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MyspaceOf the hundreds of homeless people existing in and around The City of Santa Barbara, a few are mini-celebrities, affectionately known to service providers and police for their longevity, colorful personalities, or the reams of open-container citations they’ve racked up over the years. For Gator and Shakey, the inseparable buddies each from Louisiana, it was all of the above.
But on Saturday morning, January 22nd, Gator awakened to find Shakey dead in his sleeping bag; astonishingly the 5th homeless person to die since January 1st. Now, the notoriety they shared is fueling a surge of sympathy for Gator.
Sitting in his wheelchair adjacent to the Pershing Park band shell on Monday, drinking, appropriately enough, Gatorade, 44-year-old Gator looked beaten. He was not drunk.
“He came into camp happy about 3:30 or 4 in the morning [Saturday],” said Gator of his friend’s last hours. “When I woke up, he was [gone] … I think his pancreas went out on him because I’ve had to call 911 on him a couple of times.” To read more, see homelessinsb.org.
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Comments
The tragedy is that folks who are so frail, elderly and fighting chronic disease would at that stage of their lives, even then, not have a reasonable, dry, perhaps at least semi-private place to spend those precious last few terminal months. Hospice dwelling would long ago have been in order but for the relegation to the underclass who are subject not just to lack of caring, but relentless scapegoating and dehumanizing rhetoric. Contrary to the perverse view advanced by certain members of city council, it is not a matter of a certain per cent of the homeless dying the issue is that they die unhoused to the bitter end, even when that end is clearly cominb sooner rather than later. Can't we at least house those of us who at the age of sixty or seventy wracked with terminal illness are in no position to battle severe rain and cold and other hazards of the wilds?
eyewitness (anonymous profile)
February 2, 2011 at 10:50 a.m. (Suggest removal)