Two Weeks Old and On the Street
By Rita Ramos
Two hundred people stood in line on a Tuesday evening outside in line on a Tuesday evening outside the Halle Building behind barricades stretching around the block. It looked like a 1930’s movie. Everyone had their own way of trying to get an extra sandwich or milk.
One woman came to the line with a blanket, supposedly holding a baby. It seemed obvious that whatever was inside was too small to be a baby. She got extra milk. I decided to confront her.
“Excuse me may I see you baby?” She opened the blanket and there was a two-week old baby boy, one of the smallest babies I’d ever seen. We spoke for a while. Lenore had been robbed at the welfare hotel she was moved to, so her baby had nothing to wear but one night shirt.
“I have to wash it out every night and hope it dried by morning or else we can’t go out,” she said. “I’ve got just one can of formula left and I don’t get my check ‘til next week. My milks no good because I don’t eat right. I got her hotel information and told her I’d try to help.
She said, “Tomorrow we have to move out because this hotel only puts you up for a few weeks; I’ll have to spend the day downtown while they try to find me a shelter. I’m so tired.”
The next day I called the hotel and said I was a caseworker and ask to get her a two week extension. The hotel manager said it would be alright and that Lenore could stay for two weeks, until the baby was on month old.
I called her room and told her the good news. She was relieved.
I told her that I’d get her baby some clothes and some formula. The next day I came to the hotel with a collection of both. I was told that Lenore was gone. There was a “mix-up” and she wasn’t given an extension. No forwarding address was left.
I wonder where Lenore is with that tiny person wrapped in a blanket. I wonder what kind of chance he has for success. I wonder if he begins life in a world where his most basic needs are not being met. I wonder if he’ll even live. In every life we are given the chance to make choices. We can accept circumstances and we can create circumstances. We can use our eyes to see; and if we choose to, we can close them or look away. Too many people are afraid to use their eyes. If they would only look a little closer, they would realize that all they are really afraid of is what they see within themselves. They see how they are able to walk past a man lying on cement, able to walk pas and old woman who is getting her breakfast from a garbage can, able to walk past a man protected only by pieces of torn blanket and cardboard.
I really don’t know where to begin to deal with all the challenged that face us. I only know that we must begin and that we cannot rely on what other are doing.
We each must act, we each must face ourselves and get in touch with the part of us that won’t allow us to look the other way any longer.
Copyright Homeless Grapevine Summer 1993 Issue 2 Cleveland, Ohio.