Will Sing For Food

WILL SING FOR FOOD is:

A. A touching story of unrequited love.
B. A musical comedy.
C. A tragic tale of misery, loss, and depression.
D. A triumphant celebration of man's indomitable spirit.
E. All of the above!

As a cop on the beat, I had inevitable interactions with homeless people daily. A huge majority of them were compliant individuals more than willing to "move along" when asked to do so. Some were very nice people with no answer to their problem of being indigent. For whatever reason, they had lost everything and now existed in conditions that you and I would consider totally unacceptable but had become a daily routine for them. Damn few ever took any proactive steps to change, and I'm being generous by assuming any of them did. I personally did not see a single one that changed their situation.

The social institutions set up to assist these people were well-intended, and some of the most giving, dedicated individuals you would ever want to meet worked tirelessly trying. But the wave of need overwhelmed the availability of support. A one-time fix that could permanently sway the way a person approached their life did not exist then, nor does it seem to today. For virtually all of them, there simply wasn't (isn't) anything more that could be done than to put a "bandage on a bullet wound." Clothe the naked, antibiotics for a fever, a meal for the hungry, a place to stay for the night, and then the homeless were back on the street without follow-up care.

This play exists because hand-outs and lip service are not the answer to a lasting recovery. The protagonist of this story is my optimistic answer to those I witnessed if they could only have taken charge of their own lives with a little bit of help.