(no subject)

[spatch]

I absolutely love the last sentence in this snippet of a Globe article on the closing of a Roxbury liquor store. It comes in the middle of a section describing those other than the store's owners who stand to lose income from the closure (the homeless who redeem their empties at the store, or who earn a few bucks a day sweeping up and running errands, for instance.) And then there's this fellow:

David Mays has even more to lose. The president of Tow Happy earns about $2,800 a week towing cars from Liquor Land's lot, where people visiting the hospital often park illegally. "There's no way I'll replace this income," he said, after nearly towing the car of a reporter who had been at the store.

This is amazingly beautiful because it tells the entire story right there.

Comments

[eeka13.livejournal.com]

That's...wow. Thanks for posting.

BTW, they got one thing wrong. Not all the folks who sweep up and do odd jobs for them are homeless. A few of them are my clients, and they have homes. My folks with mental illness get called "homeless people" pretty much every day by folks who like to assume.

[spatch]

They did refer to one can redeemer as "formerly homeless" which I guess has an okay ring to it.

[eeka13.livejournal.com]

Yep! Totally appropriate when it's an actual person they got the data on. Irritating though when they lump people together as "homeless" because all people with persistent mental illness are homeless even if they have homes dammit!