Cultural Shock: Homeless In USA
During my years living in the USA, there had been a lot of things that really shocked me. Just when I thought I knew everything about the USA before I moved here, I realized I actually knew so little. Now looking back, I see how naive I was. But it was a good thing because being naive kept me optimistic and happy. Ignorance is really a bliss! When I was growing up, I heard so much about the USA, and I heard how not only was USA the super powerful world police, but was the "richest" country in the world. The international brand of America has always been: America is the land of opportunities, the land where dreams come true, the land where everybody can get rich and have a wonderful life.
So the first time when I encountered homeless people in New York City as a teenage tourist, I was shocked. I remember calling my father back home asking why there were so many homeless people in New York City. My dad was also surprised to hear this and he of course didn't know why, since he never set feet on America. What he knew about the USA was what his friends who emigrated to the USA told him, and it was all glitzy and good. Throughout the years, my American friends provided me different explanations on such a phenomenon that is so prominent in the USA. Sadly, nobody could offer a solution. Nowhere else in the world I visited thus far has more homeless people than what I see in the USA. I don't know where these other cities and countries put their homeless people (my native country included), they are just out of my sight.
I was initially surprised that as the richest country in the world, the U.S. government is unable to help the homeless people. Then some of my American friends told me many of these homeless people suffered from mental illness and they refused help. So the U.S. government provides no facility where these mentally-ill homeless people can live and be treated? In my native country, there are sanatoriums where the mentally-ill are kept, and treated, and yes, some of them were never released because their mind was so gone that they couldn't be released back to society. Many who were released were visited by social workers frequently and sometimes got re-admitted to the sanatoriums when their mental illness relapsed. Then my friends told me the U.S. gov't had closed down all sanatoriums and evicted all mentally-ill patients to let them fend for themselves, to save tax dollars, decades ago? Seriously? The U.S. gov't can't afford to keep the sanatoriums open for the mentally-ill but it surely can afford the US$ billion foreign aids it spends overseas every year! I always felt this was so very wrong.
But of course, I later also learnt that people became homeless other than being mentally-ill. Whatever the reasons I was told that caused America's homeless epidemic, I had never heard or seen one solution that can effectively solve the problem. So as time goes by, I begin to get used to the homeless scene. I often see them linger around the glitzy downtown building where I work. They stink and I've learnt to just put up with their smell when they walk pass me, pretending I don't smell anything, pretending it's just normal. Sometimes when I step outside the glitzy lobby of my workplace, I find a seemingly motionless body lying just steps away from the sparkly glass door. I just walk pass that body as if I don't see anything. It's not just me, but literally everybody who walks outside of my work building just ignores the motionless body, right outside. Nobody cares, nobody is shocked, nobody asks what happens. Can you imagine that sight, a motionless body lying outside a fancy high rise office building, steps away from the pretty lobby, and white-collar folks in business suits like me just walk pass by, carrying our Starbucks coffee, salad lunch or sushi bento, talking on our phones, as if we don't see the motionless body on the sidewalk. May be we just put the motionless body out of our eye sight. We swirl around him/her, and march on to work, to our next meeting, to wherever we need to go.
This kind of scene only can be found in the USA. We've become numb to the homeless situation. In my case, I become numb to it after years of asking "why" and get no uniform answer for an effective solution. I just feel, "Oh, well, what can I do about it, it's a political issue, it's a social issue and it's an economic issue in the USA that I'm powerless to do anything, after all, I have paid so much taxes to the government by working long hours, I think this is the problem for the government to work on, not mine. I'm not going to spend my time worrying about doing the government's job! No, no!" I bet most people think like me, so they just ignore the motionless bodies that sometimes litter downtown Los Angeles.
When I encountered the first motionless body outside my work, I remember I was very scared and I quickly went back to report it to the security personnel of the building, who shocked me by appearing to be so calm and he told me in such a business-as-usual manner, "Mam, don't worry about it, the police will soon come to take care of it." That was how I learnt about how frequently motionless bodies littered around the financial district and the police who are dedicated to patrol the area are very well aware of it and they have their protocols to relocate them or send them to ER.
When I told this to my parents, they couldn't believe it because the only person in my family who experienced similar situation like mine, that is, the sighting of motionless bodies littered around town, was my grandfather, who had once lived in a war zone as a young boy, who often walked around motionless bodies, scattering left and right, and my grandpa became numb to such sights even though he was scared at the beginning. But I live in the "supposedly" richest country in the world, in the USA! Why do I have to see this like it's so normal?
I would like to warn all legal immigrants-to-be, all the dreamers who dream of moving here to the USA, America is not all paradise like you think, the U.S. government provides almost no help to its citizens, if they are broke, with no job and they don't have any kid. So be prepared to have a survival plan B if things don't work out for you. I spent hours last night looking at the Social Service website in California, and I literally found no assistance that caters to American citizens who are broke, who are homeless and who have no kid. Nothing. If I'm blind and I am missing out the assistance available to the homeless and childless Americans who are broke and jobless due to any unfortunate event, please educate me and let me know what government assistance there is for this group of Americans.
I was initially surprised that as the richest country in the world, the U.S. government is unable to help the homeless people. Then some of my American friends told me many of these homeless people suffered from mental illness and they refused help. So the U.S. government provides no facility where these mentally-ill homeless people can live and be treated? In my native country, there are sanatoriums where the mentally-ill are kept, and treated, and yes, some of them were never released because their mind was so gone that they couldn't be released back to society. Many who were released were visited by social workers frequently and sometimes got re-admitted to the sanatoriums when their mental illness relapsed. Then my friends told me the U.S. gov't had closed down all sanatoriums and evicted all mentally-ill patients to let them fend for themselves, to save tax dollars, decades ago? Seriously? The U.S. gov't can't afford to keep the sanatoriums open for the mentally-ill but it surely can afford the US$ billion foreign aids it spends overseas every year! I always felt this was so very wrong.
But of course, I later also learnt that people became homeless other than being mentally-ill. Whatever the reasons I was told that caused America's homeless epidemic, I had never heard or seen one solution that can effectively solve the problem. So as time goes by, I begin to get used to the homeless scene. I often see them linger around the glitzy downtown building where I work. They stink and I've learnt to just put up with their smell when they walk pass me, pretending I don't smell anything, pretending it's just normal. Sometimes when I step outside the glitzy lobby of my workplace, I find a seemingly motionless body lying just steps away from the sparkly glass door. I just walk pass that body as if I don't see anything. It's not just me, but literally everybody who walks outside of my work building just ignores the motionless body, right outside. Nobody cares, nobody is shocked, nobody asks what happens. Can you imagine that sight, a motionless body lying outside a fancy high rise office building, steps away from the pretty lobby, and white-collar folks in business suits like me just walk pass by, carrying our Starbucks coffee, salad lunch or sushi bento, talking on our phones, as if we don't see the motionless body on the sidewalk. May be we just put the motionless body out of our eye sight. We swirl around him/her, and march on to work, to our next meeting, to wherever we need to go.
This kind of scene only can be found in the USA. We've become numb to the homeless situation. In my case, I become numb to it after years of asking "why" and get no uniform answer for an effective solution. I just feel, "Oh, well, what can I do about it, it's a political issue, it's a social issue and it's an economic issue in the USA that I'm powerless to do anything, after all, I have paid so much taxes to the government by working long hours, I think this is the problem for the government to work on, not mine. I'm not going to spend my time worrying about doing the government's job! No, no!" I bet most people think like me, so they just ignore the motionless bodies that sometimes litter downtown Los Angeles.
When I encountered the first motionless body outside my work, I remember I was very scared and I quickly went back to report it to the security personnel of the building, who shocked me by appearing to be so calm and he told me in such a business-as-usual manner, "Mam, don't worry about it, the police will soon come to take care of it." That was how I learnt about how frequently motionless bodies littered around the financial district and the police who are dedicated to patrol the area are very well aware of it and they have their protocols to relocate them or send them to ER.
When I told this to my parents, they couldn't believe it because the only person in my family who experienced similar situation like mine, that is, the sighting of motionless bodies littered around town, was my grandfather, who had once lived in a war zone as a young boy, who often walked around motionless bodies, scattering left and right, and my grandpa became numb to such sights even though he was scared at the beginning. But I live in the "supposedly" richest country in the world, in the USA! Why do I have to see this like it's so normal?
I would like to warn all legal immigrants-to-be, all the dreamers who dream of moving here to the USA, America is not all paradise like you think, the U.S. government provides almost no help to its citizens, if they are broke, with no job and they don't have any kid. So be prepared to have a survival plan B if things don't work out for you. I spent hours last night looking at the Social Service website in California, and I literally found no assistance that caters to American citizens who are broke, who are homeless and who have no kid. Nothing. If I'm blind and I am missing out the assistance available to the homeless and childless Americans who are broke and jobless due to any unfortunate event, please educate me and let me know what government assistance there is for this group of Americans.
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