Homeless ‘Tin Man’ has company

I think about Willie from time to time, which is saying something when you consider I met him only briefly 22 Januarys past.

I do not remember much from that Super Bowl XXVII in Pasadena I covered, but I haven’t forgotten Willie.

In truth, I see Willie still. I see him in town and downtown and at our beaches. I see him in parks and parking lots and lots of other places.

Willie was homeless.

I have long forgotten any down-and-out pass patterns run by Dallas Cowboys or Buffalo Bills receivers that distant Super Bowl Sunday, but the image of down-and-out Willie remains stored on my mental hard drive.

Troy Aikman was the game MVP and thus celebrated the Cowboys’ one-sided victory by going to Disneyland; Willie probably celebrated by going to a soup kitchen. To be sure, a restaurant meal was a Fantasyland for him.

I met Willie outside the Rose Bowl stadium a few hours before kickoff when he asked if he could have the soda can I was still drinking from. After I took a final gulp, Willie crushed it with a smooth foot stomp before flipping it into a grocery cart nearly brimming with other flattened cans and empty bottles.

We got to talking and I learned Willie’s nickname was “Tin Man.” While it would have been more accurate, L. Frank Baum never wrote about and the band America never sang about “ALUMINUM Man.”

Certainly “Tin Man” looked as weathered as a rusty can and walked like his knees could use a few squirts from an oilcan.

The Super Bowl is America’s tailgate biggest party, but for Willie it was a workday. The growing litter on the Rose Bowl grounds came into his focus like a field of blooming poppies outside Oz. Indeed, instead of earning the $10 or so he did on a typical day of scavenging, “Tin Man” figured he’d collect a bounty of recyclables worth close to $100.

If he had ever been on it, “Tin Man” veered off the Yellow Brick Road years earlier. The cause might have been a lost job or catastrophic medical bills, alcoholism or drug addiction, mental illness or perhaps a combination of the aforementioned – I didn’t ask, he didn’t tell.

Just as Willie’s shopping cart was overflowing with empty cans, our world is filled with too many Tin Men and Tin Women, Tin Teens and Tin Children.

Even the great Oz would have been powerless in solving homelessness, but that is not preventing Harbor Community Church in midtown Ventura from trying to make a dent. For the past five years its Operation Embrace program’s mission has been to “reach the least of these among us.”

Recently, however, the Ventura Planning Commission denied the church the right to run its homeless ministry on account it is in a residential neighborhood. Upon appeal, the Ventura City Council is now weighing in on whether to grant a conditional-use permit.

            Few argue the church’s work is less than worthy. Rather, as is so often the case – and often understandable – the contention against is Not In My Back Yard. And fewer people still want the homeless element it in their schoolyard – an elementary school is next-door Harbor. Furthermore, residents in the area claim crime has increased since Harbor began embracing the homeless.

            The obvious compromise is to move Operation Embrace. The reality is feeding 4,000 with two fish and five loaves of bread might be less a miracle than finding a new location. NIMBY, after all. Everyplace is someone’s backyard and neighborhood.

I don’t know the answer, but have one question: Would an increased police patrol be the healing salve?

            I know this: there but for the grace of God any one of us could go, needing a caring (Operation) Embrace.

Leaving the press tent after filing that long-ago Super Bowl column, I saw “Tin Man” still toiling. I went back inside and got him a couple hot dogs and a soda.

“Thanks, man,” Willie said, his one-tooth-missing smile flashing warmly on a chilly winter night. “You’re all right.”

Truth is, it wasn’t much at all but doing nothing is all wrong.

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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for the Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. His new memoir WOODEN & ME is available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com and Amazon.com.