Riding Thunder To Reach The Un-Housed

Years ago, I rode the front of a tandem bike, with a blind woman in the rear, on a ride co-sponsored by Lighthouse.

Sometimes I envision a fleet of tandems in a local Lighthouse chapter or some regional office or warehouse.  I also think about the ways different social-service organizations could use bicycles.

Such organizations might include ones that provide services and outreach to un-housed people.  A fellow named Mark Sniff in Little Rock, Arkansas is living proof that the great minds think alike. (LOL)

He is a case manager with the Ouachita Youth Center, a division of Little Rock nonprofit Ouachita Children, Youth and Family Services.  Once or twice a week, he delivers items like socks, blankets, first-aid kits and backpacks to people in the city's homeless encampments.  He often makes his deliveries on his Breezer Thunder mountain bike, "especially when the weather is nice."

One advantage to his bike of choice, he says, is that it can "handle everything from road to gravel to single track."  That is important, he says, because sometimes those camps are "difficult to get to," especially in a van or other motor vehicle.  He uses bags attached to a rear rack (which I suspect are panniers) and, when he needs more capacity, carries a backpack.

He says he's a "middleman" that connects un-housed people, especially the young, to services and facilities.  Being on a bike facilitates face-to-face connections, which builds trust.  Those facilities include the Drop-In, a space for people under 24 years old who are un-housed or in unstable housing. "People can come in, take a shower, and do laundry and take care of some of those basic needs," Sniff explains.

Many police departments maintain a fleet of bicycles for patrols that go into places that are difficult to reach by car.  Perhaps more social service agencies, especially those who serve the un-housed, could do the same, with folks like Mark Sniff leading the way. He is living proof of something I've said in earlier posts:  the bicycle can be one of the most effective tools for social mobility--and justice.

No Dry Rides

 Ya gotta hydrate, doncha no?

They Had It Coming To Them: They Weren't Wearing Helmets

I can recall a time when, if a woman or girl were sexually assaulted, people would ask, "What was she wearing?" or "What was she doing out at that time?"  It didn't matter if the woman or girl in question was clad in combat fatigues or on her way to or from school or work in broad daylight. Somehow, she would be turned into the provacatress.

There are still people who think that way.  Sometimes I think they're the same people who ask what someone "was doing" to cause the police to stop them for driving/bike riding/running/walking/breathing while Black.  

Or believe that a cyclist who's run down by a motorist or whose bike is stolen must have done something "unsafe."  I can't begin to count how many times people told me I had to be "more careful" after I was doored:  Never mind I was right next to the car door when the driver opened it and had no way of anticipating or avoiding her carelessness.

Now, of course, if someone makes such a comment on road.cc, you can almost bet that it's a sarcasm.  The problem is that one person's sarcasm is another person's misperception. 

I am thinking now of  the response of "hawkinspeter"  to an article about two 13-year-olds who were "deliberately driven at" and verbally threatened by someone who stole the bikes they were riding.  "Were they wearing helmets?" he wondered. "If not they were almost asking to be robbed."

Police surveillance image of the car used to threaten two 13-year-olds and steal their bikes.

To be fair, "hawkinspeter" had no monopoly on snark.  His comment followed one from "leipreichan" who suggested that the driver will incur no harsher a penalty than three points on his/her license because "the kids were wearing black."  

Hmm...That makes about as much sense as shooting a teenager because he was wearing a hoodie.