A 4 letter tattoo Tonight as we were feeding around 250 or so homeless people on Skid row, there was a young man eating by himself not even 10 feet from us. Crouched against the wall of the homeless shelter, sitting on the dirty pavement of Skid row in dim light, he seemed small. Small enough and so quiet that you could mistake him for a scared child if not for his scruffy beard and the 4 letter tattoo on his left bicep. There in the dark, alone in the middle of a block full of hundreds of people, he sat there eating alone. A small peanut butter and jelly sandwich we had handed out. If I hadnt known Chris from before and someone told me that this was a man who answered the call and became a Marine, I would have laughed. But standing out against everything on Chris that screamed homeless were these 4 letters. USMC The United States Marine Corps. Today many people proudly remembered 9/11 by saying and displaying We will not forget! To us who serve the homeless, its more like people are actually going out of their way to forget. Every day we encounter homeless vets who answered the call for 9/11. Every day we see homeless veterans struggling with PTSD and drug abuse on the streets of Skid row. 20% of the homeless men in the US are veterans and every day we see new faces popping up but no help coming for them. Thats why it sometimes seems as if people are trying to forget. Its important that we recognize that a significant portion of the homeless men and women we see these days are men and women who answered the call after 9/11. Its even more important that we put pressure on our city and county leaders to bring about more meaningful and fast solutions. Right now all we have are politicians announcing they are allocating money here and there but the reality is that young veterans like Chris are rotting away on our streets. Our politicians are taking way too long and its time we became pissed off. Because only when we are pissed off will things change for veterans like Chris. For as long as we are not pissed off, it means that seeing a Marine who fought for this country living homeless on one of the shittiest streets of the US is totally acceptable! Isnt it time we became pissed off??? Mel Tillekeratne Monday Night Mission
Posted on: Fri, 12 Sep 2014 07:36:59 +0000
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