Talking with Gigi

Dick's Drive-In, a Capitol Hill landmark, thrives at night.
Some of the hungry are the homeless.

I call her "Gigi" because that's the sound her initials make when you say them. On two mornings I nodded to her on the same street corner in the north end of the Broadway shopping neighborhood on Capitol Hill. She's enough of a regular that, when I stopped to talk with her,  she greeted people by name as they passed. Sometimes people take her to a restaurant to eat, she said.

Gigi is in her 50s. She's tall, thin and conversational. She lives at a Catholic church downtown. She's not Catholic -- she was found sleeping in the street by a representative of the church, and now she has a place to stay nights. She can wash up there, and there's a small area where she can cook the food she picks up from food banks in the area. If she needs a bathroom, several businesses in the area, including prepared food outlets, will accomodate her. And there's always the public library, as well as the Sani-Can that sits behind Dick's restaurant on Capitol Hill.

The Sani-Can behind Dick's Drive-In on Broadway on Capitol Hill.

That Sani-Can at Dick's may be the closest thing Seattle has to the Parisian sanisette, described in the previous posting to this blog. Not only does there seem to be a shortage of public accommodations along common pathways in Seattle -- there's also a shortage of drinking fountains. One prominent one on Broadway was dirty and non-functional.

Gigi takes the bus uphill to stand vigil on the corner, holding a small cardboard sign asking for help. As I asked her about her life, she joked and asked whether I was a detective. I'm guessing not many people are as inquisitive. I explained that I wanted to understand what was happening, and making sure that what I was doing was what they needed. She shared that the police take an interest in homeless people as well. They have an outreach program that includes bringing hand warmers, gloves, water and tissues to the homeless on cold nights. I didn't know the cops did that.

I asked Gigi to critique the lunches I've been bringing to the homeless: sandwiches, cookies, cheese balls and an apple. An apple doesn't work for her, she explained. Her false teeth gave her trouble when she bit into an apple. She likes peanut butter sandwiches, and can handle meat sandwiches by tearing the meat into chewable bites. (Mental note: start providing the option of bananas over apples.)

I didn't have a brown bag lunch for Gigi this morning, and what I did is sometimes inadvisable--I handed her a $5 bill, close to the monetary equivalent a meal. Then I headed for home. Along the way there were other homeless -- a young man hung over and sleeping in a bus stall; another young man still asleep on cardboard on the sidewalk; a third, fishing for food in a sidewalk trash bin. I figure anyone who is eating trash out of a disposal is hungry enough to get $5.
Meals distributed so far (or the equivalent): 27.
Ubuntu,