It’s Where the Heart Is

This is my class report on the homeless. I asked Daddy about it. He got a funny look on his face, like the time he stepped in the cat’s dish. He said he tried to help homeless people, but it just didn’t show.

“What do you do, Daddy?” I asked.

“Well, kid,” he said, “I’ll level with you. I drive downtown to the big stone building where I work, and I park the car in a garage where a guard will watch it, and I walk past the homeless people who are living in cardboard boxes at the base of the building. They ask me for change, and sometimes I give them some. Sometimes I don’t. It depends on my mood. Then I go upstairs and work on things that are supposed to help the homeless, eventually.”

“What do you do, Daddy?” I asked again.

“I sit in front of a computer terminal and hit keys and move stuff around on the screen. Believe me, it does help. I just can’t explain how.”

“Oh,” I said.

“Then I go downstairs and walk past those people again, and sometimes I give them change and sometimes I don’t. Then I get the car and drive home.”

“Can’t they come with you?” I asked.

“Who?”

“The people in the cardboard boxes. They could sleep on our couch.”

“You’re a good girl to worry,” he said, “but it isn’t so simple. There are too many homeless people. They couldn’t all fit in our house. Only the government could help them. But the government doesn’t have any money.”

“You could give it some money,” I said.

Daddy got that funny look on his face again. Only funnier, like the time he spilled cranberry sauce all over his white shirt at Thanksgiving.

“That’s called taxes,” he said, “and people hate taxes. Especially taxes to help poor people. It smacks of socialism.”

“What’s socialism?” I asked.

“Never mind,” he said. “It’s dead, dead, dead, and won’t ever come back.” Then he patted me on the head. “Look here. Why don’t we go to the Sweet Chair-ity Design House in Bel-Air? It’ll be full of beautiful furniture and art and stuff made by 40 of L.A.’s top designers and architects. It’ll be open Friday through Oct. 31 from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Then they’ll auction off the stuff Nov. 1 to benefit the Venice Family Clinic, which gives free medical care to thousands of poor and homeless people every year.

“Isn’t that terrific? The $20 admission will help the clinic too. Prearranged group tours will be scheduled on Tuesdays. We’ll call (310) 473-4703. The house has 20 rooms. Clara Bow, the actress, used to live there. They called her the ‘It Girl.’ Don’t ask me why.”

I didn’t. And I didn’t ask why those people couldn’t just move out of those cardboard boxes into those 20 nice rooms. I didn’t want to see that look on Daddy’s face again.

That’s all.