TUCSON – On Friday, October 4, my wife and I had lunch at a Greek restaurant on Broadway Blvd. just a block west of Swan Rd. Sitting by a window, we could see a typical Tucson scene, a scene that is similar in many other American cities.
I’m not referring to the heavy traffic and crazed drivers on Broadway, or the miles of ugly strip malls lining the street among a forest of tacky signs and acres of barren parking lots.
I’m referring to the guy standing in the triple-digit heat in a parking lot across the street from the restaurant. As filthy as a coal miner, he stood in the same spot for most of our lunch, talking to himself and periodically waving his arms. He eventually left the parking lot and stumbled across two lanes of traffic until he reached a gore point in the median, where he stopped to continue his strange behavior.
If he had been a stray dog instead of a human, someone would’ve probably tried to save him from being run over, or at least have called animal control.
The next day, Saturday, October 5, there was a news story about a man being run over in a fatal hit-and-run several miles to the northwest of the Greek restaurant, near the intersection of Speedway and Stone. The guy was struck while lying in the median.
The intersection is close to the University of Arizona, close to a popular hipster area, and close to downtown, which, like almost every downtown in America, is undergoing revitalization and gentrification while surrounding neighborhoods go to seed.
Like many other areas of the city, the area of Speedway and Stone is noted for crime and for pedestrians being struck by cars. Typically, the pedestrian or the driver or both are high on drugs or alcohol.
In addition to tattoo parlors, major industries in town are pot shops, smoke shops, and hookah shops. The hookah shops are notorious for being magnets for criminal activity, including shootings, because they stay open after bars close and thus attract inebriated troublemakers and gangbangers. According to one report, there are an estimated 200 smoke/hookah shops in Tucson.
Another news story that Saturday was about a man being stabbed at Mansfield Park, which is less than a mile from Speedway and Stone. Still another story was about a guy dying after he jumped out of a moving car in the 2500 block of North Castro, which is near Mansfield Park. Then there was a story about crimes that had taken place over the preceding month at or near the U of A campus.
None of this is surprising. Before Kim and I moved to Tucson seven years ago, we had been living in the Phoenix area while our son attended the U of A, where he would go on to earn a bachelor’s and master’s in engineering. On our many trips to Tucson to see him over those years, we would spend weekends at a hotel in center city. As it was then—and continues to be now—our daily ritual was to get up before dawn to avoid the sun and heat and go for a 90-minute walk.
It was not an uplifting experience. In addition to widespread seediness, we encountered scores of deranged-looking people and the homeless wandering about, or what sophisticates refer to as the unsheltered.
Speaking of sophisticates, many of them are employed by the U of A and live in an oasis of expensive homes and tree-lined streets just to the east of the university. Judging by yard signs, Republicans are as rare as snow in the neighborhood.
One morning, after having breakfast at a popular place in the oasis, we saw a guy lying on the shoulder of a neighborhood street with his head hanging over the curb. Residents strolling by didn’t seem to notice.
I walked over to him and said loudly, “ARE YOU OKAY?” Seeing no sign of life, I called 9-1-1. First responders showed up within ten minutes and were able to get the guy to sit up. One of them explained to Kim and me that this was a common occurrence with the guy.
The homeless, er, unsheltered, hang out in the alleys of the oasis, as well as in a shabby neighborhood park. The homes next to the park look like fortresses with their yard walls, floodlights, and security bars on doors and windows.
It used to be a plus in America to live next to a park; now it’s a danger.
A couple of blocks from the park, in sharp contrast, is a Whole Foods.
Some sidewalks in the oasis are stamped with the letters “WPA,” which stand for the Works Progress Administration, which was the agency that put the unemployed and homeless to work building infrastructure during the Great Depression. Most of the workers lived in work camps without air-conditioning or other comforts.
It’s difficult to imagine something like that being possible today, given that many of the homeless have drug addictions, psychological problems, or criminal records.
Democrats claim that Republicans are heartless and don’t care about the homeless, or the disadvantaged in general. Republicans say that Democrat politics and policies have worsened homelessness and other socioeconomic problems, pointing out that Tucson has been controlled by Democrats for decades. Democrats counter that Arizona has been controlled by Republicans for decades.
Republicans go on to say that illegal immigrants from Mexico add to the problems of homelessness, poverty and crime. Democrats call Republicans racist, xenophobic, and nativist for saying this. Overlooked are the problems associated with the homeless migrating to Tucson from de-industrialized towns in the Frost Belt.
Meanwhile, humans are living and dying on the street like animals
That’s not entirely correct. Stray dogs are treated better.
It speaks volumes that homelessness isn’t an issue in the coming election, other than platitudes and banalities from Democrats about helping the poor and from Republicans about helping working stiffs.
There was a chance of addressing the problem 60 years ago. President Kennedy got a bill passed to establish facilities in the states to help the mentally ill in a kind and caring environment. At the time, they were being released to the streets because mental hospitals were being shuttered due to having abusive conditions in violation of civil liberties.
After some facilities were built, the funding ran out and was never replenished after Kennedy’s death.
In the following years, trillions were spent on the War on Poverty and the Great Society; on shooting wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan; on wars and regime changes fought through proxies; and on foreign aid to enemies and allies alike.
Deficit spending has skyrocketed to the point that the national debt is $35 trillion and climbing rapidly, due to the profligacy of both parties. Part of the spending goes to Medicaid, the cost of which is borne mostly by the federal government and to a lesser extent by the states. At the state level, ballooning Medicare costs are crowding out other spending.
This means that there is no money and little interest in solving the homeless problem.
I’ll just have to learn to eat lunch without looking out the window.
Mr. Cantoni can be reached at [email protected].
