When I flew back to NYC yesterday, after two weeks in Tampa, I could not figure out why a homeless person would prefer spending the winter in NYC (or any other Northeastern city where there are thousands of homeless people) to relocating to a pleasant climate where the largest inconvenience of homelessness, exposure to the elements, would be minimized.
Plainly this isn’t so. I can’t say why.
The obvious retort to my position would be “PRR, do you think homeless people have the money to travel as they see fit? If they had that kind of discretionary funds, surely they wouldn’t be homeless, etc.” But my plane ticket down here was under $100, so let’s just call it “homeless people with two fifties, and two brain cells, to rub together” and eliminate that reason.
Also I’m interested in what cities like Tampa do (if anything) to discourage homeless people from flocking there. I was carrying groceries back from the Publix supermarket to my friend’s nice Tampa apartment, stopped in some kind of traffic kiosk thing for a moment to rest my package, reached in and had a few strawberries and thought, “This kiosk is bigger and nicer than my apartment in NYC. You could live here if you wanted to.”
Why don’t more folks inhabit kiosks in the Tampa area?
FWIW, when I used to be a truck driver I’d notice an obvious increase in hitchhikers (most I would presume to be homeless) heading south during the fall and north during the spring. WAG, might be the weather driving them south and the better availablity of social services bringing them back north?
Homeless people still aren’t the most mobile people around- $100 seems like a lark until you’ve seen it from the other side. Plus, there are other hassles of long distance travel…getting to an airport, having ID, waking up in time for a lfight with no alarm clock, making yourself fit to sit next to someone for some time- it adds up.
Secondly, homeless people go to areas that provide the best social services and the least harrassment. I used to live in a town that was a homeless mecca and we’d get the homeless from all over, despite the not-great weather. Good public transportation, a compact city with sidewalks with lots of pedestrains, camping areas, and other factors also play in.
Finally, just like you or I, the homeless want to be where the jobs are. Many of them do or would like to work. They want to be someplace that has a good economy where the chance of finding a job is at least possible.
It does seem as if lots of homeless people manage to make their way to Southern California. There’s no doubt that I see more on the streets this time of year than at other, warmer times.
I think it might have something to do with how spread out Tampa is. Most of the time you notice homeless people, it is in an area with some density. Most cities in Florida don’t have any density at all to them. There is little to no foot traffic.
It’s a little trickier than just picking up and leaving. Many homeless people have mental problems and familiarity can be very important to them. In addition, a lot of homeless people have friends and family in the area they live it. That is, it’s their home. It’s very tough to leave your home in the best of times much less with nothing at all.
I don’t think its because of police harassement. I used to work next to the police dept. in downtown Tampa, and there were always a few homeless people hanging out infront. They didn’t seem to be too worried about the cops when out panhandling infront of the police dept. in the middle of business the business district, so I don’t think the cops give them much trouble.
Homeless people do travel, though. I’m a public librarian, and our homeless population often has questions along the lines of “can you give me a list of shelters in Charleston?” or “How far is the Salvation Army from the Greyhound terminal in Savannah?” Sometimes our regulars will disappear for awhile and then show up again, sometimes you never see them again. (Of course, that doesn’t mean they’ve gone away - they could have died, been banned from the premises, gone to jail, etc.) And then there’s a lot of them who are new in town and stick around for awhile.
They don’t fly anywhere, though, I’m really surprised you’d think “travel = commercial air service”.
Do homeless people still “ride the rails” anymore, like hoboes of times past, or is that too dangerous and illegal now?
I know there were several homeless people in downtown Gainesville, Florida, a small college town about two hours north of Tampa and Orlando. My old college roommate, a Gainesville native (quite rare) told me that the locals always noted a spike in the homeless population as they came down from the north every Winter, and stayed until Spring. He wasn’t sure how they came down, but it would be to be by buses and/or trains; I can’t imagine the homeless taking planes to be homeless somewhere else, like vacationing snowbirds. The downtown area was small, but perfectly-suited for pedestrians (as was the entire town), and there was a large concentration of cheap fast food places, liquor and convenience stores, and soft-touch college students who carried lots of money.
FWIW, my town has some of the best weather in this hemisphere, and I see at least two homeless people at some point during my trip every time I leave home. Back when I went to school in Point Loma (central N/S, very western edge of the city, absolutely beautiful weather, expensive homes) I saw tons of homeless folks there. Tucson also has its share. Perhaps the no-homeless phenomenon is a Florida thing, not a good-weather thing.
I don’t. My point (perhaps too understated) was that I valued my time, and didn’t care that much about money for travel, and I did the trip for under $100. I imagine someone who had more time to spend than I did, and was willing to sit in a bus, or hitch a ride, over the course of several days, could do the trip for even less. This isn’t some insensitive “Let them eat cake” thing.
I’m surprised that some Tampa resident hasn’t come along to say “We got plenty of homeless–notwithstanding you didn’t see any in your two weeks.”
I did have some evidence that if Tampa has homeless, they’re far less numerous than in NYC. I visited the U. of Tampa downtown, by the Hillsborough river, and as I popped into office buildings, university administration buildings, and the like, I kept seeing all these clean, accessible restrooms everywhere I looked. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a restroom in Manhattan? You practically need a government security clearance to take a leak in Manhattan, and these were empty, clean, and almost visible from the street. In NYC, the homeless would be lined up around the block to get at one of those.
Oh–just remembered a buddy I had who used to be a self-described “townie” in Athens, Georgia. When he said “townie” I had no idea what he was talking about but from his subsequent description he was obviously talking about being homeless. He went out and lived the lifestyle to “walk the earth” like Jules, although I’m sure Pulp Fiction wasn’t the reason why he did it. Anyway, he said there was a viable homeless community there; everyone had self-given nicknames and knew everyone, and there was a big ol network. It sounded like a fascinating study in sociology, although I wasn’t moved (for long, anyway ) to hop on the next plane to Athens.
) to hop on the next plane to Athens.