'Humaste' and more in the North Texas heat

Humaste is a word I invented a year ago while hiking in the Colorado Rockies. Essentially, it’s a humanistic, or for me, more specifically, a secular humanist riff on the Buddhist word “namaste.” 

In direct parallel: “I salute the human in you because of the human in me.”

And, that has come to mind in this hot summer. The small outlying area in north Texas where I live has a few homeless people here and there, I think, or at least transients passing through. Denton, though? Like the Metroplex proper, it has a fairly large and semi-stable to stable homeless population.

(Note: This is an updated version of what I had originally meant to post ahead for today, but clicked too high last Saturday and posted accidentally to be a week ago.)

And, in this summer’s heat, I know they’re suffering.

I don’t know what I can do. The city of Denton has inclement weather shelters that are open until fairly late in the evening.

And, not all these people may actually be homeless. Some may have a residence, but it either has no AC or just a window unit. And, if it does have AC and just a window unit, and it’s an old house, not an apartment complex where other units partially shield you from the heat, maybe they can’t afford to run it.

So, they’re in places like Quakerstown Park, in the shade of oak trees, getting what cooling they can.

As for the actually homeless? About 10-20 years ago the rule of thumb was that one-third were that way primarily due to drug and alcohol problems, one-third to mental health, and one third to medical or other problems primarily outside their control. Note that the first two are not that way. Addiction is real, but the 12-step “powerlessness” idea is not, not in my world. Mental health? You can’t help it if you have schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, but it’s in your control whether or not you take your thorazine or similar for the former, or lithium for the latter.

Anyway, that rule of thumb turns out to be .... halfway true? NAMI estimates that 20 percent or more of homeless have severe mental illness. (The first two categories, of course, have some degree of overlap.) That comes from this Yale Climate story looking at homelessness in Phoenix.

Anyway, whether actually homeless, or simply at the bottom end of the precariat, beyond what got them there, I look at the bigger mental picture besides narrow mental health. They’re sapped, by the heat itself, then by being anchored to certain locations to try to avoid it.

As for help from me? I have at times given money, but it's not often. I'm at the edge of the precariat myself, by some standards, based on career path and other factors. And, I know the "thirds" mentioned above. I most definitely do not give money to people at urban freeway intersections. I know enough about that.

 

That previous paragraph is of course not cynical. It has a certain amount of skepticism at the end, as well as a boatload of realism at the front. That's where modern America has left us, as underlined by recent reporting that says 40 percent or so of Americans WITH health insurance have deferred a medical procedure this year, sometimes a serious one, because they can't afford all the deductibles and copays.