P.G. Smith Author

Last week we had a serious cold spell. Two people in my hometown of Jeffersonville, IN and two more in Louisville, KY (which is just across the river) froze to death. And that’s just four I happen to know about. Froze to death on the streets of America! How could that happen?

I couldn’t help wondering if it was the man I saw outside the grocery store. It was freezing. He had only one leg and no jacket. I offered to take him to a shelter. But he wouldn’t go. I’m not sure he understood me. I didn’t call 911. Why didn’t I?

It’s disturbing to realize that people freeze to death in America. it was shocked, although I guess I shouldn’t be. It happens every year. We just don’t hear about it. But why don’t we?

We hear about victims of car accidents, floods, hurricanes, wildfires, shootings. But homeless people die on our streets make hardly a ripple. This is a largely invisible problem that’s been getting worse for forty years and will get much worse now. Rent is sky high everywhere and going up. Social services are being cut. if the federal budget is slashed as proposed, every state will suffer. homelessness and poverty are going to get worse.

I know it’s a bad time to bring it up. We’re all worried about our own problems. But this is a serious problem. 580,000 people are homeless in America. 230,000 of them are struggling with mental illness or drug addiction, and often both. 41,000 are veterans. 39% are women, half of whom are escaping domestic abuse. Shouldn’t we at least recognize the problem? Shouldn’t we at least make ourselves look at it?

The Concrete Killing Fields by Pat Morgan can help us do that. it is a wonderful memoir by a woman (former real estate agent and banker) who did volunteer work for years and wound up as executive director of Partners for the Homeless in Memphis during the early 2000s. It tells the stories of the homeless people she met, who affected her life so profoundly. It’s beautifully written and heartfelt, almost like a novel. It will make you laugh and make you cry. And most of all, it will make you see homeless people as people, human beings like you and me.