I have been so fortunate to have such an opulent experience in France. Paris is often mythicized as a beautiful, romantic place, but I found that that is not always true. It is a city, after all, and it can be gray and concrete filled with reminders of poverty on every corner.
Before we moved to a San Fransisco suburb, we had seriously looked at apartments in the city. Ultimately, I confessed that the timing didn't feel right to me; that I wasn't yet emotionally prepared to face the serious homeless problem that plagued the streets. (What a luxury, to choose my home based on sentiment.) Granted, San Luis Obispo had a large transient population, but generally speaking, it was a younger crowd of mid-twenties kids on their way up or down the coast. They looked more like hipsters and the college crowd was unusually generous and friendly to them. San Fransisco had more of an older homeless population and my heart went out to the sad looking souls curled up against buildings, fighting the fog and cold. There seemed to be more veterans and people with disabilities as well. With my background in social services, I do understand the available programs for aid; yet I also know how short these programs fall in helping our fellow citizens.
We rush to rescue stray animals, placing them in warm shelters and finding homes that have been vetted for safety and comfort... Too often, we ignore the pleading eyes of 'stray' humans and hurry past them, blocking their needs from our thoughts.
San Fransisco did little to prepare me for the problems of Paris.
Due to benevolent immigration laws, in recent years there has been a large influx of foreign nationals who have fled to France seeking opportunity. On a grander scale than what is seen in America, plenty of these people have true difficulty finding employment and housing. I was not braced for the sheer numbers of families that make their homes living on the streets. On my route to the grocery store, a mere two blocks, there were at least sixty members of homeless families. Please remember, we were in a very nice part of the city and I've been told it's much worse in other districts. Sometimes they'd take refuge on the steps of churches, but mostly I was struck by groups of children sleeping clustered on dirty mattresses on the edges of the street. At night time, the families would make circles and you could hear them telling the children stories. The laughter of the young echoing through the night wrenched my heart, especially as I thought of the children of friends and family back home...
As always, I am reminded of the fact that I was in 'one of the greatest cities of the world' and that this is nothing compared to other countries. Still, I relish the chance I was given, being born into the life I know and the favorable circumstances that led me to here. I don't have any grand illusion of a solution, but rather I ask that today you take a moment, and appreciate who and where you are.
No comments:
Post a Comment