Sitting in front of the Barnes and Noble bookstore in Kenmore Square with a ragged backpack to his side and shaking a paper cup containing five coins, hoping to add more to his chorus of clinking change, is David Davis, a panhandler who guards his corner for four or five hours a day.
Speaking behind a pair of weary eyes, chiseled teeth and a receding line of black hair, Davis said he is a 15-year veteran of Boston’s streets at only 44 years of age. Davis rents a small room on Huntington Avenue for $150 a month and has a part-time job as a landscaper at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, but he still begs for money to ensure he does not wind up homeless again after 10 years without a place to call home.
Davis wakes up every morning and either takes the T to MIT to work or to Kenmore Square. After hours of begging, Davis goes home and watches TV in his apartment and goes to bed to go through his routine again the next day.
Davis spoke about how his life spiraled out of control to the point that the sidewalk was his new home.
“I got out [onto the streets] because I lost my job,” said Davis, who often begs in front of Warren Towers. “I kept drinking and got fired for it. I had no money and I couldn’t make ends meet, so I went on the street.”
There were an estimated 5,819 homeless adults in Boston in 2004 up 10 percent from 5,299 people in 1994, according to a 2005 study prepared by the City of Boston Emergency Shelter Commission. About 300 of them were out on the streets over the winter.
According to the 2004 U.S. census data, 15.5 percent of families in Suffolk County lived below the poverty line.
In May 2004, Mayor Thomas Menino proposed a four-year housing plan that would create 2,100 units of affordable housing, available to low-to-moderate income households, according to the Leading the Way II midpoint progress report. Menino also detailed a plan to start a $10 million homeless housing campaign to that would create permanent lodgings for the homeless and allocate fund to help prevent homelessness within the city, according to the report.
The homeless are often in constant battles with drugs and alcohol, a commonly recurring theme in their lives. Davis, a former alcoholic and an LSD and crack cocaine addict, recalled the days when he depended on drugs and alcohol just to make it through the day.
“I continued drinking and it got worse,” said Davis, who estimated that 80 percent of the homeless use drugs and alcohol. “Finally, in 1998, I became sober, and I pretty much did it on my own and with some help from Alcoholics Anonymous.”
Davis — who used money from disability and social security checks to fund his addictions — said drugs and alcohol are such an attractive option to downtrodden people who lose their jobs that they often choose to go onto the streets.
“I’ll tell you the truth, when I first became homeless, I liked the freedom,” Davis said. “So many people like it out there, not paying rent and are free to use drugs. Some people choose to stay out there.”
According to Davis, many of Boston’s homeless have mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, a disorder that causes impairments in social skills and perception.
“There are a lot of mental cases [on the streets],” Davis said. “A lot of them have schizophrenia and they tend to use drugs a lot.”
Davis suggested the government should improve available resources and allocate more federal funding to get more homeless off the streets.
“The government should do better,” Davis said. “We have to stop sending money to Iraq and use that money to create better health care, provide more money for the elderly and more jobs for the poor. Twenty years ago, there was affordable housing on Newbury Street and in Brookline, but now there’s nowhere for us [to go].”
