One of the roads I walk almost every day intersects with the commuter rail tracks heading South of Rome. There is a pedestrian underpass, long, dark, dank, every centimeter of surface covered with graffiti. A homeless man lives here. Call him Carlo. He sets up a folding table with two chairs and a deck of cards. He lays some books out on a blanket. Throughout the day, passers-by stop to peruse the volumes he's laid out and talk about the books they are reading. Some stay to play a game of cards.
There is clearly something off about Carlo. His everyday life could not stand in greater contrast to those of his neighbors in the middle-class quarter of Rome which surrounds his grimy, well-trod den. Outside the sun shines, the sky is blue, there are plenty of derelict buildings and vacant lots where other homeless individuals have thrown up tents or huddle under blankets. But Carlo is not simply a homeless person. He is, in fact, a valued member of his neighborhood. And he is treated as a neighbor, despite his houseless-ness.
On a corner of the piazza where I go everyday to buy food or have a morning coffee, lives a man in his late sixties. He huddles on a box crate, surrounded by assorted cardboard boxes overflowing with stuff. He spends his day writing sentences in a flowing hand on the pages of a spiral notebook. Neighbors stop to talk and say hello. A lady and her grandson drop off a casserole with food for him to eat. He pulls out some sort of toy from his bundles of bundles. Another neighbor bought him a tent, long since lost, for the winter, when it rains almost everyday. A local street artist made a graffito portrait of him, which he would sit next to, until the manager of the supermarket asked him to move because he was in the way of exiting customers.
When people stop to talk, they greet him with a kiss on both cheeks, Italian style. They converse of local events, people they know in common. This is very different from the polite but prophylactic "good day" uttered to the beggar. Both of these homeless men are treated with a humanity which is both gentle and deep. There are no statement being made here, no pompous examples for the benefit of appearances or the good of the soul in the hereafter. No. These are Romans at their marvelous best.
A hundred meters or so from the underpass, is the river, the Tiber. It is a social no-man's land, a sort of border region where most Romans never go. Here there are also homeless people, mostly gypsies and foreign migrants, who have set up house. They collect furniture, cook food, defecate and bathe in the river. The belong to no community and are neither spoken to nor cared for. Not even the representatives of the state --the police or the park workers or the sanitary authorities-- seem to take note of their existence. And, every working day, early morning after the sun rises, bike commuters zip by on their way to work, and Roman joggers, grunting and feeling virtuous in the morning chill, pass without a glance.
It blows my mind that a place can live comfortably with both such caring, and such neglect.
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