When John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath” appeared in 1939, it shocked readers with its grim description of families experiencing homelessness. For those who may have forgotten, the classic novel chronicled a family of sharecroppers who were displaced from a small farm in Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl years and fled to California in search of a fresh start. Instead, they met with anger, discrimination and violence.
Here’s a passage where two Californians discuss homeless people:
“Well, you and me got sense. Them goddamn Okies got no sense and no feeling. They ain’t human. A human being wouldn’t live like they do. A human being couldn’t stand it to be so dirty and miserable. They ain’t a hell of a lot better than gorillas.”
Almost 90 years later, hardened minds haven’t softened. Homeless people in Vancouver are increasingly the target of harassment and violence, according to a story by Alexis Weisend that appeared in Thursday’s Columbian.
“The bullying most of the time is very stereotypical and derogatory and seems to be coming from folks of a different place of privilege or housed folks,” said Adam Kravitz, executive director of Outsiders Inn. The local nonprofit operates two of Vancouver’s Safe Stay communities, where people can live in basic dignity. A surprising number of success stories have been associated with the communities. Residents have gone on to find permanent housing, employment, substance disorder treatment and medical care.
But Kravitz said passersby honk, scream epithets, or even throw burning fireworks over the fence and into the communities. It’s worse in unstructured camps, like the one along the Mill Plain Boulevard sound wall west of downtown. A homeless woman living in a tent found threatening notes. Then, someone burned her tent. Another woman was sorting through trash bins, looking for aluminum cans that could be returned for cash. She was shot with a pellet gun by a neighbor.
“Every single female we’ve ever talked to has been a victim of some type of crime, specifically sexual or physical in nature,” Kravitz said. Men are victimized, too.
Why is this? Certainly people are frustrated with homelessness, which is worse in the Pacific Northwest. Housed neighbors near that Mill Plain sound wall camp complain of noise, trash, drug use, open urination and defecation and other nuisances.
But will honking car horns and throwing rocks solve this problem? Of course not.
Experts will tell you there is no simple solution. Everyone has a different story and different needs. Housing is extremely expensive, especially if you have few job skills or are disabled.
But expressing frustration by purposely harming people who are already marginalized only complicates the problem at a time we struggle for solutions.
Tyler Chavers, a retired Vancouver police officer who has worked extensively with local people experiencing homelessness, puts it this way: “If you also add instability by constantly placing somebody in fear that they must move — and if they don’t they’re going to lose all their earthly possessions and literally have nothing — you’re further increasing that stress response.”
We can do better. But the lack of progress since “The Grapes of Wrath” doesn’t inspire much hope. Or is there?
Perhaps Steinbeck should have the last word. In his journal for 1938, he wrote “Try to understand men; if you understand each other you will be kind to each other. Knowing a man well never leads to hatred and nearly always leads to love.”
