CapIsDowntown.com

Although law enforcement strategies can have an effect on crime and Birmingham police are working hard to make a difference, our violent crime problems are a function of a complex interrelationship of many factors, not just police strategies. 

Several components have come together to drop crime 52% in the downtown CAP district—good police work, the visibility and quick response of CAP, cleanliness and beautification efforts, and economic revitalization.  New York City police are given credit for dramatic reductions in violent crime (over 75% since 1990) by using real-time crime analysis to target problems and focusing on aggressive enforcement of quality of life offenses.  But other important factors were at play:  N.Y’s incarceration rates also dropped dramatically (34%) while in national trends it increased.  This appears counterintuitive.  More arrests would seem to result in more incarcerations. What gets overlooked is the fact that while the police strategy was being employed, city and state prisons in New York simultaneously turned aggressively to drug treatment and mental health counseling.  Additionally, the increase in misdemeanor arrests were dealt with in Community Courts where cases were quickly resolved and offenders sentenced to appropriate community service and treatment and their progress monitored.  New York also has a “right to housing” law, ensuring that when police encountered homeless persons, they gave them an option for housing and services on the spot.

In addition to those strategies, we know that:

• At-risk children left out of quality pre-kindergarten are five times more likely to grow up to become criminals by age 27. 
• Abused children are nearly one-third more likely to be arrested for violent crimes later in life due to the abuse they endured.  Home visiting programs have been shown to cut child abuse and neglect in half.
• Quality after-school youth programs can cut crime and drug activity by 50%.
• Intervention of “bullying” behavior by tough and close supervision combined with research-tested interventions that pull kids away from violence and parental coaching can cut repeat youth arrests in half.
• Research suggests that graduation incentive programs and parental training programs could double the crime reduction achieved by incarceration programs at less than a fifth the cost.
• Domestic violence accounts for 16% of violent crime.  Counseling programs for domestic violence significantly reduce assaults.

 We can’t ignore the fact that we violent crime is a problem.  The police are doing their job.  They are going after those who pull the trigger.  Now we, as a community, have to pull the trigger and more forward with strategies aimed at the tough issues and preventing the violence.

On any given day you can see a red pickup truck with a flashing green roof light patrolling downtown.  Inside are two gentlemen who spend their day keeping an eye on what’s happening on the streets.  They are as different as they are alike-- both supervisors at CAP, both a little on the large side, both retired military.   The differences?  Well one is black and one is white; one a staunch Republican and one an “I’ll-never-change-Democrat.”  They’ve known each other for nine years and have argued politics and been close friends for about seven. 

Technically, Calvin works for Ray, but the relationship is closer to partners than employer-employee.  Sometimes the relationship seems closer to Abbott and Costello.  A dry sense of humor pervades their conversation.  “We do cut up,” Calvin says.  “We let each other know when the other messes up.  I rag him more than he rags me . . . but I can’t help it.” “Because you’re mean, Ray says.  “You come to work every day to harass me.” Calvin responds with a deadpan expression.  “I don’t come to work to harass you, sir. . . It’s just an extra bonus.”  Then he turns and smiles at me, “When you work together for six or seven years, you kind of grow on each other.”

Partners who patrol the streets have to depend on each other.  At any moment, the routine can turn into the unexpected and you need to know that the person sitting beside you will be your backup.  “I joke with Ray,” Calvin says, “but I depend on him.  He makes good decisions.  I can trust him.”   Ray agrees.  “We balance each other.  When it comes down to the real thing, he’s dependable and I can tell him things in trust.”  Calvin nods.  “And I tell him personal things I haven’t told my people.”

Their friendship extends beyond the workplace.  On weekends when Alabama football is not locally broadcast, they meet at Wings to watch the game.  Their wives are friends too, so they often get together for social outings. 

What makes such an unlikely friendship work?  Their common military background and the fact that they both grew up poor and worked their way up in the world gives them a shared philosophy and work ethic.  Calvin enlisted in the Army and was wounded in Vietnam; Ray was an officer and a tank commander.  “Military people react differently than civilians,” Calvin says.  He adds that being older helps them engage common sense or “mother wit,” as he calls it.  “We think alike when it comes to handling situations.”  Together they’ve talked down disorderly persons, tailed shoplifters, managed disgruntled citizens, solved problems, and made the numerous decisions required to run CAP operations. 

“Being a CAP can be stressful,” Calvin reflects.  “You have to be everything from a security person to a psychologist to a social worker.  It helps to have someone you can laugh with.”  It is apparent that these guys are a constant source of amusement to each other, as well as support.  So, when you see the big red truck patrolling our streets, you will know that inside are two friends watching out for us
 . . . and each other. 

. 

Downtown Cool

Cap is Downtown!  And that’s cool because downtown is hot.  It’s “bad,” meaning, of course, that it’s good.  “Chillin’. " It “rocks.”  It’s “sweet.”  It rules.

What is cool has fluctuated throughout history.  At one time it was thought to overstuff a phone booth with human beings was “neat.”  Swallowing live goldfish once took front row as the “in” thing to do.   It was “happening.” In another era, looking and dressing like a Native American was “groovy.”  Further back, real young natives thought it “awesome” to sneak up on an enemy and count coup.  I’m sure the younger cave generation had some form of “far out” activity, perhaps “streaking” through the jungle, but unfortunately, we don’t know what it was. Whatever…I’m sure it was “outstanding.”

It has been said that life should not be measured by the number of breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.  Cool, in my mind, is not necessarily an activity or even a place.  It is something unexpected or something perceived in an unexpected way, the way a poem’s choice of words can jostle your mind from its accustomed groove.  It can be:

The sudden appearance of a friend

walking toward you on the sidewalk. 

The flutter of color frothing in bowls on the Harbert Plaza. 

A beloved old film showing at the Alabama.
Catching the cherry tree in bloom in the Region's Plaza,

Cool is discovering a taste you can’t describe in Icon's, Café Dupont or Surin’s,
or a piece of African art in the Safari Cup gallery

that stuns.  

A moment of refuge at Java & Jams.
Cool is art in the park; a movie in the street. 
The overnight début of pear tree blossoms along 3^rd Avenue.  

Cool is

A stranger’s hello smile,

A treasured old book at Jim Reed's House of Memories. 

A breeze in July. 

There are hundreds, thousands of cool every day downtown.  You just have to look for them. 

Of course, the ultimate cool on any “hip” list… is the sight of your car’s flat tire in one indrawn breath and a CAP pedaling your way in the next. 

Dig it.

In recorded history, two storms as powerful as Hurricanes Rita and Katrina have never hit the United States in one season.  Katrina's storm surge impacted a region from Grand Isle, LA to Mobile Bay, AL, killing 1,836 and destroying or heavily damaging 300,000 homes.  The costliest natural disaster in U.S. history, Katrina, alone, is responsible for over 80 billion dollars in damage. People lost their homes, their livelihoods, their families. Government response was . . . well, a disaster unto itself far larger than this article can hold.

CAP began assistance when people fleeing the devastation arrived at the Civic Center.  A year and a half later, we are the main recipient of diabetic testing supplies donated by Bayer, and our efforts are focused primarily at directing medical relief supplies to the clinics trying to keep people well enough to put their lives back together. These clinics report a crisis in the availability of medical personnel, numerous people without health insurance, rampant staph and skin infections, and worsening of respiratory, heart disease and diabetes conditions, due, in large part, to the incredibly high stress.  Many people are still living in the woods, sheds or vehicles, over 100,000 in mold-ridden FEMA trailers.  The death rate among the elderly has increased 50%, along with suicide (15%) and attempted suicide (80%).

Besides medical management crises, other difficulties plague storm-damaged communities—

--No affordable housing; exorbitant rental costs;
--Shortage of skilled construction workers (who can't afford the cost of living), leaving the labor burden on volunteers and owners;
--No affordable child care.  Very little child care at any price.
--No transportation without a working (not drowned) vehicle;
--Insurance refusal to pay on policies;
--FEMA requirements that can make a home owner have to choose working on their home over working at a job.  If they are not moving forward aggressively on rebuilding, they will loose the (trailer) roof over their family's heads.  
--Slow, inequitable distribution of funding; "nightmarish" bureaucracy.

We have plenty of needy people here in our own back yard.  Shouldn't we be aiming our efforts here? 

Need is everywhere.  How to pick one over another?  Is one cause "needier" than another?  Is it "nobler" to work on the problems of the homeless here in America or to start a school for girls in Africa?   Is our neighborhood our responsibility or is Birmingham?  Is America our backyard . . . or the world?

Perhaps the criteria should be to choose where there is a passion or ability to champion.  CAP engaged in this work out of responsibility towards the people in our BJCC, and our unique position in the community spurred a generous response to a request to come to their assistance.

We found ourselves the custodian of an overwhelming number of items, everything from toothbrushes to towels to food and water.  When those particular refugees here no longer required the items, we felt we should honor the community's intentions by making sure their donated goods got where they were desperately needed. 

From there, we discovered the challenges involved.  When Internet communication came back on line, we were able to establish relationships with people at ground zero and get feedback.  We participated in developing a grassroots network to match needs with resources and transport.  So, we gained expertise; now we have a responsibility to use it.

Unexpectedly, our relief work has directly affected CAP's mission in a positive way.  Since Katrina, we've received thousands of hits to our website, the majority motivated by interest in hurricane relief updates.  Many have lingered to see what CAP is and what downtown Birmingham is about. 

We work on local homeless issues daily and keep our primary focus on our mission of safety downtown.  We couldn't do relief work at all without the community's support and encouragement.  Because CAP funds are designated for safety issues in our district, contributions--financial, in-kind, and volunteers--have sustained our efforts.  Without them, we would have stopped long ago. 

Are we done yet?  We wish we were.  We wish things were all tidied up, and we don't know for sure how long we will continue, but...we're not done yet.

Do you arrive at work in a business suit, nod at your fellows, similarly clad, sit at your desk in a predictable environment?  Then you don’t work in the downtown Theater District--home to the Alabama Theater, the McWane,  the Cabaret, the sleeping Lyric, and the new Playhouse.  CAP headquarters is actually a piece of the Alabama Theater building.  My office sports pipes that are part of the Old Lady’s infrastructure.  I used to describe my décor as “industrial chic,” but have modified that, in light of the hot residential boom, to “whimsical loft.”  The Theater’s backstage lies just behind us and just above, is the practice room.  The first time the ceiling erupted in a series of loud thumps and bumps, we thought a terrible fight was ongoing and dashed over to the Alabama. . .to surprise a practicing dance company. 

“Surprise” is the operating word for working in the Theater District.    Life is not routine, although you do get used to some things:  busloads of children that appear for programs at the Alabama or to tour the Science Museum; the potpourri of folks who stop at the 50’s-style Lyric restaurant for breakfast or a hotdog or a little friendly gossip; the folks who visit National Loan & Jewelry for a special deal or stop to sit in the shade on the “Children’s Hero Bench” or picnic on the “The Ribbon.”  And certainly a familiar sight is Cecil Whitmire, grand master of the Might WurliTzer organ and the Alabama herself, standing on the star-studded sidewalk, surveying his domain.  Likewise, Donnie in his barber apron greeting passers-by or Walter, the tailor, peering from his window on the second floor, ready to report any unusual “goings on.”  Well, unusual for the area. . . .  

One never knows what one will see, hear, or encounter. I certainly never know what to expect when I leave work in the evening and turn the corner to pass the Theater’s backstage door.  It may simply be a view of the stretch of sidewalk leading to the McWane’s parking deck, then again it could be a stand of eight-foot bamboo or a paper Mache boulder, or a sofa, or little girl in a pink tu tu, or a famous person’s bus--with or without the famous person.  Despite the familiarity of encountering the unusual, I admit to some surprise the evening I turned the corner and came face-to-face with a very large, somewhat pungent, honest-to-God. . . camel.  Just part of the set for the opera, Aida.  He or she (I didn’t look) turned with regal self-assurance to regard me with what I can only call a “camel look.”  If you’ve never been on the receiving end of a “camel look,” you are missing a life experience. 

Our newest neighbor, The Playhouse, is a supplier of set material, though they don’t do camels. . .I don’t think.  Just about anything else you might want or dream up for a play is crammed into their warehouse, everything from a suit of armor to a fairy princess dress.  A stroll through it, and visitors are welcome, is like stumbling upon the place where everything ever lost or forgotten has found a home.  There’s even a small, intimate theater in the midst of the cornucopia jungle.  Not long ago, they opened with their first play, a tale involving a scene with two seedy characters who hang around outside a bar.  Opening night, in the middle of the play, as the seedy characters were “hanging” outside the bar, A.K.A. the sidewalk on 3rd Avenue, an alert CAP officer stopped them to see what they were up to.  Not in the script.  Oh well, even scripts can get surprises.

So, if you work in an office tower or just a regular building where you know exactly what to expect every day, my condolences.  When things get too predictable, I invite you down to my block.  Several lofts are opening up nearby.  I wonder if the new residents have a clue what awaits them.

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A CAP

Put on a CAP hat for a day.

Your job is to patrol the streets of downtown Birmingham to increase safety and perception of safety. We’ll put you on the 11AM-7PM shift.  You step into the office to the sound of banging lockers, laughter and banter.  Chris, the dispatcher, comes in behind you singing to himself.  Something from Miami Vice.  You were born in the City; concrete under your feet….

You grab your equipment--pepper spray, unlock tools, and radio.  From downstairs you can hear the supervisors, Calvin and Ray, arguing about politics.  Calvin is black; Ray is white.  Calvin a dyed-in-the-wool Democratic; Ray, a staunch Republican.  Both retired military, they’re best of friends. 

Chris gives you a service call. A Ford pickup needs a jump-off on the 3^rd level of the Civic Center parking deck.  A quick check of your bike and you’re off.  Humidity is about 93; temperature the same; the pavement is already starting to smoke. Sweat beads instantly under your helmet.  But the wind is in your face, and Chris’ song runs through your head.

The pickup owner is glad to see you, but embarrassed because he just gave his wife grief last week for leaving her lights on in the car.  You promise you won’t tell her.

Then it’s back through Linn Park, to Birmingham Green.  The streets are alive with the variety and buzz of downtown.  You stop to chat with the guard at the Clark building.  Looks like a slow day.  Maybe you’ll get to check on that cute secretary at--

Before you can finish the thought, Chris alerts you on the radio with another call.  You’re not sure you heard this one right, but you refrain from comment until you arrive on the scene.  “Yes,” you confirm to Chris.  “A man is in a tree 20^th and 3^rd.”   You look up.  And he looks down.  You recognize him as the man who holds a Jesus Saves sign at 5^th & 20^th.  “What are you doing?” you ask.  Muttering to himself, the man climbs down and stalks away.   Problem solved.

It’s after one o’clock, so you grab a sandwich and head to the office for lunch.  Charlie rolls in for an air-up on his wheelchair tire.  He flashes a lopsided smile and is off again.  Teresa runs down the stairs, late to a meeting.  She runs back up the stairs for something she forgot.  Down again.  Waves hi.  Jumps in the waiting van.  Must be nice to be the executive director and just go to meetings.  Far as you can tell that’s all she does.

Back out on the street, you cruise close to the buildings, squeezing every bit of shade out of every shadow.  Temperature is pushing 100 off the pavement.  Maybe this would be a good time to stop in and chat with--

Chris again.  Shoplifter at CVS.  Adrenaline spins the bike’s wheels.  Chris gives out the description and direction of travel.  Okay, if you take the alley, you might get there in time to cut him off.  Eugene’s on the radio, closing in from the other side.  You’re almost there.  A rotating green light catches the corner of your eye--Ray and Calvin in the pickup.  Wait—someone running a block away.  Gotta be him.  Bat turn around a civilian.  “Sorry sir.”  Snatch the radio.  “I got him!  He’s going south on 21^st Street from 2^nd Avenue.” 

“10-4” Chris acknowledges and repeats your alert, adding,“BPD is on the way.”

You’re closing in.  The suspect is fast, but he can’t outrun a bike.  You’re on his heels, tempted make that moving arrest dismount you learned at UAB Police Bike Training.  But the look of stone you predict on Calvin’s face when you try to explain a cowboy takedown over a tube of toothpaste dissuades you.  The suspect looks over his shoulder, breathing hard.  “We can stop whenever you get tired,” you say.  The suspect looks ahead and sees Eugene pedaling toward him.  Reggie appears to his left.  Green lights down the street.  The suspect stops and sits down on the curb, just glad to breath.  The police arrive.  Another one bites the dust.

That was fun.  You completely forgot you were tired and hot.  You deserve a few minutes break in some air condition, and besides, you’re suppose to do business checks and what’s the harm in doing one where that cute--  You take a deep breath. . .and reconsider.  Maybe you better save that visit for when you smell better. You wonder if you have time to slip upstairs at the office and wash off a bit.

Chris over the radio: “I got an unlock on a Toyota...”  Rats. 

The lady in the brown Toyota has a six-month-old baby in the car.  Her purse and keys are on the front seat.  She is frantic.  The baby’s face is red.  This is a new car with a tricky lock.  The sweat dripping off your face isn’t all from the heat.  If you can’t pop this lock soon, you’ll have to call the Fire Department and let them break the window.  But that would scare the baby, and you just felt your tool hit something.  Now, just a little bit further.  Easy, don’t let it slip off.  Click.  Got it.  Mother throws her arms around you and plants a big kiss on your cheek, not caring how you smell.  “Thank you so much!  You’re my hero.”  She insists you keep a picture of her baby.

Well, hey, plenty of time tomorrow to go check on that business.

The Beast

Thirty years ago downtown was unsafe. Fear, the great beast, has claws long enough to hook far back in time. The beast lives in us because it helped us survive. When there are predators in the trees, you’d better keep looking up.

Reason tames the beast. The truth is that downtown today is statistically as safe as our safest suburban communities. The truth also is that statistics don’t help if you are the one in a thousand that something actually happens to. Even when the crime rate is low, by definition, it exists, vindicating the beast. To be almost perfectly safe, we’d have to live in solitary confinement at a maximum security prison.

We’re all at some risk of being a victim of a crime, no matter where we are. We’re also at risk of heart disease, cancer, or a car accident. Allowing fears to dictate our lives is poor strategy. As far as we know, we only get one shot on this incredible wheel of existence. Do we want to spend it in solitary confinement?

On the other hand, ignoring the beast is also not the best strategy. Reason urges us to find an appropriate balance-- eat healthy food, exercise, and get adequate rest to lessen our risk of disease. So too, does reason urge us to use these safety tools wherever we are:

• Be alert and aware of your surroundings and your “space”
• Walk confidently
• Actively “notice” people; meet their eyes briefly to let them know you’re aware of them
• Walk with someone else if possible
• Have keys in hand when approaching your vehicle or dwelling
• Never get in a car with a stranger
• Never let a stranger get in your car (keep it locked)
• Don’t let yourself be put in an uncomfortable physical situation
• If you feel threatened, run and call for help
• Report suspicious behavior immediately and note the person’s:
• clothing
• physical attributes
• direction of travel
• Call your police department to get a home or business safety evaluation
• Check CapIsDowntown for more Safety Tips. 

What’ll have long term significance for downtown isn’t the commission of a single, highly unusual crime--hopefully we’ll refuse to let the beast dig in its claws--but the fact that our community pulled together in a way that may have saved a life.

Any police officer will vouch that the most critical element in fighting crime is the public. Apathetic neighbors who lay the burden totally on law enforcement are tilling and fertilizing the soil for crime to flourish. People caring enough to step forward and step up are what make the difference. In past times, people watched out for each other as a matter of course. As we became urbanized, we forgot how to live that way. We are always stronger with another by our side and at our back. In turning our urban downtown into a community that cares about its neighbors, perhaps we’ve begun to regain what we’d lost.

Let reason look straight into the beast’s eyes and bid us stand together.

Another trip, years later, I visited Japan.  Having all the directions in Japanese was not helpful to this suburban baby in negotiating the subway, but the surging, pressing crowds, the endless bombardment of advertisements, and the smell of urine-soaked concrete was far worse than the language barrier.  I exited the subway and sought relief from the crowds, climbing an isolated stairwell.  Halfway up, tucked into a corner landing, a small wooden bowl awaited me.  Inside the bowl, an exquisite white flower floated in clear water.  It was so simple, and so expressive of a heritage of the Japanese people far deeper than the underground caverns of the subway.  Someone had cared to place that piece of art right there where a needy soul would stumble on it, and to keep it fresh every day.  There are vistas and art of amazing beauty in Japan, but the image of that bowl, that tiny oasis of the soul in a concrete nightmare, will always stay with me. 

Back to my childhood visit to New York as a teenager-- Aunt Ethel’s best friend, I’ll call her Amy, was the ugliest woman I had ever seen.  Hers was the kind of face hard to look at and hard to look away from, and when she smiled, the effect was more grotesque.  I was grateful when she talked, because it let me look at her without appearing to be staring, although I had a difficult time paying attention to what she was saying.  By the end of the week, however, I realized with surprise that Amy wasn’t ugly anymore.  In fact, I didn’t even think about what she looked like; she just looked like Amy, and she was one of the kindest, nicest people I have ever known.  If you define art as a human being’s expression of an aspect of their existence, then Amy’s smile was art, as much as any painting or sculpture or musical composition.

Today, this suburban baby lives in the country.  She wakes to sublime sunrises on top of a forested mountain.  She breathes clean, pine-ladened air and watches her horse swishing his tail in the pasture of her front yard.  Heaven.  And yet, the other day she caught herself happily inhaling downtown Birmingham.  Is she sick?  I think I’ve figured out what has happened to her:   She sees red fire escapes and flower bowls everywhere.  She sees them in huge stone pots of pansies in the Harbert Plaza patio and coloring the little square plot of ground outside the New Church.  She sees them in the decorative patterns in the tile roof of First Presbyterian, in the frozen flare of Jimmy Kendrick’s coat, the drape of a wisteria bower on 4^th Avenue, the kaleidoscope of wonders in Jim Reed’s Museum of Fond Memories, the interplay of water and form in the Art Museum walkway and the McWane sculpture’s fire, in the lion heads on the Commerce building, and the peaceful tucked-away gardens of the Church of the Advent, and Mr. Harden’s front-door grotto.  And most of all she sees them in the warmth of peoples’ faces, the growing number she calls friends and even the strangers who are not too busy or distracted to create a work of art just for her.

Take A Moment

by T.K. Thorne
CAP Executive Director

Our days are so busy. How often do we rush from one place to the next withoutgiving the things in between a moment's attention? Walking 20th Street last week, I noticed a freshly cut hedge in front of the Firestone building. This hedge was quite long and had required skillful work to keep the line so straight. Who would care to give such attention to a hedge in front of an empty building?

A city worker sweeping the cut leaves appeared to be the barber, so I paused to compliment him on his work. He looked up in surprise, not used to being spoken to, I think. “I love my work,” he said. “I do this all day, and then I do 18 yards myself.” My turn to be surprised. “You work on eighteen yards on your own time after doing this all day? “Yes,” he nodded, “And I do all the yards myself.” My curiosity was aroused. “Why do you think you love it so much?” He gave this a moment’s thought before answering. “Well, you see, it keeps my mind occupied. I’ve been diagnosed with diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. I don’t take any medicine now for diabetes or the heart disease, and the cancer is in remission.” He went back to sweeping leaves. I considered this wisdom: He believed working hard at something he loved was the secret that kept those terrible diseases at bay. Who was I to contest it? “I do eighteen.” He repeated the statistic with only a pause of the broom’s stroke, adding, almost conspiratorially, “Mostly elderly folks’ yards. I watch out for ‘em, to make sure they don’t get ripped off.”

I promised myself the next time I passed a clean or landscaped spot, a hanging flower basket, or a worker in a City uniform sweeping the sidewalk, I would allow myself a moment to really see what is before me and who has worked on it, quietly, without requiring or asking for notice, and perhaps say an equally quiet word of thanks.

In a small effort to say “Thank You,” to all the Public Works folks who keep the City Center clean and green CAP, ONB, and KBBC sponsored the forth annual Appreciation and Awards Luncheon. Plenty of BBQ and music by the “Band of Brothers” helped get the message across and recognize outstanding work of :

Patrick Peques and Anthony Gardner for “Most Self-Motivated”

Lachaundra Chaney for “Neatest Shrub and Flower Bed”

Anthony Nix for “The Cleanest Block”

Rickey Kennedy for “HORTICULTURE EMPLOYEE of THE YEAR”

Roderick Gadsden “WHITEWING EMPLOYEE OF THE YEAR”

Congratulations and thank you!

Like police work, most of what goes on in Capland is routine, but occasionally things get interesting.  For example a few weeks ago a woman decided to proclaim her freedom by taking off her clothes, which would have been fine, except it was in the middle of 5^th Avenue and 20^th Street.  This is a somewhat unusual event.  But then there are others, like Jim, who stands in tattered rags on a corner every morning, leaning at an odd angle into the street and recites a complex and lengthy mantra before crossing.  He is articulate and bright, but utterly ruled by a strange, demanding compulsion, and refuses assistance of any kind.  And there are others who sometimes talk or respond out loud to voices only they hear.

This year there has been a historic settlement of a 30-year lawsuit that originated in Alabama.  In the last few decades the Wyatt case brought about changes and set precedents in the handling of the mentally ill across the country, resulting in the release of hundreds of people from state institutions, many of whom have ended up homeless on the street.  In spite of this, our state institutions apparently lagged in fulfilling the promise of the rulings, and with the final settlement an estimated 600 people will be released into “community care” this coming year.  To say that our community resources are unprepared for this is a gross understatement.  This past weekend I went to Baltimore and Washington DC to check out, among other things, their nationally recognized homeless services programs.  Washington was of special interest.  Of all the cities, they were the only one able to report a significant reduction of street homeless since the initiation of their program.  This is even more impressive considering the proportionate number of mentally ill in DC.  This is not counting politicians.  In most cities, including our own, about 30% of the homeless suffer from mental illness.  In DC almost 60% of the homeless have some form of mental illness. 

To me Washington’s success is credited to three things, one is a rallying of the business community around the concept of committing resources to the problem.  The second is the coordination of homeless services into one-stop shopping, if you will.  The third secret is an outreach worker whose fulltime job is to reach the street homeless.  His name is Michael.  He is young, still paying off his college tuition loan, with which, along with lots of hamburger jobs, he earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology.  Short, chunky, dressed in jeans and a loud, Hawaiian print shirt, earring in one ear, hair in long braided rows—at first glance I did not see him as DC’s secret weapon.   But as Michael talked I began to get it.  His last job had been in an institute for the severely mentally retarded and brain damaged.  He told me about a young man who couldn’t feed himself.  It took two years of holding his arm and guiding him before he could do it himself.  This awesome patience and belief in the human spirit is what allows him to reach out to the homeless.  “They have amnesia,” he told me.  “They have forgotten who they are.  I remind them of who they are and what they could do.  They did it once. They can do it again.  Sometimes they come right in.  Sometimes you have to make daily contact with them for a long time before they trust you enough to make that step.  One guy just stared straight ahead without acknowledging me for months before I got just a sideways eye movement that acknowledged I was there.  He’s still out there, but I’m not giving up on him.”  And we as a community cannot give up on them either.  I was very proud of how the CAP program compares to these exemplary cities.  In fact, Baltimore is planning a visit to check us out!  We can learn from what has been done and been successful and make it better.  We have an opportunity to really make a difference. We’ve made a great start with First Light.  Now we just need to pull everyone together and commit the resources and find us a Michael.

Sex . . . Murder . . . Death.