I was, without a doubt, in a desperate place—going back to school after not taking a math course in over six years and attempting to study calculus. It was as stressful as it sounds. Like so many of the students in my post-baccalaureate cohort, we deeply valued our education at this point—which is not surprising, considering we all had to work jobs to pay for it. But luckily, I had found the proverbial “ace up my sleeve.”
My “ace” was a man some might call an urban camper. Otherwise, he would be more commonly known as someone experiencing homelessness.
The homeless population in California is enough to form a small state, with estimates over 180,000 individuals per Public Policy Institute of California. Between joblessness, mental health crises, and the cost of living, there are many threats to becoming unhoused. Regardless of how my “ace” wound up in his situation, he remained brilliant. The man I had been introduced to was an Ivy League alumnus and a former professor at a major university. He offered to tutor me for the only price I could afford at the time: the cost of a small coffee.
I knew how some people looked at him. He was smelly from not showering, with dirt-soiled skin, disheveled clothes, several small open wounds at various healing stages, and many wrote him off as useless. But after he began sketching diagrams, working out problems on the area under the curve, and creating and solving equations on the spot, what I saw was a brilliant mathematician. It was astounding, and, frankly, also a little depressing. He had once reached the heights of an academic career at a top university, so how had his next destination become the very bottom?
My thinking, of course, was rooted in the idea that there is a “top” and a “bottom” in our society. In that hierarchical—a zero-sum version of success—those with money, material possessions, children, and certain physical traits are seen as higher than those without them. But working with this man for just three weeks completely dismantled that notion for me, as working with people rather than ideas usually does in my experience.
After those first few weeks, he let me know he needed more than I could afford. And, truthfully, I am fairly certain he was using the money I gave him for more than just coffee. Still, he offered me something of lasting value: insight, and the chance to see wisdom from a completely different perspective—truly learning not to judge by cover or smell, for that matter.
I am grateful for the time we shared. More than the equations and calculations, it is his deeper lesson that has stayed with me. It is something George Washington Carver once said, which, in essence, is this: Do not think too highly of some people or too lowly of others. In the end, it is service to all humanity that measures success.
At the time, I thought that becoming a physician would put me in a position to financially care for all the lost, homeless, or at least those people in my closest circle who fell short due to circumstance—some of whom were facing serious financial hardship, as well as becoming unhoused. But now, with the experience of working as a physician for eight years, I realize that due to the kind of medicine I practice, and perhaps the entire notion that one person’s income can support an extended family, simply is not realistic. And it may actually be detrimental to the giver and recipient’s personal growth, especially when mental illness, substance use, or grave disability are involved. One person toiling tirelessly day after day to build a successful career cannot hold back the powerful forces of poverty, addiction, mental illness, systemic failure, and more, that shape the lives of so many beyond the reach of any single individual.
Having some of my own relatives experience homelessness, and having my own brushes with near homelessness despite doing everything in my power to avoid it, I recognize there are forces beyond our control that may limit our ability to maintain housing. That reality forces me to consider a larger truth: If society lacks a safety net for those who are aging, disabled, or otherwise unable to contribute economically, the outcome is disastrous. And any one person’s loss to the street becomes our society’s collective loss—or, frankly, our failure. What good is a society if it does not have the ability to build community safeguards to protect the most vulnerable?
There are local programs working to change this. Organizations like the Salvation Army, faith-based shelters, sober living communities, tiny home builders, and grassroots efforts like community gardens and neighborhood coalitions are all making a real impact. As with most daring goals, I believe the long-term solutions lie in grassroots efforts. But homelessness is a multifaceted problem, and it will take a multidisciplinary, diverse team approach to begin addressing it meaningfully. As the unhoused and underhoused population of California continues to grow, it pains me to think how many other brilliant “aces” are out there with great capacity to make a contribution to the collective yet are lost to the street.
Tariq Shaheed is an internal medicine physician.
