Francisco

 A couple of posts/articles from the online publication Pasadena Now prompts this post. The article reported the results of an area poll which revealed that voters have very little faith in local government when it comes to addressing the issues associated with homelessness. The people polled revealed a consensus belief that the causes of homelessness fall into four categories:

- mental illness;

- addiction;

- those choosing not to work and being homeless as a result;

- those affected by the economy;

While I am in some ways encouraged that the people polled understand that not all the people currently living outdoors either have mental or addiction issues, my personal experience tells me not to assume that any of these four categories (which each have a certain level of validity) apply to any given individual. 

The other article was in response to the unseasonably warm weather we're currently experiencing and how that has resulted in a drastic increase in the local mosquito population. This was reported as a health concern as mosquitos are capable of spreading a number of diseases which were listed, including the West Nile virus, for which there is no cure.

These articles converge in the personage of someone named Francisco, whose last name I never learned. Francisco was maybe 5' tall and spoke with an accented lisp, which made it difficult to understand him. Like many Mexicans, he'd found work in various roles in the restaurant industry, and we had a number of enjoyable conversations about food and cooking. In addition to his culinary depths, I discovered a very curious intellect; when prompted, he'd talk about whatever free lectures he'd attended on the USC campus that week, on topics ranging from physics to literature. I began to look forward to seeing him every week, and I found myself lamenting how his speech impediment and his overall appearance probably led people to believe that he was dim-witted and uneducated while he was probably more intelligent and competent than the majority of coworkers I've had.

Unfortunately, Francisco contracted the Nile Virus and he was hospitalized for a number of weeks, and he passed away about a month after being released from the hospital, and I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I'd completely forgotten about him until I saw the reference to the Nile Virus. So this is as much a reminder to myself as it is about letting other people know who Francisco was, and when it comes to understanding the causes of homelessness, each individual has their own story or as therapists might say, the causes are overdetermined.