Column:

Not just beaches and sunshine

By John Hendel

Published April 4, 2008

Folks, I’m exhausted. I just got back from Key West, where a few of us spent spring break wiping out invasive plants like the Brazilian Pepper and the Mahoe for the Nature Conservancy with pretenses of saving the environment. I helped lead this group of 13 down there, where we took down trees with loppers and chainsaws. It was good times, though a 24-hour ride to the Keys in a giant van will test the limits of anyone’s driving and sanity.

We set up camp in five tents in a small park and wildlife preserve for birds, a place full of roosters who never got the memo that crowing is only meant as a morning wake-up call. We were the only campers on the whole island, since every spare inch of Key West is crammed with supremely high-priced service and residential development.

The most surprising part of the trip, though, was the significant homeless population that roamed around the southern side of the island where we stayed. Many of them liked to wander around the park where we stayed and often entered quite illegally after hours in search of a pleasant place to spend the night.

The trip’s other leader and I were sitting on the steps of the park pavilion one night when an unshaven, unkempt man walked up to the closed gate around 1 a.m.

“Hey there,” he called out. “My friend Keith came by earlier and said you guys would let us camp with you.”

My co-site leader and I quickly disabused the homeless man of this notion. The park had dealt with a lot of homeless people before. They used to sneak in under the creek gate and engaged in some petty thievery. A decapitated head had been found in the park’s brush five years ago, according to a local ranger.

Around 2 a.m. that same night, we encountered another transient inside the locked park, wandering around cursing and muttering incoherently.

The homeless presence increased the next night. Around midnight, some of our participants heard the screams and blows of a homeless fight from within the park and I walked down one path only to spot a man with a raggedy sack emerging from a bush. An hour later, a cop and I roamed the park with a lantern to direct some of the guests out while our freaked-out participants waited at a pavilion.

This ultimately was a minor development in a great week full of worthwhile work and exploring Key West’s beaches and reefs and Duval Street’s countless tacky shops, as well as more intriguing sites such as a clothing-optional bar.

Yet the homeless people’s brief incursion was also a reminder and wake-up call. We’ve got a few folks wandering about downtown in Columbia, but seeing them climb from bushes not far from your tent is more visceral. Given how warm and genuinely gorgeous Key West is, it makes all the sense in the world that many of these drifters would gravitate here. The contrast also breaks your heart.

I remember a few others in the group chatting about it one day, referring to how many individuals put themselves in this condition, how “they” just wanted liquor and were lazy and virtually elected their position. I never like to generalize quite like that, but what troubles me is that I don’t know how accurate the assessment is. My reaction is really that it’s unfortunate. No one ever had any ill will toward these homeless folks, but I truly wonder what answers exist here. Given America’s dealing with around 700,000 homeless people, the topic is worth considering.