Nick Coleman follows up his first column about Robin Sam with his column today about last night's memorial. It is at:
http://www.startribune.com/stories/357/4380385.html From the column: "This is heartbreaking," said Patrick Wood, an advocate for the homeless who worked with Sam for three years, trying to help him make the moves that might have gotten him off the street. "Robin was a wonderful man," Wood said. "He's a tremendous loss. Say what you will about people like him, they have gifts. Robin was resilient, he was resourceful, he was passionate, he was caring. He had a lot to offer. But he was marginalized, disenfranchised and dismissed from society." That kind of attitude riles up the folks who believe the homeless have chosen to live in the ditches and that the mentally ill and the alcoholic among them could walk away from their difficulties if they just had more gumption. But what can you say when a Robin Sam spends the last years of his life moving from church to charity, from shelter to shelter, looking for someplace warm and safe to sleep? And not finding it, because there aren't enough safe places and because the shelters are overcrowded and because you can never know from night to night if you will get a warm cot or a ditch? On Monday night, Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak and a smattering of public officials joined advocates for the homeless in a 30-minute prayer service to remember Sam and to get some TV time for the problems of the homeless. There was a handful of homeless people on hand, too, but most of them were elsewhere, trying to find a bed and a hot meal. The memorial, the mayor told the cameras, shows that "Minneapolis is a community that will not turn its eyes away." Maybe. But doing more than looking will be hard work. "This tragedy points to the lack of low-expectation, high-tolerance housing that we need for folks with multiple disorders who are going to take a long time to work with," said Patrick Wood, who works with the Metropolitan Homeless Outreach Project. "Change is glacially slow, even for a healthy person. These people need years of long-term work. But most of them do not have years. [Woods said the average life expectancy on the street is 47.] And then, just as you see them begin to make change, something like this happens. It's a terrible waste." Sam was born on the Mille Lacs Indian Reservation and attended Emerson School in Minneapolis, which worked with teenagers who had developmental disabilities. One of his teachers, Liz Bragg, came to the memorial to say goodbye, tears streaming down her face. Margaret Hastings-Mpls- REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
