The Homeless in Harvard Square

I went to college at Berkeley, and after 4 years I thought I was used to homeless people. When I first got to Cambridge, I remember joking with a college friend who also moved to the area. "Man, I feel uncomfortable here. Where are the homeless people?" I saw Harvard Square in the day as that tourist attraction it is, all clean and pristine. I wasn't being very observant.

I've recently become uncomfortable about homeless people. I'm not talking about the people who ask for spare change and have signs. Those people seem to disappear at night. I'm talking about the people who are homeless and do not ask for spare change. They fade into the crowd during the day, and at night if you care to look, you see them, snug in their very used sleeping bags.

I can tell you where to look -- right in front of the Coop, especially in the winter, and beneath stairs in the building at the bend of Brattle Square/Mt Auburn. Sometimes, you see a sleeping bag in Cambridge Commons when the weather is warmer. Don't forget to visit the ABP at the Holyoke Center -- I've realized that nearer where the bathrooms are, you see possibly homeless people hang around, trying to clean up at the public bathroom, especially at night. I think I saw an old man huddle in 7-Eleven this evening trying to get a bit of warmth. I hope he wasn't chased away.

These are a very different type of homeless people I'm now noticing. The ones I saw in Berkeley were kids in goth-ish clothes who looked like they were being homeless as an alternative vacation. Fine, there were some older people, but they were the ones telling jokes for money. There are the homeless people in Berkeley who gather in Sproul Plaza to drum at night, and sometimes students join in. I guess there were also those who stayed in People's Park and I didn't see those at all. I've heard of people who go through the trash cans on campus, although I've only seen people collecting cans, not looking for food.

These homeless people in Harvard Square don't seem to be asking for help. I once saw a woman chased a couple of guys away, furious that they tried to give her money. I remember her because I saw her a few days earlier near the same place, in an ATM center. I thought she looked like she might have just gotten off a plane, and was sitting in the ATM center while waiting for someone. I mean, I do that sometimes especially when it's cold outside. But seeing her again with her suitcase, I didn't think she was waiting for anyone.

I guess I'm bothered, and this is my first avenue for release. I'm hoping I'll eventually get around to trying to do something. With food prices going up and the economy going down, I'm reading about the increasing number of people turning up at soup kitchens. In the meantime, I fumble, trying to figure out how to cope with the real Harvard Square that really has vacant buildings and vagrants.

I haven't been noticing homeless people in other parts of Cambridge/Boston. Maybe I'm still not seeing the world as it is.