was very proud of his voicemail. It was a joking vocal message that acted as if he did pick up the phone which made us both laugh a lot. It’s funny to think that my brother has the same type of voicemail. It was a little reminder that he is still human, that he enjoys what we enjoy.
We hugged, parted ways and I left feeling really hopeful that this would be Lee’s ticket to rejoining society. If that is the case, then we could work together to tackle the homeless crisis.
The next morning came but I was without news. I waited another morning in case he had gone to his family to share the news or whatever other feel good lie I could tell myself. Eventually I called him and just as he had shown me, I immediately land on his voicemail. Half wishful, I left him a message, although I knew I had been fooled.
It became so obvious so quickly.
Lee had done everything my dad had forcefully repeated to me as a child. “They don’t want to be helped, its an act, they spend all their money on drugs”...
There is no better way of explaining this feeling of naivety and ‘betrayal’ than a child finding out Santa isn’t real.
For 2 years now I had been revolting against anyone supporting these kinds of opinions, convinced they were ignorant and wrong. And there I was, fooled by a great storyline and a practiced route, a con artist of the street.
My stubborn self was not about to give up so easily. So I kept calling him every few days, every time landing on his same voicemail, although my messages varied. At first I called him out, frustrated by the idea that the common ground on which I thought we had landed didn’t exist. There is no cooperation or beneficial relation to establish as there is no trust to begin with.
After a while, I realised this is at the core of this inhumane relation between a city’s homeless people and its citizens.
We treat them to the conditions that we as society’s players adhere to, while ignoring that we regard them as less than human.
More importantly, we do not give them the necessary credit or patience to establish human relations as we / our society expects.
Although we at large disregard them and do not treat them like humans , we expect them to behave like ordinary citizens.
I still call Lee’s (voicemail) every one in a while in the hope that one day he would hear it and realise that this is not the way to survive.
(A note I hate to add is that when I met Lee, the first thing I noticed was his skin. He had scars that would indicate abuse of substances such as heroin.
This is why before giving money, think about giving them a warm meal or a cup of tea. The idea that I might have indirectly brought someone drugs, it's not a great feeling).
by Céline Mercier
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