"I arrive home from a day on the reservation and notice my clothes smell of smoke. Then I remember the three homeless men sitting by a fire. Neda had asked the Senior Center to pack extra lunches - salmon, boiled potatoes, broccoli - then we drove to the men's camp to give them the food. Their fire was built from garbage and branches split from the cottonwoods. Around them the ground was strewn with beer cans, paper and rags. Their tents, what was left of them, sat at cockeyed angles, mildewed and torn. Their blankets hung from the trees. It had rained the night before.

Tonight it may snow.

Neda tells them about the coming snow, and that she worrys about them being out there. These are people even their families have cast away. Rehab rejects that have followed a rutted and disjointed path, often falling, often taking others down with them. These are people swollowed by the lethargy and resignation that comes from existing in a place with over 50 percent unemployment. A place where tribes with different cultures and backgrounds were ripped away from their former homes and forced to live together, and then told to forget their past. These are people and problems we would rather ignore. "

Get the Story:
Homeless on the Reservation (Red Room 12/6)