Photo by: Tomas Ovalle / LA Times (click photo for story)

This man, Ray Polk, chooses to be homeless and chooses to help others who are homeless. He meets them where they are; he lives amongst them. I’ve seen poverty in this country before, and I’ve seen slums and tent cities. I’ve known homelessness to exist here in Fresno, but hadn’t seen any overwhelming evidence of it’s magnitude (as I have previously seen in many neighborhoods of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Camden, New Jersey).

Most of the evidence of homelessness here in Fresno stands on every street corner, holding modest signs made of cardboard or wood with neatly written messages stating very simple messages: “anything helps,” “out of work,” or simply “help.” These people stand there, day in and day out, silent and overlooked by almost every single passer-by. This is evidence I’ve grown familiar with and have sadly become accustomed to seeing. The poverty and homelessness here is very heavily veiled. Many completely miss how big the problem is and how much it’s devastating the community.

I’ve known that the heart of Downtown is where the homeless population primarily exists; there are shelters and places that offer food, the train yards are nearby and there are a lot of vacant and abandoned buildings. I was driving home last weekend from a vintage store downtown, and I took a back route to 41 North. As I came up to the on-ramp, I glanced to my right and I was shocked. Right there in front of me was the very memorial pictured above. Just beyond that, in the opposite direction the camera is pointed for this photograph, beyond a massive cement barrier, is a very large tent city. Just beneath an overpass of one of the major through ways of California, the 41, there are people living.

There are times when it overwhelms me; I know I’m only one person. I still have hope. I know I can help, and I know how I’m equipped to do so. I just don’t know how to begin, especially with the only loan program I knew anything about being cut in recent legislation. Federal grants for non-profits to aid in community development are now even harder to come by, and a lot of other options are out of funding. It’s not like I was planning on getting my project off the ground in the next few months, but it is quite disheartening to hear of things like that happening when a vision of the future largely depended on such things. I know there are other methods, other means of making ends meet.

It’s just that sometimes I wish the path were more clearly defined. Sometimes I wish I could see a piece of something falling into place that would signify that the dream I have, the reason I believe I am here, would actually be able to come to fruition. I guess that’s where trust and patience come into play.