Opinion: Homelessness is impacting us all around the country

Homelessness and the psychological instability that sometimes accompanies it have been expertsplained on cable news so many times that we’re almost numb to the reality. But in 2023, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the U.S. count of homeless people surged to 653,000, the highest level on record and a 12% gain over 2022. It’s a terrible tragedy for those involved, but as the scale of the problem increases, it’s starting to impact us all.

While visiting Austin last month, I stayed up the street from a large homeless encampment. While driving past, I saw a woman pull down her pants and squat. The next time I drove by, two people in a bus stop shelter were groping each other.

Weirdly, the convenience store on the corner was blaring opera music through outdoor speakers. An internet search revealed that the music was used to keep homeless people from congregating in the parking lot.

It was all so disturbing that despite having prepaid for three nights, I left after two.

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In January, while visiting family on Long Island, I proposed taking the train for a daytrip to NYC. I was reminded that a friend, who’s built like Arnold Scwarzenegger, had recently been rushed at by a man in a transit station and had to turn and run away rather than wind up featured on the six o’clock news. I scrapped my plans.

This month, New York Governor Kathy Hochul ordered the National Guard into the subway. As the New York Times noted, riders’ worries, “… do not always revolve strictly around crime but rather around the unease they experience witnessing so many people struggle with psychological instability on the trains.” Also, according to the Times, due to the fear of being pushed off a platform into the path of an oncoming train, “… it is much more common now to see people congregating in the center of a platform, rather than the edge, as they wait for a train.”

A few weeks ago, I drove to Los Angeles for a family event. I stopped briefly to sightsee in tony Palm Springs. While walking downtown wearing a Notre Dame sweatshirt, a man repeatedly screamed at me, “Go back to South Bend!” I ducked into a coffee shop, waited until he accosted someone else, and snuck out a side door.

In Los Angeles, my hotel room window looked out on a man who lived in a ramshackle structure on the sidewalk. I watched many people walk past, all seemingly blind to his erratic behavior and squalorous conditions. I wondered what price their souls and mine were paying for our indifference.

There was a famous beach near my hotel. I asked the front desk clerk for directions, and she all but told me it wasn’t safe to walk there, so I drove. Along the way, I saw homeless-built structures on several residential sidewalks.

I turned down a side street, and two homeless people were walking about ten feet apart down the middle of it. I managed to dangerously squirt between them. I turned onto the next street, and two other people were doing exactly the same thing, but I couldn’t squeeze past. I pulled over to give them time to walk to the end of the block and resolved to leave California.

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Believing Portland had largely recovered from its recent troubles, my idea was to head there to sightsee and check out its famous restaurant scene. Before setting out, I ran into a retired Oregonian. When I told him my plans, he literally put his head in his hands and said Portland was still chaotic, and he was desperately trying to move out. According to the City of Portland, homelessness there increased from 1,887 in 2015 to 6,297 people in 2023. I decided to head back to Corpus Christi.

America’s homelessness and mental-health crises are enormous problems, but the fact that one’s safety is now a serious consideration in deciding whether to visit some major American cities is mind boggling.

For the sake of those struggling on our streets and for the sake of our country’s soul, we must fix this.

Peter Merkl is a longtime resident of Corpus Christi.

This article originally appeared on Corpus Christi Caller Times: Opinion: Homelessness is impacting us all around the country