parents were out there, too, that she had no idea what it was like to be
down on your luck, with nowhere to go and nothing to eat. But that
would have meant explaining who I really was, and I wasn't about to do
that. So at the next street corner, I went my way without saying a thing.
I knew I should have stood up for Mom and Dad. I'd been pretty scrappy
as a kid, and our family had always fought for one another, but back then
we'd had no choice. The truth was, I was tired of taking on people who
ridiculed us for the way we lived. I just didn't have it in me to argue
Mom and Dad's case to the world.
That was why I didn't own up to my parents in front of Professor Fuchs.
She was one of my favorite teachers, a tiny dark passionate woman with
circles under her eyes who taught political science. One day Professor
Fuchs asked if homelessness was the result of drug abuse and misguided
entitlement programs, as the conservatives claimed, or did it occur, as
the liberals argued, because of cuts in social-service programs and the
failure to create economic opportunity for the poor? Professor Fuchs
called on me.
I hesitated. "Sometimes, I think, it's neither."
"Can you explain yourself?"
"I think that maybe sometimes people get the lives they want."
"Are you saying homeless people want to live on the street?" Professor
Fuchs asked. "Are you saying they don't want warm beds and roofs over
their heads?"
"Not exactly," I said. I was fumbling for words. "They do. But if some of
them were willing to work hard and make compromises, they might not
have ideal lives, but they could make ends meet."