Barak Hernandez

You don’t know them but you do. You don’t see them and yet you do. They are the invisible visible. They are the homeless. We know them at a glance and inside of us we secretly congratulate ourselves that we are not one of them when we catch sight of them.

We instantly flip through the records of our minds, comforting ourselves that we are so vastly different than they are. There must be something wrong with them, we think, in order to rationalize why someone would choose to be homeless. And yet current statistics show that an adult male/female working full time is only one paycheck away from being homeless.

Make no mistake — the homeless population in Fresno is a community unto themselves. In this community, they look after one another, whether it’s trading clothing or other needed supplies. Current statistics for Fresno and Madera Counties show there are approximately 3,641 homeless, which is a 45.2% increase from 2019. With the pandemic there is most likely going to be an increase for the year 2022.

America’s food basket

How does it begin, and where does it come from? The San Joaquin Valley supplies the United States with produce that accounts for 12.8% of the nation’s overall supply of agriculture. That is a lot of produce that comes from Fresno. So the question begs the answer, how can a vastly rich agricultural city have such a high homeless rate? Whose fault is it and who is to blame for the tent cities that seem to be popping up just as fast as apartment buildings are being built?

A closer look

It has been said by mental health experts that one traumatic event in a person’s life is enough to change a person’s brain chemistry. After all, do not positive, significant events change us in some way, like having a child, graduating from college or purchasing your first home? What about a lifetime of systematic or random — yet consistent — traumatic events since childhood? This would not only change brain chemistry but alter and dictate certain behaviors that society would deem as abnormal.

Those behaviors can include talking to one’s self, pointing and talking to objects that may or may not be there, poor physical hygiene and being unable to communicate one’s needs as effectively as anyone else does without giving it a second thought. Mental health experts would agree that many of the homeless people living in our community suffer from one or more mental illnesses that are often undiagnosed, untreated and, most importantly, misunderstood by society. This makes diagnosing and treating the homeless for mental illness a challenge. The population is always on the move or transient. It is unsafe for a homeless person to stay in one spot for too long because they are a target for victimization out of sport or simply out of sincere cruelty.

Fresno’s affliction

In a word, Fresno’s affliction is meth. What is so appealing about this particular drug that has affected residents living in Fresno across all socioeconomic levels of society? Three answers: one, it’s cheap; two, it alters the perception of reality to a large degree; and three, it’s easily available. This is very appealing to the struggling family man who can’t make enough money to provide for his family, the single mother who cannot find work or afford daycare, and the homeless who use meth as a way to deal with the voices in their head or things they see on a daily basis. Mental health professionals call this “self-medicating.” Yet for others, it could be one tragic event in life that occurred that made them de-rail off the track of normal society. They begin to use meth as a way to cope or simply “numb out.” We may be starting to recover from the pandemic that began in 2020; however, we are still in the middle of an epidemic — the epidemic of meth across the country.

All is not lost

In Fresno there are agencies that are all too familiar with the homeless population and what causes this. Service providers like the Fresno Mission and Poverello House have been dedicated for decades to provide shelter and safety for this vulnerable population. The Poverello House provides short term and in some cases long term immediate housing for individuals and families. Many have benefitted from the tireless efforts of these agencies and the volunteers who come from all walks of life to help.

The Fresno Mission (formerly Fresno Rescue Mission) has a warming center that allows an individual the ability to have shelter overnight until a space is available for them. This ensures the individual can remain safely indoors overnight for as long as it takes them to find shelter. There is also Project Home Key that has transformed formal hotels into temporary housing for the homeless and is directed at providing 1,500 rooms and shelters for the next two years. Fresno has done a lot and continues to understand the unique dynamics of homelessness.

In the comic book series “Superman,” he had the advantage of X-ray vision — the ability to see right through an object or person. Perhaps that is what we need the next time we see a homeless man or woman — the ability to use the power of emotional insight and see them as a person. Someone who may at one time had dreams or aspirations of college, marriage and a family. Maybe inside of every homeless person there is a citizen who is part of society struggling to get out? As the frontier of modern society pushes the homeless further and further away from what we deem as normal or human, perhaps they will be able to say as other populations that were pushed away and forgotten before them said…that once we were here.

---

Barak Hernandez is the owner of Clean Master since 2018 and has 30 years experience in providing all cleaning and water restoration services. Born and raised in Fresno California Barak is the youngest of nine children. Barak attended Norseman elementary, Easterby Elementary, Kings Canyon Middle school, and finally McLane High school. Barak was raised to work at a young age without pay. Coming from a large Hispanic family it was always expected that every family member contributed by doing chores and helping out with the family business. Both of Barak’s parents are currently deceased but live forever in his memory.