One way bus tickets

Last fall, officials in Sarasota, Florida voted to create a fund to purchase one-way tickets for homeless people to leave town.


As of yesterday, the fund sat untouched.


The local government might be baffled, but I'm not.


For two reasons.


First, 90% of the traveling homeless I meet along the Gulf Coast are headed to Florida. Warmer weather in the cold months, greater access to water, and an environment more conducive to life on the streets make Florida a premier destination among the homeless.


Second, and more importantly, are the bridges. Not the engineering infrastructures of steel, reinforced concrete, and titanium, but the invisible ones that bind loved ones together. The ones that are stronger than any metal alloy, yet delicate and fragile.


The ones most homeless people have destroyed.


Sadly, burned bridges with loved ones are common and thus the fatal flaw to Sarasota's plan. One-way bus tickets home to loved ones are about as useful as Monopoly money.


Family members slip into self-preservation mode, often protecting their hearts-and bank accounts- by believing their loved one dead. They've been hurt, lied to, stolen from, or manipulated more times than the human heart can bear. They've watched other family members suffer as well. Out of protection, they've shut themselves off.


These last few months I've had to call several family members. Death, critical illness, family rehab counseling, jail, court proceedings...the reasons varied but the responses were the same.


"We're done."


I couldn't blame them. The tales were horrific. An eighty-year-old mother who slept with her purse under her mattress and her dresser against her door when her son came around. A sister who'd taken out a restraining order to protect her minor children. A daughter who'd feared her father dead for eight years before getting the official word.


Those were the ones who agreed to talk to me. Most calls to family members go unanswered. Only in death do I see the walls crumble, the remorse etched on faces and heard in trembling voices.


"If only..." It is then that the blame shifts to the addiction. Alcohol, drugs, gambling, pornography...the stronghold may vary but the result is always the same.


Alienation from loved ones.


I had my own one-way bus ticket in 1986.


I was 17 and rebelling and trying the patience of my loved ones as well. I'd been begging to visit family friends in Detroit and that winter my dad agreed. Standing next to him at the Alexandria, Louisiana Trailways ticket counter, I faltered a bit when I heard him say "One-way ticket to Detroit."


The message was clear. I was not welcome home.


Fortunately for me, my dad was teaching a valuable life lesson. I didn't know that my return ticket had already been mailed to Detroit but I did realize that I should never again take my parents' support for granted. I returned home two weeks later, a little less rebellious and a lot more thankful for my family.


Most homeless people don't get those wake-up calls until it's too late.