Walk to Understand
A walk to the grocery store. That’s all it took to entirely transform my perspective on homelessness.
Every Sunday morning during my junior year at Georgetown University, I would walk from my on-campus apartment, down M Street, and to the Trader Joe’s near the Foggy Bottom Metro Station. Each week, I noticed that I would walk past the same individuals experiencing homelessness. While I always wanted to do something, I would typically react to these people by averting my gaze, pretending to be occupied with my phone, or, upon accidental eye contact, exchanging a timid smile.
On this particular day, my friend Nina joined me on my weekly grocery shopping ritual. As Nina and I approached the bridge over Rock Creek that leads into Foggy Bottom, Nina said out of the blue, “Let’s stop and talk to him.”
At first, I wasn’t sure which “him” she was referring to. The early Sunday morning street was relatively vacant, aside from a few joggers and local residents walking with their strollers and dogs.
And then I understood. He was sitting on a milk crate on the sidewalk at the beginning of the bridge, sporting a hat in the crisp fall breeze and hunching over a folded-out newspaper, with a paper cup by his side.
Realizing the meaning behind Nina’s words, my mind flooded with thoughts. What would I say? What would we possibly have in common to talk about? How would I approach this conversation in a way that wasn’t degrading or presumptuous or privileged or worse…?
As we got closer, I noticed that he was wearing a Green Bay Packers skull cap.
“Can we sit with you?” Nina asked, while I stood hesitantly behind her.
“As long as you don’t mind the ground,” he responded, notably perplexed by our request.
We sat in silence for what felt like an eternity before Nina started to talk again.
“I’m Nina,” she began. “And I’m Clara,” I said in turn.
“And I’m Andre,” he added, continuing to read his newspaper with an apparently deep level of concentration and an amused grin. I wondered if the grin was in reference to the newspaper’s contents or the two girls who had chosen to sit next to him.
Mothers with children and other passersby on the bridge’s sidewalk craned their necks at the sight of two white girls wearing Georgetown shirts sitting on the ground with a black homeless man. My face became hot at their gaze.
“What brings you here?” he asked without looking up from his newspaper, unfazed by the observers.
Upon hearing our response, he looked up from his newspaper for the first time. He was amused to hear that we had woken up early on a Sunday morning to walk to a grocery store more than a mile away from our school.
Within a few more minutes the three of us were laughing and talking like old friends, and I forgot my previous inhibitions. What I had built up in my mind to be an uncomfortable encounter with a stranger turned out to be no more than a relaxed conversation with a wise new acquaintance.
The longer we talked to Andre, the more we realized how intimately he knew Washington, D.C. Andre, 52 years old at the time of our conversation, grew up in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of D.C. and spent his childhood days at Georgetown’s Rose Park Playground, one of few integrated parks in the city at the time (pictured below). He had lived in Washington for his entire life, but after his wife divorced him, he was left with nothing. He told us about his continued search for employment, and his smile lit up as he talked about a job interview he had scheduled for the next day. At the same time, I sensed a hint of discouragement as he acknowledged the difficulties of finding a job in his 50s.
After spending nearly an hour talking to each other, we had to end the conversation in order for Andre to be able to watch the Packers’ game. We all reluctantly said good-bye, parting with smiles on our faces.
Nearly every week for the rest of the semester on the way to purchase groceries, I would stop to talk to Andre, both with and without Nina. The more I talked to him, the more I realized that he was one of the most wise and perceptive individuals I had ever met. We discussed everything from the history of the neighborhood and sports to Georgetown’s Jesuit values and current events.
I learned firsthand that homelessness is an issue that can affect anyone. As of January 2016, there were more than 8,350 people experiencing homelessness in Washington, D.C. In other words, there were 124 homeless people for every 10,000 Washington, D.C., residents. From 2009 to 2016 alone, the District’s homeless population increased by 34 percent, while the national homeless population decreased by 12.9 percent over the same time period. At the same time, Washington’s wealth exploded, with real estate prices soaring and the city cementing its status as one of the top 10 cities for millionaires per capita.
“Homelessness knows no race, gender, or age, affecting nearly every group imaginable. There are certain categories of people, however, who bear this burden at a higher rate,” according to an article in Street Sense, a publication with the goal of empowering persons experiencing homelessness to succeed through a variety of media platforms.
From Andre, I learned that any long-term solution regarding homelessness requires first acknowledging the systemic forces behind homelessness. With a better understanding of those systemic causes, programs and policies can be more effectively designed to promote solutions such as employment and access to affordable housing.
Had I not walked past Andre on that one Sunday morning and had Nina not facilitated that conversation, I would have continued down the path of averting my gaze when walking past individuals experiencing homelessness. Walking was the gateway into a personal interaction that helped me better understand the complex story of someone who I had previously just passed by.
Although he may have been experiencing homelessness, Andre’s home is very clearly Washington, D.C. He’s called the city home for far longer than I have, and I learned about my home from his experience of watching the Georgetown neighborhood grow and change over the years.
Walking is one of the best ways to engage with all of the people who call a place home, recognizing the unique experiences and insight that each individual brings to a place. In a world defined by dichotomies and polarization, walking — something common to the entire human race — is a force of unity.
Want to join me in walking for a better world? Email me at crc107@georgetown.edu or connect with me on LinkedIn. To read more about how you can change the world by walking, check out my latest book It Starts with a Step on Amazon.
