There But for the Grace of God?
According to a New York Times report, Times Square is down to its last homeless person.
Homelessness has risen in other parts of the Big Apple. But Times Square, one of the many flagships of the NYC brand, has made major inroads towards cleaning up its act, a trend that began back in the early nineties under then Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
Tactics in the war on homelessness have changed over the years in New York. While in the past the emphasis may have been on the stick, today the carrot is more in vogue. Social workers have courted the lone holdout, an African-American man who goes by the handle "Heavy" (see photo). While their daily offers of free housing have fallen on deaf ears in Heavy's case, he is the last of seven hardcore street people who held out until just last summer.
But Heavy appears to be well respected by the long-time locals around Times Square. He's polite, well-groomed, adequately-dressed, finds coffee to drink, cigarettes to smoke, food to eat, a little spending money from generous strangers. Heavy even has a mission: he says he's "a protector of the neighborhood."
Who's to argue that?
Heavy has been living this way for at least 20 years. He understands the contours of that world. He has friends and acquaintances there. One can only imagine the transition his friends have had to make into housing, on to mind-controlling drugs, buying cigarettes at a store and ironing a shirt for example. When you start a person down that road — the road toward civilized living — life gets complicated in a hurry.
No one claims that Heavy is mentally ill, though there is that insinuation that if he is homeless he must be. But what if he isn't? What is he really giving up that's all that important? Cable television? Driving a car?
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