Patio Beef Restaurant Interrogations and Other Weird Events: Harassment of the Homeless and Fear of the "Others"
By Steve Larsen, one of our reporters from Evanston
(Editor’s note: Steve Larsen has written many articles and essays about the northside Chicago neighborhood he has nicknamed “Little Edgewater” in the 60660 zip code area, along North Broadway toward Rogers Park, including its crime, its people, and its challenges.)
.
.
As disenfranchised and burdened persons, the homeless face a daily battle of bullying and harassment from a wide variety of people. Sometimes random shopkeepers, police officers, mayors, pedestrians, bike riders, and fellow passengers on buses and trains feel they are justified when they bother, judge, belittle, and attack the homeless.
Where does this terrible treatment come from? Why do employees of restaurants like Patio Beef assume certain diners are homeless? That they cannot be trusted? That they are bothering other diners? That they will allow themselves to be interrogated?
The other day, a diner was interrogated as to whether he knew one of the other diners. These two persons—both of whom had purchased something—were speaking… old friends from the neighborhood, a man and a woman, both senior citizens.
After the woman had left, and the man went up to drop off his tray and ketchup, a female employee grabbed the tray from the gentleman and asked if he knew the woman he was talking to. He responded, “Yes, I’ve known her for many years.”
The employee responded, “Well, it looked like you were talking to her, so I wondered if you knew her.”
Did the employee fear for the woman? If so, why? Did the man look homeless because he had a shopping bag—a schlep bag—with him? Did the employee not know the man had purchased items from stores in the very same neighborhood and was going across the street to Whole Foods to purchase more items?
Is it acceptable to harass homeless people? People we think might be homeless?
As we at StreetSense do interviews with the homeless—and other disenfranchised persons—we find out that all day long (and all night long in some cases) there are always people who feel it is their right to interrogate others. Ask them if they know somebody they are talking to… Ask them what they are doing, if they have a job, where they are going, if they are stealing something in the store, if they know the police are nearby…
Where does this insulting behavior come from? Why do people think they should be able to get away with this terrible and insulting behavior? Is it okay to assume somebody carrying a shopping bag is homeless? If they are homeless, does that automatically make them a grifter? A thief? A murderer?
Why does this random employee do this? Why do they think they are allowed to? Empowered to? Responsible for?
It stems from a few different areas. For one, the random employee at Patio Beef feels they have the right to interrogate people in their place of work. If somebody looks “sketchy” or dangerous or homeless or criminal, then it is okay to walk right up to the person and say anything on earth a person wishes to say. It does not matter if the comment or question is impolite, filthy, inappropriate, provocative, or judgmental.
Say anything you want to people!
The employee feels empowered to do and say whatever comes to mind.
Another reason must be that the employee does not feel that diner is a “full human being.” Because there is the schlep bag, and the diner is missing some teeth, automatically we have to worry about the woman who is speaking to that individual. Will she be okay? Stabbed? Murdered? Beaten? Swindled? Cheated out of a dollar? Brow-beaten until she surrenders her debit card? That not-quite-full-human (even though we are talking about a senior citizen and a professional at that) must be interrogated.
The employee is allowed to interrogate that not-quite-full-human because he is not going anywhere important. He is not going to an important meeting. Or off to spend more money in the neighborhood. Or to a movie, or a date, or to work, or to call and check in on his daughter after her big job interview, or to a Zoom conversation.
No, the not-quite-full-human is just going to go wander around the neighborhood, targeting other female diners and shoppers until he gets whatever he is seeking.
Whatever he is seeking, he does not deserve it. After all, he is carrying that Whole Food shopping bag!
Another reason is the peripheral stuff. A homeless person eating there (the $9 hamburger and fries that would be $4 or $5 nearby) might bring “bugs… maybe lice? Crabs? Worms? Snakes? Gonorrhea? Cockroaches? Or a host of other creepy-crawlies when the employees—and the owner—of Patio Beef is trying to keep the place clean. And high class as heck.
No homeless people, please, because they are trying to keep this hole-in-the-wall spotless. Old flooring. Cardboard dividers and walls. Plastic windows. Uneven hallway. Kitchen maybe up to code, but it looks good. And clean. And safe.
A good wind would knock the little cardboard cafe’ over in moments.
It’s like the random low-class firemen who start going on their fake runs at 4:00 and 5:00 AM, in the same neighborhood, to wake up the homeless. Sirens, horns, and lights at Granville and Broadway, nobody watching what they are doing. Nobody caring how much money they are wasting on gas and salaries just to play games. Be mean. Be idiots…
Wherever the unhoused are sleeping. Making the Granville-Broadway intersection even more unsafe, starting very early in the day. All those firetrucks. But no fire.
Harass the homeless and wonder why they are in a bad mood. Not really any place to go… but they have to go there, anyway.
Take down their tents, encampments, and their lean-to’s. Patio Beef has a big sign—so that cardboard building gets to stay there. Down-home dining. Family-owned? Employees who know how to read? Employees who need to brush their hair?
So as always, other people get to decide where the homeless should not be. Cannot be.
That’s exactly why the homeless are out there anyway—outdoors, out of touch, off the grid, and off the schedule.
So the mayor of this city full of unhoused persons decides to accommodate the rush of onlookers and participants both coming to the Democratic National Convention. For safety reasons, we must get rid of the homeless tents. Tear down their homes once they finally find them… once they build them up out of the ground, once they find a way to almost survive…
And to find a place to put the “tent people,” the mayor makes a brilliant move: get rid of the “shelter people” (“Ahead of DNC, Brandon Johnson Puts Homeless on the Street to Make Room for Tent City Occupants,” Chicago Sun-Times, 7-16-24, https://chicago.suntimes.com/2024-democratic-national-convention/2024/07/16/dnc-2024-homeless-democratic-national-convention-mayor-brandon-johnson-tent-city-shelter).
So lets put homeless group A on the street to make room for homeless group B.
It seems somewhat random, but at least it moves people around… making those taxpayers who are mad at homeless people happy. After all, it looks like the mayor is doing SOMETHING about the tents, homeless people, and shelters.
The fact it makes no damn sense is okay.
So a Democrat who is mayor starts shuffling the unhoused persons around. Does he know there are well over 68,000 unhoused persons in the city? Plus the migrants—the momeless persons—who are homeless and now number maybe into the 40,000’s? Plus more homeless people being created on a daily basis in this city that is doing NOTHING to stop the increase in rents?
Even the governor of a state can harass and harm homeless people. Consider Gavin Newsom of California. This Democrat has just issued an order—based on the Republican decision in the Supreme Court—that the homeless encampments throughout California must go. Local authorities are to dismantle the encampments. They must also provide services to get the unhoused into housing. Provide other support. Provide other services (“Gov. Gavin Newsom Issues Executive Order for Removal of Homeless Encampments in California,” CNN, 7-25-24, https://www.yahoo.com/news/gov-gavin-newsom-issues-executive-160728631.html).
That governor might be very surprised when he realizes just how many homeless people there are who live in encampments currently. Oops! That’s a lot of people to “help” suddenly… hundreds? Thousands? Millions?
Patio Beef interrogations are a micro-session of what is happening to the homeless on a daily basis.
The tent people moving to the shelters—while the shelter people stand in the middle of the street—is a macro-session.
Moving half the people in California is a mega-session.
The random Patio Beef idiots are just doing what is being done everywhere else. Why buy their $9 hamburgers? Who is that helping?
Why not buy hamburgers elsewhere?