Dog Days for a Semi-Homeless Old Man
An old man, and two ill-tempered dogs, have been living for the past few month on my block, in a ready-for-the-scrap-heap van. The man moves the van a few feet each day in order to avoid parking tickets. Sometimes he parks it on the south end of the block, and sometimes on the north. This past weekend, the van was parked directly in front of my building.
There are lots of dogs in this neighborhood, which has been thoroughly gentrified over the past decade. Most of the dogs brought in by the newly-arrived, upscale crowd, are pedigreed. As such, they tend to be handsome, well-groomed creatures, receiving better care than most of the ragged, homeless people who compete with them for sunny spaces in the local park.
But the dogs owned by the van dweller are mongrels. As such, they are scruffy, long-eared mutts; the kinds commonly found in the company of farmers, hunters, and others who need large animals to assist their recreation and labor. I suspect that the dogs which reside in the van on my street would be particularly helpful for prison guards engaged in a feverish search for escaped convicts.
The old man who resides in the van with the dogs is short, and probably close to retirement age. He moves slowly. His hair is gray, patchy and unkempt. He wears faded clothing of the sort commonly sold in second-hand stores. He avoids eye contact with passersby, and I have never heard him utter a word to another human.
But I did hear him yell at the dogs a few days ago when they barked and snarled at me. I was walking along the sidewalk near my residence at the time, and the dogs were apparently warning me that I was closer to the van than they considered appropriate. Upon hearing his angry voice, the dogs fell silent. But the expressions on their faces, coupled with the keen stares they used to monitor my wary passage, informed me that I should be careful in the future when I pass their way.
I often wonder where the three of them obtain food and water, and how they dispose of their wastes. When it is cold and rainy, I wonder how they keep warm, whether the old man has family or friends, and if he longs for more normal living quarters. I peered into one of the van’s windows as I walked past this afternoon. It is filled with a wild jumble of clothes and clutter. One of the dogs was sleeping peacefully in the driver’s seat.
There are obviously others like the supremely solitary old man here in San Francisco, where housing prices are among the highest in the United States. Mostly, they are ignored by those fortunate enough to live indoors.
But this will probably change because the number of local people living in cluttered, old cars, truck and vans will increase during the months immediately ahead due to the current financial crisis. It is just a matter of time before disapproving neighborhood groups, supportive of chic settings and high property values, begin to press local government officials to force vehicle dwellers off the streets, and out of town.