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Behaviorial assessment: The guy in the middle of Morton Street
By adamg on Sun, 02/21/2010 - 11:11pm
Anybody who's ever driven down Morton Street in Mattapan knows the white-bearded guy who shuffles up and down the middle of the street by Blue Hill Avenue. Our own eeka reports that for some continuing-ed class, she did "a functional behavioral assessment" on him:
... The function of waving seems to be attract positive attention from other individuals. The purpose might also be to avoid the negative interactions that are often aimed toward people who are perceived as not having a job; it does seem that everyone in the area knows of this person and many seem to find him charming – while at the same time feeling a bit exasperated that he is behaving unsafely. This latter perception might in fact be a product of his waving, and the fact that people find him friendly might mean that they are more likely to avoid him and wish him well rather than finding him annoying and trying to run him off the road. It seems to be an adaptive response that he responds in a friendly/apologetic manner to cars honking at him, rather than a reactive manner that is more likely to start an altercation. ...
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Comments
Bad publicity
I used to give this guy a buck every once in a while until the Globe ran a story on him. Apparently he is still a crack head. So no more money for him, and I make sure the doors are locked when he is walking by.
Sometimes you should keep your name out of the papers.
Crack addicts
Need to eat and wear clothes.
I have never been addicted to
I have never been addicted to crack, but it is my understanding that given the choice between crack, food, or clothing, an addict will choose the crack.
I don't want to help this guy kill himself. If he is hungry or cold, there are places and services available to him. My dollar would most probably go straight to whatever gang runs the crack franchise at that corner.
Thats a problem with
Thats a problem with addiction. Especially when the drugs are so destructive to your brain and cognitive abilities as some are, all he while being debilitatingly addicting.
So don’t give him money. Buying a crack head a sandwich every now and then is still a nice act of compassion.
I personally never give money to the homeless, because you just don’t know who’s scamming you and who isn’t. Offer to buy a quick meal and you’ll quickly figure out the junkies from the hungry. (The junkies usually have some wild requests or are very picky, because you put them on the spot for something they don’t really need or want).
Speaking as an addict.
I can assure you food and clothing are the last things on a crackhead's mind. Pity and sympathy are the one thing they don't need.
Then...
Then whatever money he gets from wherever he gets it from should go to food and clothing. Adding to his already meager budget, that he's going to waste at least a portion of on crack, will simply improve his ability to not have to choose between sustenance and crack.
I'd like to think that he had
I'd like to think that he had the necessary control of himself to have and follow a budget, but the fact that he is begging on the street makes me think that he is lacking financial planning skills.
Again, I am not an addict. I just have the impression that a crack addict is not going to think: "Oh hey, I have ten bucks. That's five for a Big Mac and five for some crack!" He is going to looking immediately for a ten buck hit of crack.
Anyone with a history of chemical dependence care to comment?
i'm a former addict...
and i very briefly lived on the streets in boston and cambridge. i wasn't doing crack, but i was still a pretty bad drug user. and i sometimes begged for money.
in some sort of order, here's what the money i got went to:
1. drugs
2. food
3. cigarettes
4. condoms
5. tampons
6. warm socks
and i think that's pretty much it. the order changes depending on what was the most pressing need at the time. oftentimes it was drugs, but if i could score drugs through other means, or wasn't jonesing, it was food or smokes or personal necessities.
not all money for drug users goes to drugs. a bunch does, but i think it depends on the drug user. at the time, if i had $10, i wouldn't spend $10 on drugs, because i felt there would be another $10. so, let's say, $7.50 went to drugs and $2.50 for a pack of smokes (this was clearly a long time ago!). or $5.00 for a hamburger and $2.50 for some cheap booze, and $2.50 for the socks.
you may be uncomfortable not knowing what people are using your money for, and that's totally fine. but i think it's misguided for anyone to assume they *know* what somebody is going to buy.
That's a pretty silly reply.
Kaz - You do the homeless and drug addicted a disservice with that line of thinking. And the fact that you are opining from an apparent high horse, as if you really know what's best for these guys and the rest of us who don't feed their habit are somehow deficient, is insulting. Do a bit of research on homeless outreach before spewing this ignorance.
O RLY?
Then educate me, oh wise anonymous one.
Tell me how giving a drug addict $1 doesn't enable him to not have to make decisions that might force him to choose between starvation and addiction. Tell me how that aids him and doesn't just enable him to further harm himself.
As Lanny says, maybe the guy gets $10 in his pocket and he just goes and buys a $10 rock of crack figuring that food will be worked out after he's high enough not to feel the addiction for a while. Maybe not if he's less of a total slave to his addiction but still tries to both eat and get high.
But of course, you are on a much higher horse than me...but didn't deem to even stoop to presenting your opinion on the matter at hand...just stopping by long enough to give your opinion on me.
I think we all would like to
I think we all would like to help this guy, and others like him, but we don't know what would be helping and what would be hurting.
Get a Job eeka
Get a job eeka. Mortons been there forever. He's a Crack Head nobody cares you did a intervention with him.
What exactly is bothering you, son?
Couldn't actually be bothered to read eeka's post?
So...
You don't even click the links now? (if you did, you'd see the part where eeka lists her job title) I'm guessing you didn't even read the summary here given the astounding amount of misinformation you were able to pack into 20 words. (if you did, you'd notice it wasn't an intervention by any means)
If you're not even going to read what you're responding to, then what makes your spew any better than a common spammer? What impetus do you give adamg to keep you around?
We need billings
he makes the rest of us look so much smarter!
(No subject)
Please don't give these guys
Please don't give these guys money. It feels good for one second and you may think you're helping. Donate to the Pine Street Inn instead. Money just enables these people to stay on the streets, leading to their deaths.
This, If you're going to give
This,
If you're going to give money donate to a homeless shelter or a charity that will be more accountable with what happens to the money. Most of these homeless people are using their services anyways in their off hours.
if you need some instant carma, buy the guy a sandwich.
karma, ugh, mondays...
karma,
ugh, mondays...
I always wondered...
If you added up the total amount of cash given to this man over the last 50 years, and invested in a simple savings account, how much money would you have today? I say 200K easy.
Ive seen him at certain times during rush hour collect probably 10 dollars a light cycle. Other times I haven't seen him get anything. So how much would that be an hour during a summer weekday rush hour? Id say he takes in $20 an hour for a bout 4-5 hours a day during these periods of nice weather. So $100 a day for what, 100 nice working days a year? Thats an easy 10,000 a year (min estimate) over what, 30 years? Hell thats 300K of other peoples money!
Please correct me if Im adding this up wrong.
Well...
Well, for one thing, you're figuring that he's been on the street for 30 years, when it seems to have been more like 20 or so. And your estimate of his daily take seems to be high - according to the Globe article about him that ran in late 2008, he makes about $60 on a good day.
Its been at least 25 years.
but ok. how many days is he out there? 100? 200? He's made some coin on that street there.
In the grand scheme of things
In the grand scheme of things in our capitalist economy, 200K over 25 years isn't something to be outraged about.
Whats that? 1/2 the already low poverty rate in a single year? 4 months rent a lower tier high end Boston condo?
I see what you saying, but then putting it back into perspective helps.
Funny fact I'm read somewhere, having a son will cost you $1,000,000 over your lifetime. Having a Daughter? $1.3.
:)
Robbie
I travel Morton St. every work day. I haven't seen Robbie there in a few months now. At 2:30PM each day, he would be around the Mattapan police station. Does anyone know what happened to him?
I would give him money when he was near; I figured I wasn't going to cure his addiction by withholding money, I was just trying to make his day a little better.
I thought I saw him the other day
On Blue Hill Avenue at Morton, around 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, but I could have been mistaken.