On Friday afternoon, some of my fellow earth lodgers and I headed down to the James to help clean up the river under the direction of Ralph White. We stood in the parking lot as Ralph described that we would be working on a small island in inhabited by homeless people int the middle of the James. This island can only be accessed by trespassing across train tracks. Our job was to remove trash from the island. Ralph explained that one of his favorite things about the James is its ability to bring people together. People of all different social classes take ownership of the river. As part of his example he pointed out that we upper class students at a private ivory tower institution were spending our free time volunteering for the park. I don’t normally think of myself as elite, but after being confronted with the lifestyles of the homeless I understood this description. These people live without so many of the luxuries that we take for granted.
For the most part, the homeless people left their trash in piles for us to carry away. Most of the trash smelled like urine and the vast majority of the glass was beer and liquor bottles. It angered me that people who could not afford basic amenities seemed to spend so much of their budget on alcohol. Furthermore, although there was visible efforts to keep the camp clean trash still covered the island and inevitably some of it must wash into the river. This trash consisted of plastics and clothing and batteries, all of which are harmful to the environment. Ralph said that through the effort of volunteers this homeless camp was one of the nicest on the James. I can see that steps were being taken to keep it nice, however I still felt that the presence of the homeless was having a negative effect on the watershed.
The more I thought about the problem, the more I realized that there is no simple solution. Although the authorities do not formally allow the homeless people to live there they realize that if they are kicked out they will just move somewhere else. So long as they continue to be cooperative by piling their trash and not being destructive, they are unofficially permitted to live there. Clearly this situation is not ideal. The homeless people would not be living outside in the Winter if they had a better option. It is not ideal for the park system, which is being polluted. As Ralph said, a better solution would be for services for these people to be provided by the government. However, until that happens this is the immediate solution to a difficult problem.