Early Morning Homeless Outreach

“What about that guy?” asks the voice from the back seat of the van. I quickly look to my right as we pass an elderly gentleman with slumping posture shuffling down the sidewalk. He definitely looks as if he might be homeless. Or he might just be out to pick up his newspaper. Courtney, my supervisor at PATH (People Assisting The Homeless) stops the van against the closest available stretch of curb that’s not in front of a driveway or blocked by cars parked on the street. She remains seated as I and our two volunteers step outside, going over in our heads the best way to approach this guy Our goal is having him complete a homelessness survey and offering him a free bag of toiletries and snacks without offending him, just in case he turns out to be a retired homeowner going for his daily jaunt around the block. Clutching my clipboard close against my chest for warmth in the frigid southern California air, I think about how I would be able to see my breath if it weren’t for the pre-dawn darkness.

Wendel, one of the volunteers, is a resident of the surrounding neighborhood of Baldwin Hills and has shown ambitious enthusiasm in helping our agency conduct a preliminary “snapshot” of the homeless population in his area. He confidently strides toward the man who’s now crossing the street. “Excuse me....” he calls out, “hey ol’ G.” I’m not exactly sure what “ol’ G” means, but the stranger stops to see what on earth we could possibly want from him at 6 o clock in the morning.

As I catch up to them and look the guy over, any anxiety surrounding how to inquire whether or not he’s homeless with tact and delicacy quickly vanishes. He’s wearing a tattered long sleeve shirt with a stretched collar that’s falling off of his right shoulder, and he’s walking on top of the ends of his baggy pant legs. His feet are almost completely covered by his blue jeans, but not entirely, and I see the toes of his socks peeking out through the holes. Having spent many years living in or close to the inner city, I wouldn’t have even noticed the low way he was sagging his pants if he had been wearing shoes. Well, shoes, and underwear, that is. Richelle, the other volunteer, who is Wendel’s fiance and is out here with us this morning even though it’s her 42nd birthday, immediately notices the same thing. We both quickly look away while the man tugs upward on the front of his pants to keep from exposing himself.

Wendel introduces me by saying that I work for PATH and that we’re conducting surveys in effort to start providing quality assistance to homeless people in the area of Baldwin Hills. If he participates in the survey, he’ll receive a bag stocked with deodorant, shampoo, a toothbrush, toothpaste, granola bars, a bottle of water, a razor, socks and other goodies. Before I start the survey I whisper to Richelle to check the bag that we’ve brought with us to make sure that it really does include a pair of socks. She checks. It doesn’t. Wendel jogs back over to the van to exchange it for a different one.

“Hi there,” I say, deciding not to extend my usual handshake when I see that the guy still has his fingers buried inside the front waistband of his pants. “First off, can you tell me your name?”

“OG” the man replies softly. I think to myself: Does Wendel somehow know this guy? I’m still not sure whether OG is a name or some sort of code. (I would later learn that “OG” is short for Older Gentleman.)

“Umm, sorry, what’s your first name?”

“OG” he repeats.

“Okay, so what’s your last name?” I ask stupidly, still not sure if I’m hearing him correctly.

“Just put ‘OG’ as his name” Richelle advises me as O.G. repeats his name for the third time.

“OK OG, can you tell me where you slept last night? A shelter? In the streets? In a vehicle?” I inquire, reading off the options on our survey form.

Normally when I interact with people on the streets I’m one of those guys that always tries to talk as if I miraculously grew up in “the ‘hood” instead of a middle-class white household (and according to my friends I usually just end up sounding embarrassingly silly and self-conscious), but I get the feeling this time that it’s going to be difficult for me to communicate with O.G. if I’m trying to imitate the speech pattern of a hip hop artist. So instead I’m asking him the questions in the same way I would talk to my 96 year old grandfather.

“In the streets,” he answers my question without elaborating.

“And how long have you been homeless?”

“Six months.”

“Six months?” I double check. I was guessing he’d say at least 10 years.

“Yeah.”

I write his answers down and continue with the survey. I start getting the feeling that he doesn’t trust me. The other two people we’ve interviewed this morning have told us stories and explained almost every answer. O.G. on the other hand is giving the bare minimum of information; just enough for me to fill in blanks and check boxes on the survey form. Plus, it seems like he’s saying “No” to every single yes-or-no question. No, he doesn’t have any health problems. No, he hasn’t been to the emergency room in the past 3 months. No, he’s never been to jail. No, he doesn’t have any mental health issues. No, he’s never been told he abuses drugs or alcohol. When I get to the question that asks which specific drugs he uses, Richelle interjects to clarify that we’re not with the police or government, and that his answers are completely confidential. However, he doesn’t change his answers and insists he doesn’t use any type of drugs or alcohol.

It’s a long survey; it takes nearly 10 minutes to finish the whole thing, and by the end I consider that O.G. might be giving such short, bland answers because he doesn’t want to spend forever standing on the sidewalk talking to strangers with no shoes or jacket when it’s 45 degrees outside. Finally, we finish the survey. Wendel gives him the bag as we wish him good luck, and the three of us trudge back to the van.

“Not a single one of our bags had any socks in it!” Wendel declares as soon as we’re outside of earshot.

“I was afraid of that” I say. “I made up the bags last week, and we only had about 30 pairs of socks.” Today is day two of our three day homelessness survey blitz in the city of Baldwin Hills. Courtney, Wendel and I are one of five teams composed of PATH staff and volunteers that are combing the streets, parking lots and alleyways of the city limits in an effort to gather as much information as possible about the number and vulnerability of the local homeless population. Each team is assigned a specific area of the city in which to conduct surveys between the hours of 5am and 7:30am: presumably the time when people are most likely not to be busy or moving about and in the same places in their daily “routines.” After day one we had already documented 22 people (and thus given out 22 bags), so I was not at all surprised to learn that we no longer have socks.

“Yeah, it’s ok; I just gave him my own pair of socks,” Wendel says plainly. Richelle, Courtney and I are all touched, and we each give him a variation of some sort of “oh my gosh, that’s so sweet” affirmation. Wendel just shrugs, knowing it was simply the right thing to do. As we drive off to explore the parking lot of a nearby McDonalds, I can see the orange glow of dawn beginning to break across the palm tree-lined LA horizon.