Walk across the Boston Common to the Park Street Station or to downtown crossing and it’s easy to think of homeless people as drunks or drug addicts or mentally unstable.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmNr7UHK92E[/youtube]
Up in Salisbury, we found homeless people who go to the local elementary school.
This week on Radio Boston we’re finding out to our sorrow and concern that there’s a large and growing number of people who don’t fit that stereotype at all…
At the town’s only elementary school, they have a woman on staff known as a “homeless coordinator” who works with children who are homeless or are one step away from being homeless.Driving up the main ocean road, I saw yellow school buses stopping in front of motels and cabins that cater to beachgoers in the summertime. In the off season, when the rentals drop way below what they are in summer, and it’s too cold to live in cars or tents in campgrounds, people who’ve lost their homes or apartments, their jobs and savings, can find an alternative to shelters.
“I don’t ask questions and they don’t tell us they’re homeless,” one manager with few vacancies told me. “But you can tell: they look sad and broken.”
Elizabeth and Gino have lived here with their nine year old since they missed their rent payments in Billerica and got thrown out. Gino is a disabled Marine Corps veteran. They couldn’t cover their debts. Their cabin isn’t much bigger than my garden shed, but it has a stove and a sink. It’s still bigger than the place next door, where Bill, who lost his home a couple of years ago, makes do with a hot plate for cooking when he comes home from work. Next to Bill is Debby, who has a five year old son and ended up here with her boyfriend when he lost his construction job. He’s just started working again , but she can’t because daycare would cost more than she’d make.
Nearly two hundred new kids show up at the Salisbury elementary school every September or October and nearly two hundred kids disappear from school in May or June, according to both the school and the local social service agency. That’s the classic indicator of the homeless: they can never seem to stay at any one place for very long.
And, what I find really depressing looking at a dilapidated, grey and gloomy town, is that the head of the local social services agency—who’s been here helping the poor and homeless for years—says it’s only getting worse.
Now that the ground has thawed let’s go on an archaeological dig. What are some of the latest big local discoveries? What do historical artifacts teach us about our past?
