This is a sad story — and far more typical than care to admit: Melvin Jenkins was a diesel mechanic who badly injured himself on the job, found himself in thrall to drugs and living on the streets. He died earlier this month at age 58 of a heart attack after seemingly cleaning himself up.
Some might look at Jenkins and blame him for his failings. They’ll say he could have cleaned himself up sooner, that he should have resisted the demon of drug and alcohol abuse, that he had a skill and he should have used it and remained productive. There is some truth to these claims. That Jenkins failed to stay clean and productive is mostly his fault, though he probably had an assist from a society that has little patience for those battling substance abuse and mental health issues.
Even if we accept that his failings were his own, doesn’t the fact that Jenkins is just one of hundreds of thousands of homeless men and women in this country say something about the way we view productivity and usefulness, about how little we regard people living on the edge of the economy?
Lakewood is forcibly closing Tent City this week, which is part of an agreement between the township and the homeless that resulted in a year of housing for those in the camp last year. It is doing so in an aggressive manner that treats those remaining as animals — rooting them out and chasing them away, caring little about what happens to the last of them.
And, perhaps more importantly, no one has addressed the issues that resulted in the tent encampment sprouting in the woods along Cedar Bridge Avenue in the first place — the lack of quality affordable housing or even emergency shelter in the region in a region known for having a high cost of living, a lack of jobs that pay a living wage to the unskilled or moderately skilled, and a broader economic attitude that assigns value only to those who can help businesses create profits.
As my friend Ken Wolman points out on Facebook: “I’m sure that not so long ago, he didn’t think he’d become the Man On The Grate either. Avoiding that fate doesn’t require strength of character, just good fortune and being able to avoid painful injuries.”
It also may require a reconsideration on our part of how we value our fellow human beings.
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Hank Kalet 