It was a question that had to be asked. It screamed for an answer. Something to make sense of it. But first someone had to speak up. Had to ask the uncomfortable, the probing, the prying question that was on everyone’s mind.
The young journalism student hesitated. Like she thought better of it. Like she thought maybe she shouldn’t go there. Then she dove in: “Why won’t your family help you?” she asked.
There wasn’t a dramatic pause. There wasn’t any drawn out thinking about it. The woman quite simply — quite matter-of-factly — replied: “I won’t ask.”
And that will just break you up.
We were standing in a small room — a former motel room. There was little light, and it felt tight, and hot, and uneasy. Six beds. One on top of the other. Six people lived in the tiny room. Stuff was stacked everywhere. Clothes. Beauty products. Knick-knacks. Reminders of this and that. One on top of the other.
It was the second year I spent Labor Day Weekend working at a homeless shelter. The COSAC shelter is a rundown former motel in Hollywood, Fla. It’s a private facility that will take in anyone — those with drug problems, alcohol problems, psychological problems. It doesn’t matter. What matters is you need someplace to go and no one else will help. If that is your situation in life — if that is the place you’re in — this is where you come.
The shelter puts out one of the largest homeless newspapers in the country. Every day hawkers — residents of this place — set out with stacks of the paper. They wear neon yellow safety vests. They stand in the medians of surrounding streets — the busier the intersection the better — and they sell those papers. The money helps keep the shelter afloat.
Four years ago, some crazy man got it in his head that the paper would make a great journalism project. Why not bring journalism students here and give them 36 hours to find stories, write them and produce an entire issue of the paper? That would teach them a thing or two.
This crazy man named Michael Koretzky is very convincing. He convinces people like me to come, too. For unexplainable reasons, we do it. We serve as advisers to the students, helping to put this paper out. Along the way we listen to the stories. These unbelievable stories. Like the one in the cramped, dark room. The one that will break your heart.
The woman is older. I don’t know her age. She’s old enough. Her voice is raspy, and she talks about a grandchild. And an adult son. A successful adult son, she says. She can’t remember what he does exactly. But she knows he does well.
And that’s why the question came up. Because if he’s so successful … and if she’s here … well, it doesn’t add up. Why is she still here?
She says she won’t ask for help. She can’t. And we don’t know if that’s the truth. We don’t know the backstory here. What got her to this place, or what keeps her from getting out. Why she won’t ask loved ones for help.
“Why not?” I wonder. And I can’t get this question out of my head.
You can’t fathom being in this place. Swallow your pride, I want to tell her. Or whatever holds you back. Holds you here. But we don’t know the backstory. Only what she tells us. And that makes it all the more tragic. She seems to like it here. She gets along with her bunkmates. It’s her family, too. This is home.
She says she doesn’t want a handout. She talks about spoiling her granddaughter. She needs to go on the Internet. There’s a red Care Bear she needs to find. Some sort of thing. I think about what it’s going to cost. I know a thing or two about this — I have a 6-year-old daughter. By this woman’s standards, it will cost a fortune.
I think about buying it for her. That on the phone in my pocket, I can find the toy and purchase it in a handful of clicks. Just like that. But for some reason I don’t. I forget all about it. All about it until right now. And I’m kicking myself for it.
I comfort myself thinking she wouldn’t have taken it. She doesn’t want handouts. It’s pride, I tell myself. But I don’t know the whole backstory. I don’t know why she’s here.
I think about the question that started it all. What a great question. I’m so glad that student asked it. And yet part of me — the part that’s still struggling with the answer — wishes she never had.