Pax on both houses: "Homeless, Addicted, Poor, and Hungry…" Brother Gerald

Brothers Bill and Ger

"Homeless, Addicted, Poor, and Hungry…"

I have the audacity to believe that people everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality, and freedom for their spirits. – Martin Luther King, Jr.

The global pandemic has both exacerbated and unveiled the massive divisiveness in our community and country.

On any given fair-weather weekend, I enjoy driving my small collection of convertible classic cars. This spring, as late as it has been, has me exercising a number of cars each weekend. I enjoy cruising University and East Avenues as well as Main Street. This past weekend, I had the following remarkable experience. Keep in mind that I do not recommend what I am about to describe. However, I will say that more direct interaction and communication between and among citizens of all levels of society will result in our collective healing of homelessness, addiction, poverty, and hunger. Perhaps the pandemic is in some way a wake-up call for all of us.

So, there I am, cruising down University Avenue in my pumpkin orange 1975 Cadillac El Dorado convertible, and I do something that is relatively normal for me, but unthinkable for most. I saw two men at the bus shelter near Gleason Works, drove by, and turned around. I was intrigued that one of them was a large man with what appeared to be several bags of belongings. The other man could have been a jockey, due to his modest height and wiry frame. I waved them over to the parking lot behind the bus shelter and asked them if I could give them a ride downtown. The looks on their faces were priceless, as if they had suddenly been thrust into an alternate reality. That is, a Caucasian asking an African-American and a Latino to take a ride in a classic car. Needless to say, they were both over the moon as they ran towards my car. It was as if the thought crossed their minds that if they didn’t get there fast enough, I might drive away.

While that two-minute interaction satisfied my emotional and spiritual need for the weekend, what followed was even more incredible. The big guy was in the front seat, and the little guy was in the back seat. The little guy, whose name was Reuben, pulled out his cell phone and started a video as we drove down University Avenue. About 30 seconds in, he said, “Good God, who would ever expect a white man, a black man, and a Latino driving together in a Cadillac convertible!” Both of them started waving to strangers as though they were in a parade. It was great fun.

It gets better. After our brief introduction, James, the big guy, told me that he is a homeless veteran, with 12 years in the Marine Corps, and three tours of duty in Bosnia, Iraq, and Afghanistan. He was shot three times, and his monthly check has been going to his wife and two kids who live in the Finger Lakes region. There is far more to this story than what I can include in this column. Suffice it to say that in the less than 10 minutes it took to drive down to the Liberty Pole, I gained a new and expanded appreciation for just how badly our community of Monroe continues to suffer from societal inequities.

In the course of the ride, James thanked and blessed me at least 20 times. Interestingly, his first comment when he got in the car was, “My father, who has passed, used to have a Cadillac.”

As I was dropping James off, he asked if I could provide him some money for food, since he had not eaten since the previous afternoon. I took out my binder clip of credit cards and cash, and unfortunately there was a $50 bill on top. James said politely, “I’ll definitely take the $50!” After we both had a good laugh, I gave him a $10, wished him well, and apologized on behalf of myself and other clueless Americans that he should not be living the life of a homeless vet.

As James exited the car, Reuben shouted, “Can I get in the front seat?” He hopped over the side of the car and jumped in the front seat. I asked him how long he had been in the country, and he said four months. He proceeded to tell me that he was a drug addict who came here from Central Puerto Rico to quote “get clean”. Since he did not have Medicaid or any type of insurance, I surmised that he was put on waiting lists for different substance abuse clinics in Rochester. He mentioned one by name that he had visited every day during the past week, only to be told there was “no room for him”.

Before those reading this accuse me of being naïve and gullible, I certainly understand that not everything I heard in this 20-minute drive was the God’s honest truth.

I laughed when I asked Reuben where I could drop him off, thinking he was going down to the Main Street Bus Depot. On the contrary, he acted as though I was an Uber driver and proceeded to have me drive him and drop him off on La Avenida, otherwise known as North Clinton Avenue. I pulled into the Valero gas station, and he asked if I could help him out with a few dollars. He said that if I gave him the $50, he would get change at the gas station. I said that was a great idea for him, but not necessarily a great idea for me, knowing that he was an addict. I gave him a $10 as well and asked him to never give up on his desire to get clean. The collection of people around the gas station and across the street were clearly flabbergasted that a white man driving a Cadillac El Dorado convertible was dropping off one of their own.

The experience above prompted me to inform each of you that every one of us can do something either financially or through volunteerism to help close the open wounds of societal inequity. If a mere 50% of us donated our time and/or money to improve the inequities in our community, each of us would be happier and more satisfied, while reinforcing the “Golden Rule”. Therefore, in my usual Top 10 format, please select one or more of the following opportunities.

Almost every nonprofit health, social, and human service organization in our community is struggling with continuation of services and financial viability. If you already have a favorite charity, call them up and ask what you can do. Almost all of them have “Wish Lists”.
Foodlink (led by Julia Tedesco), our regional connection to combating hunger in our community, will definitely use donated food and/or money to maximum benefit.
United Way (led by Jaime Saunders) has long been the largest philanthropic supporter of basic needs in our community, and the need continues to grow. The United Way website at https://www.uwrochester.org/ lists volunteer opportunities and current needs.
Common Ground Health (led by Wade Norwood) has been instrumental in conducting a “food insecurity” assessment that will clearly define the scope and breadth of our challenges.
Most churches have been closed for 10 weeks. However, the ministries supported and sponsored by those churches are in desperate need of funds to continue their efforts at alleviating societal ills.
Action for a Better Community (led by Jerome Underwood), the Urban League (led by Seanelle Hawkins), and Ibero-American Action League (led by Angelica Perez-Delgado) desperately need more financial and volunteer support from the wealthy, mostly white suburbanites to address the issues described in this column that are central to daily life in the City of Rochester.
You should all know that the challenges of educating our youth and breaking the cycle of poverty rests with the success or failure of our public education system.
House of Mercy and our regional homeless shelters will be experiencing significant demand as we approach this fall and winter.
Healthcare service delivery providers have been devastated by the 10-week shutdown. No one has escaped the economic decline, including the range of providers from health systems to community-based health centers.
Finally, as a 67-year old Catholic, I must give a shout-out to the Sisters of St. Joseph and Sisters of Mercy, who continue to provide social supports in education, homelessness, and poverty, with impact far beyond their number of active Sisters and associates.

I know I will never see James or Reuben again. When I told this story to my daughter, a front-line nurse who should have been a comedienne, she suggested that the title of the article should be “I’ll take the fifty”!

If you are still questioning the massive needs described above, please consider the following quotation from Mahatma Gandhi: “The world has enough for everyone’s need, but not for everyone’s greed.”

Gerald Archibald

"Rochester Business Journal"

You may access Gerald's archived "RBJ" articles at:
https://rbj.net/tag/gerald-archibald/
Alan: I encourage you to scroll through the titles to see the range of Gerald's thought, concerns and counsel.
I should also point out that Gerald ALWAYS puts his money where his mouth is.

Sister Seraphine Herbst with Holy Childhood children in 1965.