Street-people.com's final story from thier whirlwind tour of North Carolina involves the work of Nightwatch.  This group goes out into the dark night searching for street people offering hope and help by providing warmth for the bums through hot meals,  blankets, and prayers that invoke the healing love of Jesus.  I am sure after spending a night amongst the street people of Greensboro the Nightwatch team is also praying to Jesus that he heal them of any body lice they may have picked up from the street people.  We were invited to take a tour of Greensboro’s bum nightspots by Nightwatch which seems to be overflowing as the Salvation Army closed it’s cold weather emergency station sending bums scrambling to secure a place to sleep under the local bridges.

The closing of two overflow shelters, one hosted by the Salvation Army and the other by the Urban Ministry, cast 80 fresh faced street people out into the night looking for a place to sleep.  These where temporary shelters designed to provide relief and prevent freezing deaths of street people during the cold months and should not be faulted for casting out these social pariah.  It is ok to have bums sleeping around the parks during the warm weather as they help to keep the parks clean by eating out of the garbage cans, picking up the empty beer bottles to drink the backwash, and cashing in the bottles at the recycling center for money.  A city cannot have bums turning into bumcicles, frozen from the winter weather.  How would that look?  I mean you can’t stick them in the potter’s field when they are frozen, all huddled up with a blanket stuck to them, they would not fit in the cheap wooden boxes.  You end up having street people thawing out in your city morgue and if you think a street person smells bad alive, the stench of a dead one is worse than road kill, plus then you have to touch them and Lava soap is not going to get that smell off.

Nightwatch rounded up the troops at the rallying point of Grace Community Church and set off into the night to save souls and street people.   The team’s first stop was the downtown bridges a hot spot for street people and jumpers and with the increasing number of street people some of the residents of Greensboro might be thinking of jumping.   “JM” a dedicated urban outdoor dweller staked out his claim to a new homestead for the warm months off the path to the bridge; he rose from his “bed” to tell the team that “the bridge is full”.  I guess he is the gate keeper for bums letting them know if there is room at the bridge or if they should seek accommodations elsewhere.  “JM” is a regular beneficiary of Nightwatch gifts having been on the street for a long time.  He regards the team as insiders to the world of street people and shares the latest news about where people are sleeping and how many people have flooded the hangouts since the closing of the temporary shelters.  It seems all the spots under the bridge are full of street people sleeping on mattresses. Where do all these mattresses come from if they just closed the temporary shelter?  In just one day all the bums turned out from the homeless shelter acquired mattresses. Did the street people walk out the door with them rolled up under their coats and haul them down to the bridge?

The count before the closing of the shelters was 3 to 4 street people a night.  Now there are about 80.  Greensboro is a city of only 244,000 people what the hell is going on that all these people are living on the streets in Greensboro.  Based on the city’s population this means there is a street person for every 2900 people or so. Someone is doling out a lot of dollars to keep these street people fed and happy or the same people are getting hit on for money again and again.   Are bums spreading the word to move to Greensboro?   Could it be that the shelters are that nice, the free meals plentiful, the residents are a soft touch and some nice people from the church deliver blankets and meals if you don’t want to go the shelter?    Bums who heard about these little luxuries like meals and blankets given out each Friday might have thought they had found that mythical Big Rock Candy Mountain and the lakes of whiskey and cigarette trees for this hobo ballad must be just over the hill.

Nightwatch feels they are making a difference.  Their efforts might take time to convince the hard core urban alley camper that they can live indoors without the loss of freedom they feel on the street.  The meals and blankets serving as a bribe to talk with them about the options open to them from social services to mental health care.  Where is the line between enabling these people to stay on the street by giving them meals and clothing and an effective effort to move street people into programs ending the rampant panhandling that tarnishes the image of a community?  The team makes one last stop before heading home checking one of the closed shelters.  They discover several street people sleeping out in front of the shelter on the pavement, a modest protest demanding that it reopen.  There is no right answer in dealing with street people except that if you have them sleeping on your doorstep at night you should watch your step in the morning because their bathroom is always only a few steps away from their bed.