I drove to east Baltimore today to pay off Will’s bail at Big Boyz. Will is the young man we employ around the house — when he’s in need of work. He’s been paying off his bail for most of the year, since getting arrested for fighting with his sister. He couldn’t pay off the last of his bail because he’s in rehab again, so he’ll send me the cash. Rehab will take him out of circulation for six months. Six months isn’t enough time to get the help he needs — job counseling, training and education, in addition to addiction counseling. But it’s about all there is. At least he gets off the streets and stops using for a time.

But it’s a sad cycle. What does it take to help one man who never got a break? His mother uses. His older sister uses. His father is long gone. Will never finished high school. But he’s surprisingly articulate and well mannered. This year, he turned 30 and discovered he has a 5-year-old son by a former girlfriend. He wants to do right by the boy but it’s more than tough finding work, especially when you’ve got a police record for using and no GED.

One of the things I like most about Will is that he isn’t trying to “get over.” When he works, he works hard and he wants to keep working. He doesn’t like to be idle. He finds no satisfaction in doing a lousy job. But lately he’s been working poorly. Both Jill and I have noticed it. He has seemed depressed. Social Services has given him medication but Jill says it’s the wrong kind, which is typical of social services.

The frustrating thing is, never have the rich been richer in this country — except during the gilded era of robber barons — and never have there been so many homeless on the streets. I’m not calling for a revolution but, at the same time, I’m convinced that things in this country can’t go on the way they’re going. What I know for sure is this: as much as he’s willing to work and as earnest as he is about getting straight, Will most likely will never get his GED, never get a full-time job that pays him enough to do any more than live from week to week, and, never get free of the drugs that are all but foisted on him from all sides — from family, friends, and just about anybody he meets on the street.

The problem isn’t in Will, it’s in everything that surrounds him. As much as I dislike David Simon’s The Wire — because it’s so pessimistic — I have to grant that Simon has this much right: drugs aren’t going away. Ever. Legalize them, regulate them, then deal with the hundred other problems that are dragging us down. Legalize drugs? Sounds fantastic to some and too scary to others, like surrendering to the devil. But that seems the thing to do. Look at Mexico. Remember Prohibition in this country.

We live in a country that fears and shuns the truth because the truth is so damned uncomfortable and inconvenient: can we grant marital rights to gays? can we agree, once and for all, that global warming is as real as the scientists say? can we accept that taxes are necessary for building the good of all?

What does it take to help one man get on his feet? It takes a lot more than we are giving.

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Today, my neighbor, an older woman who walks with a cane, informed me — very pleasantly — that soon the world will end.  “If you watch, you’ll see the signs,”  she added. “They’re everywhere!”  I nodded agreeably and smiled, then said, “Okay, wow.”  I was letting the dogs in. When I returned to the kitchen, Jill asked, “What was that about?”  I shrugged:  “Just Di telling me about the end of the world.” Our neighbor usually does nothing more than complain about her landlord. I’ve never heard her talk about the apocalypse. I’m not sure if it’s her loneliness, the season, or the recent snow that has worn on her.

Baltimore got 21 inches. Proudly we’re calling it the Baltimore Blizzard. As we are a Southern city, we don’t cotton to snow. It freaks us out. Everybody crowds the grocery stores the night before a storm, as if preparing for a siege (or the apocalypse?). Surprisingly, the forecasters got it right this time. Snow kept coming. Our power went out for 16 hours. We were about to camp in front of the fireplace when it returned finally. Living without power, we decided, is most inconvenient. Not that we have grounds for complaint. Jill, who works for Healthcare for the Homeless, visited one of her clients this week. He just got a tiny one-bedroom apartment after having lived on the street for years. She brought him a Christmas tree. He gave her a photo of the underpass he used to call home. Driving to work this morning, Jill saw plenty of others in the street. She started bawling. There’s only so much you can do, and then what?

Thick ice remains on some streets and sidewalks. Baltimoreans have staked out their curbside parking with lawn furniture. I waited till the last minute to shovel. The guy I usually pay to help me checked himself into rehab three weeks ago. It’s his second try at kicking crack. Though determined to go straight, he admits that it’s a long shot if he can’t get away from Baltimore.  “Drugs is everywhere,”  he says. That’s no lie: about one in ten Baltimoreans is drug dependent,  according to a recent study. So that’s our wish for the new year, that he can get enough help to get away.

Baltimore is not “The Wire.” Really. But, sure, you can find all of that here. Our mayor — convicted for petty theft of a few gift cards recently — has been the best mayoral advocate for the homeless in many years. She may hold on to her office yet. Holding on seems to be this year’s theme. If Obama can pass health care reform, I’m thinking, we could see the beginning of something, not the end.

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