The season pretty much has ended and a lot of the homeless faces have gone back to wherever they come from.
It sounds ridiculous, but there are a lot of seasonally homeless people that choose to make Nelson their summer home - you seem them year after year, then they disappear for the winter, only to show up again in the spring.
Gabe is a year rounder. He finds a corner and begs change from the passers by. Competition for corners and entry ways to sit in is pretty fierce, but he's been doing it long enough that he has some measure of seniority.
He's sitting in front of the Chinese grocery on Baker and requests that I buy him a Monster Energy Drink. Because he's homeless and broke. Once in a while I oblige, although I'm not certain that I'm doing him any good or why the hell he can't get off his ass and do some work. I've heard him arguing with others this same point, he's pretty happy being homeless, living on the street, doesn't want to work, doesn't like working, being told what to do, he's the "victim" of people's poor opinion of him, knowing him as they do to be a colossal layabout.
Nonetheless today I buy him his energy drink, although why you need an "energy" drink to sit about on your ass all day is beyond me. The shopkeeper chastises me, acknowledges the good intentions but he's not welcome in her shop, he's a shoplifter, she dissuades me from buying him further stuff, I'm not doing him or her any favours, I should just save my money.
She's right, enough has been posted about Gabe online, Facebook, etc, that really I'm subsidizing the worst aspects of homelessness, even a tramp will work for food, Gabe, he just wants to sit around, get high, and really that's it. There are the homeless that struggle with addiction, trauma, abuse, etc. Gabe just wants to sit around and get high. He's been doing it for 10 years, more even, and it's a tough habit to break.