Homeless Drama
On the new books shelf at the public library was displayed, “There is no place for us: working and homeless in America,” (2025) by Brian Goldstone. It is a print documentary of the experience of the typically underpaid, independent single mom, who must grapple with a bewildering array of limited housing opportunities, meager financial means, laws, and help organizations just to stay off the street. It is written in a conversational style without footnotes. The scholarly references are at the back of the book, referenced by short phrases from the corresponding page of the text.
The reader, and the writer, are treading water with this book. The narrative is a whirling blizzard of anecdotes of getting by at the poverty level. While not legally—literally—homeless, the itinerant mother at the center of the book must change accommodations so often as to be, practically speaking, without a home. More than one home address in a year is effectively the same as being without a place to call home. Too many homes is also being homeless, got it? It's not a study of sociology, or any kind of science, in this book. It's about the homelessness experience. As expected, the book offers no answers to the problem of homelessness. Homelessness is endemic. That's a fact. Get used to it.
That's not meant to be as cold as it sounds, excepting slight exaggeration for rhetorical effect. It's also not the same as “giving up,” or surrendering to the security of your own safe space. When I say 'get used to it,' it is a call to action, not to apathy. As an artist, I can put the problem into global context by imagery. Everyone knows someone who lives on the edge financially, “from paycheck to paycheck.” No one is absolutely free of worry where property is concerned. Eminent domain is analogous to eviction. The landlord stands to lose property ownership if it isn't free-and-clear, and unencumbered by collateral obligations, etc. They, too, are only human. Only the children are oblivious to responsibility for homelessness even as, statistically, most homeless persons are children.
I have argued consistently against looking to positivism for answers to the problem of chronic homelessness. That applies to “There is no place for us: working and homeless in America,” as well to as my own work of painting those who “live rough.” There is no solution. At least do no harm! The response, I argue, is human. It is everybody's problem because it is a human problem, as it is the reverse. It is a tragedy, not unlike a classical Greek tragedy of family betrayal, but with black people acting the roles instead of whites. In this American black family, tragedy was set in motion by an abortion performed on a 14-year-old girl, authorized by her family. It is a crime not unworthy of the House of Atreus.
Not everyone considers abortion a crime, and it was presumably legal, as it was explicitly approved by the main character's father. The girl is not to be blamed. It is not she who is guilty of killing another human being. And yet, spin it however you wish—in accordance with what political sympathies you may have—but that event was a defining moment in a life-long sequence of misfortunes to come. That one event is not to be taken as solely the cause of all that follows. It was more than the cause. It was a curse, a particular mark of shame, branded on the girl by an unknown, inhuman, higher power. This tragic interpretation may be my imagination, however, the idea was suggested to me by the following passage from the book:
Her experience with Atlanta's housing market, her tenacity in applying, and in some cases reapplying, to apartment complexes in the area—offering cash up front, exuding competence in friendly, personalized voice messages, attaching notes explaining their eviction and low credit score, all in vain—had left her convinced that there was little rhyme or reason to getting approved. The whole thing had come to feel inscrutable, as if their lives were in the hands of a capricious god.
It seemed fitting, then, that what finally got them into an apartment was not strategy but serendipity.
“Serendipity” is belief in chance, fortune, and luck, all of which are pagan notions. Obviously, as used here, it is a figure of speech. Nonetheless, it is a telling choice of words. Antonyms of serendipity include intention, design, and planning, which refer to outcomes achieved through deliberate effort rather than chance, the predicates of Positivism, the belief in “progress through science.”
The text messaging, voice messages, communicating back-and-forth, the lack of “rhyme or reason,” the inescapable undercurrent of fraud makes an impression on the reader of a stage drama. It's over-played, melodramatic, real life, and scripted. I have to resist the wicked idea of breaking-out the entire book into a series of 30-minute TV series episodes. Imagine, each week a new dramatic situation, taken from real-life homelessness. It is only by willpower that I resist citing additional instances—scandalous details—from the book. The series would dominate viewership for its time slot.
The defect of the sitcom idea is that a laugh track would be inappropriate, because it is not comedy. Even breaking-out the text into episodes is disingenuous. I believe I said it was a 'wicked' impulse. Indeed, the story can be read as epic tragedy, not sitcom comedy. There is, in the meandering “plot,” a climactic moment when the woman at the center of it all experiences a moment of truth, of “hamartia” (tragic flaw), in her recognition of her own human failings as cause of her downfall as a mother, and as an independent adult. Refer to Aristotle's Poetics for further explanation of the tragic moment-of-truth. As a spoiler alert, I will not tell, here, the specific moment in the book, “There is no place for us: working and homeless in America,” of the main character's moment of hamartia.
A better idea is to re-write the book's contents as a script for delivery by professional actors. The show would feature realistic ghetto backgrounds, with contextual music—both sound-track and live—for performance before live audience and as a studio production. It would make a dazzling show. Now, I'm a painter, not an entertainment producer, but if I can figure this out, why not Hollywood? I know what you are thinking, that I am “putting you on.” I agree; the idea can be faulted for not taking the problem seriously. That's the whole point. Homelessness is a drama, not a social “problem” to be solved—much less cured—like medicine cures a physical ailment. The whole metaphor of healing the human race is a fallacy that should be rejected by conscientious persons as a delusion of the mind.