Empathy for Homeless

[ame]

The lobby of the building of my work building has a bar in it. We came in this morning to someone knocking on a door, screaming for help. My coworkers and I were wandering around the lobby trying to figure out where this person was in the lobby. Once we found her we asked her how we could help her get out.

She was a homeless woman who came in last night before closing to use the bathroom that is adjacent to the bar (she apparently regularly does this so she can get through the night and the manager is very cool with it, and there are a lot of police officers that are often in our bar, on and off duty due to proximity to the downtown police hq), and while in there, fell asleep on the toilet. She may have been intoxicated, I have no clue. Not my concern. Apparently they did not check the stalls when closing the place up and she got locked in the bathroom overnight. When we came in to unlock the building and go up to our offices, we heard her banging on the door and yelling for help. We don't have a way to unlock that door, so we called the custodian who can help who would be in maybe an hour later. Apparently this is a routine procedure for him, it happens quite frequently. He chuckled and said "damn homeless squatters."

His reaction really bothered me. I am glad she had a warm place to sleep, with water, and a running toilet at least. But this guy had no empathy for her situation. There's a huge push down here right now to shut down one of the main homeless shelters run by Rev. Rice, and I while I am VERY anti religion in general, this is one person who actually wants to help people in a really shitty situation get back on their feet, and not be stuck outside freezing their butts off. The lack of empathy in general in this city for anyone who has less than is really sad.

But man, as far as "phobias" go, I'd be losing my mind trapped on a bathroom all night.

 

[momhappy]

I don't know that his comments necessarily meant that he had a complete lack of empathy. I don't know how a person falls asleep on a toilet, so maybe that's where the custodian's response came from? If he's had to deal with this type of situation before, maybe there's a reason why he feels the way he does (maybe he's had to clean up after them, maybe it takes him away from his other duties, etc.)?

 

[Karl_K]

He chuckled and said "damn homeless squatters."

That he was chuckling about it seems to me to indicate he was not being harsh or mean about it.
If he had snarled it then I would think less of him.

 

[Karl_K]

btw it was not unusual for the cops to drop off someone at the day center that I volunteered at that had been found locked in a building all night and in some cases all weekend.
No one wanted to press charges so the cops would drop them off there, where they would keep out of trouble all day and get fed.
If it was evening they would take them to the shelter.
It is far more common than you would expect for them to get trapped in a building and set the alarm off or being found in the morning.
As long as nothing was missing and no damage done charges were rarely filed except for one building and word quickly got around the homeless community to avoid it.