BRATTLEBORO — In the various discussions that take place about drugs and crime, panhandling and homelessness, it can sometimes seem that the voices of ordinary people who rent apartments in neighborhoods and work hard to make ends meet can be missing.
“Lori,” a single mother who lives with her children and works three or four jobs to make ends meet, asked that The Commons give her a pseudonym for reasons of privacy and safety. She has lived in town for more than a decade, and is familiar with the streets. Addiction has been a significant issue in her family.
Asked for her perspective on the issue of crime and its impact in town, Lori said that it feels like “a multi-sided sphere.”
“It's important not to stereotype any of this in ways of color, in ways of how we look, class, etc.,” she said. “My people in Brattleboro can't afford to shop in Brattleboro. None of this we can afford. So some of the people throwing rocks [referring to people who often speak up against panhandling] are only doing that. It is rocks, not solutions at the problem.”
With respect to the concerns of business owners about the impact of panhandling, drug activity, and violence on the perception and the economy of the downtown, Lori counters that she can't afford to shop in many of the stores.
“First of all, people should be able to walk where they want, do what they want in their town,” Lori said. “But until we come up with viable solutions, you may not want to walk in certain parts of town at certain times of night. And that does not make you wrong. Until we can put in the progressive solutions, it would be best to take caution.”
People bear the consequences of their decisions
Lori talked about the spate of recent crimes in Brattleboro, and the way police reports describe them as “isolated incidents.” She agreed that most incidents have not been random. She added that while it is important to have sympathy for people who wind up enmeshed in the drug community, it is also important to recognize that they bear the consequences of decisions they have made.
“If you don't want to get burned, stay out of the kitchen -these are lifestyles,” Lori said. “People are getting involved with people they should not be involved with, and that is what is causing it. And when [the police] say, 'Well, the public has no need to worry,' they are not specifying or clarifying it, and you have good citizens running around thinking they are going to get hurt.”
“The people committing the violence are not the people out there holding the signs [seeking money],” Lori said.
“When it gets to the point of people being held at gunpoint, I am going to be really honest, it is very rarely because they need to get high, it is because they owe someone money and they are in fear for their life,” Lori said. “They owe someone money. They are told, 'Go out there and get my money.' A lot of time the person coming to collect is not from here.”
Lori also discussed the way in which individuals who are naïve and vulnerable may be drawn into the system and find themselves in over their heads [see main story].
“You take someone who is vulnerable and you put them under conditions in which they feel this is the only way they can get out,” she said. “They feel desperate and now they are exposed to this weird contract. And if it is not already a component to it, the addiction follows and now this person, the vulnerable person is right back where they started and now they are exposed to this community.”
“We never see the person at the very top connected to all of this,” she continued. “The community views them, the vulnerable person, as scum and they are back to nothing, possibly less than nothing.”
'We are all in this together'
Lori also talked about some of the divisions in the community and how labeling people with words like “panhandler” or “addict” creates stigma and dehumanizes others.
“We need to change that. It takes nothing for us to engage the person,” Lori said. “We are all in this together; we are all humans.”
“I really think it could shift things to not look at someone like they are a piece of dirt. If they stay low and we are pushing them lower, what are they going to do? Rise up to a community that is still going to hate them?” she added.
“There are also the people who are getting out of jail and they can't get a job, they can't get an ID, they can't get a place to live, they stay down there, so what is the point of getting out?” Lori continued.
As a community reacts to and deals with the consequences of the opioid epidemic, people don't need to live in fear, Lori said. But, she added, the alternative requires effort and education.
“Instead of living in fear, why don't you understand this fear because I bet there is a lot more in common that you have with that fear than you don't,” Lori said. “There is fear for me. I see the devastation and I am angry.”
“Be angry, but be angry at the right thing,” she urged. “Not scared of it.”
“It takes zero dollars to be a non-shitty human being,” Lori said. “Don't say you want to fix it if you are not willing to get your hands a little dirty.”