Homeless citizen: An oxymoron?
At the desrted El station:
A man of undeterminate age, reeking of alcohol and unwashed closthes comes up to me and says:
“Missy, help me out. I am homeless”.
I take two steps back, looking up and down the station nervously.
Then he moves closer to the light and points to an ugly scar across his cheek with dirty nails:
“I am a bad man Missy. But I paid for it too. I was locked up.
No one will give me a job because of this. Can you spare some change?”
In case you were wondering: He was African American.
I look desperately into the tunnel wishing the train would hurry up and see the lights approach in the distant darkness.
I mumble and try a broken smile: “Sorry. But I am a poor student. I dont carry cash.”
And feel perfectly idiotic and relieved and nauseous at the same time as he shuffles away, mumbling.
“A citizen cannot be homeless” – a comment made by a confident young man in a slum in Kolkata in an interview with urban scholar Ananya Roy (City Requiem, Calcutta)
But the sad fact is: The homeless are not citizens, not even, or maybe especially in America.
