Death

This is Billy Bob and the Consortium
Let’s Have a Conversation Today

In Dying, We Become Inanimate and Useless
Compost Handled, Cared for Better Than We

Hey folks, morning, I don’t show up much because I don’t feel safe being exposed out here, no way, too much going on. But Bully told me there was a new project going on that might help you think heads understand what we go through on a daily basis and even when death starts knocking on our door. You all have the comfort of keeping death sanitized and controlled and mannerly, we don’t, it strikes whenever. So, let’s talk and see if he is right:

• Hey folks, morning.
  I don’t show up much—and that’s not by choice. Out here, being seen isn’t always safe. Exposure carries consequences. Too much is going on, and survival means knowing when to stay quiet.
• But Billy told me there’s a new project starting. One that might help you think-heads understand what our days actually look like out here—what it feels like when death isn’t an abstract idea or a distant headline, but a regular visitor that doesn’t knock politely.
• You all get death sanitized. Scheduled. Managed. Controlled.
  We don’t.
• Out here, death shows up whenever it wants—early morning, late night, in the heat, in the cold, between meals, between breaths. No warning. No dignity. No buffer.
•  
• When someone dies on the street, police and the coroner take the body.
• If there’s no ID, no family, no money, the city handles it.
• That usually means quiet cremation, no service, no marker, no remembrance.
• Ashes are stored briefly, buried anonymously, or disposed of by policy.
• Most are forgotten within days.
• Identification is attempted, often fails.
• If they aren’t claimed, their life is closed out as a case file.
• Veterans may receive honors only if identified.

Unwanted isn’t written anywhere—but it’s how the system functions.

Initial Reaction from the Consortium

Billy Bob, there is not enough coffee, treats or other stuff that will make us talk, converse or dwell on this mess this morning, go climb a tree.

Guys, let’s try, please, they need to know that we are human and that we suffer, hurt and die just as they do, please, can we try this morning.

 But this hits in our tiny, small, little private spot, and we don’t let no one in there, it is all we have left. Is the chance for change worth it?

Without conversation, nothing will ever change, do we want to go on with the walls getting thicker and higher, or take the chance for them to begin to crack?

Round Table Discussion/Frustration

I am not going to sugarcoat anything for you folks, this question is junk, and that is my opinion and I am Frankie. I can only imagine what you think and imagine when you hear one of us has kicked off. Talk about that overused phrase, knee-jerk, your mind most likely goes to drugs, alcohol and violence. And for a few, that is truth, but what about the rest of us? What about those who cannot get their medications, who have not eaten in days, those who have an active infection that spreads, what do you know about us that you can judge us when we die, we ain’t compost you know.

Bill, me here, I have seen fallen military enemies treated with greater care and compassion than you housed folks do with one of us when you find us having crossed over to the other side, never to bother you again. I mean, like we already talked about your trash gets treated with great care and even you compost, but we are tossed aside even in death like we are nothing and worth less than nothing. Veterans fall in battle, they fall from illness and injury and receive dignity, but out here they are discarded. Dead, gone, out of sight, moved away, that is all that matters to you, and in whatever state it doesn’t matter at all.

It’s me, Pete, you know, while you sit safe and comfortable and disrespect us in both life and death, I have one single question for you. What about those hiding out here from domestic violence? Yes, that is what I just dropped on you! This nation, the police, the courts, and the social workers have no safe, proper way to protect the women from the abuse and death threats, and so they end up out here hiding, hoping to stay alive. Stop there and think, the streets are the safest place for an abused woman, or her and the family, how? We just lost a friend out here because her deadbeat ex found her and did away with her, was she trash? How should her remains have been dealt with after he killed her?

Well, folks I am Mike and this one gets me upset. I have stood by as several have died without dignity, mercy or compassion out here on the cold, dank, rough concrete. No insurance, no bed, no insurance, no medical care. But the illegals get all they need! I once tried to help a guy dying of cancer who was beyond help, making a mess of himself, beyond control, and no one would help him, died a terrible death, was he only trash, was he less than compost? You tell me. You have it too easy and are too cold-hearted. This is what I have said all along: these cards are maddening if they produce no change on both sides of the wall.

Riposte

Compost is handled with care—
by rules, by guidelines, by process and respect.

But dying out here on the concrete,
death comes unregulated, unacknowledged.

Less than compost.
No standards. No safeguards.
No careful hands.

Organic waste is managed with intention—
while human lives are left to rot in plain sight,
unnamed, uncounted,
as if dignity expires before breath does.

It doesn’t matter what label they slap on it—drugs, alcohol, infection, missed meds. Labels are excuses. While they argue causes, we die. Quietly. Expendably. Managed like waste instead of treated like people.

We are discussed as problems, processed as objects, removed for convenience. Not mourned. Not urgency-worthy. Just cleared away so the view is cleaner and the conscience stays comfortable.

This isn’t about behavior. It’s about abandonment.
And abandonment kills just as surely as anything they name.

Housed folks get to have deaths that are often sanitized, controlled, medicated, and buffered by walls, privacy, and people paid to care.
Where pain is managed, dignity is preserved, and suffering is kept out of sight.

We, the unhoused, struggle just to find a quiet corner to suffer through until the end—
no room, no bed, no consent, no comfort.
Only concrete, cold air, and the constant fear of being moved along even while dying.
Death doesn’t knock politely out here; it interrupts, exposes, and humiliates.
There is no curtain to pull, no family waiting room, no final softness—
just survival stretched thin until it finally snaps.

Same ending.
Very different mercy.

Okay, Our Turn, We Ask You Some Questions:

Our Hope that you will see through the superficial topic of discussion, seeing us cold, lifeless and dead on the streets, is it joyous or is there sadness in your heart, which that traps us to the streets and to the graves

That you begin to understand the danger of: Not thinking for your own self, but where you can challenge groupthink

See the great divide presented today in this discussion, where have you allowed groupthink to creep in when it comes to death and dying, thus increasing homelessness

Finally, assess for yourself, is this a true, true mindset that I have allowed or is it something that I have been fed, and it is false, critically important

Conclusion

Death, dying, passing away, transitioning, all happen without much notice, fuss or bother out here, it just shows up and we are gone. Sometimes we are ready to welcome it, and once in a while we are actively seeking it, can’t take it out here anymore and there are no answers and no help for us anymore.

Our time out here, on these streets, has been a time of visible time of invisibility and you, as the housed and well cared for folk, cannot handle us when we are alive and when we kick off, you want us dealt with quickly, no more upsetting the proper folk.

Funerals, Celebration of Life, military honors, remembrances are all not for us, the unhoused groups, we are as nobodies, and you are okay with that, our passing makes it simply one less ‘thing’ to see when going about your city.

What Will Their Outcome Be?

You Have a Part to Play…