SRQ Daily Columnist Diana Hamilton, after living 35 years in Sarasota, labels herself a pragmatic optimist with radical humorist tendencies and a new found resistance to ice cream.

I don’t love candidate forums. There are way too many of them and they are rarely informative, more like pageants really, sans the fancy dress. And what candidate doesn’t claim to be for world peace? Besides that, I’ve already made up my mind to vote March 10 for David Morgan, written him a check and put his sign in my yard. But I had one more garden bed that needed covering located conveniently near the Downtown Sarasota Alliance’s Thursday night District 2 candidates’ forum at the Church of the Redeemer, and out of respect for the DSA and their moderator, my friend Peter Fanning, off I went into the bitter cold.

The older I get, the less patient I become with the “blah blah blah”—the endless talk about what we will or won’t, can’t or shouldn’t do about whatever it is we are talking endlessly about. On this night it was Eileen Normille’s politically pat non-answer to the question of homelessness that, despite my best intentions to sit quietly taking notes through to the end, sent me shortly, mumbling and shaking my head, out the door and smack into the human face of that question. 

I was leaving the Redeemer heading toward the little side street that led to my truck parked outside Caragiulos on Palm Avenue when I heard a slight commotion from behind some rollie waste cans next to a dumpster across the way. Someone was back there.

“Hey, are you okay? Do you need help?”  “No, I’m alright.”  “I can call someone to bring you to the Salvation Army.”  “No, I’m not allowed back there until April 1.”  “Really? I’m sure they would let you in tonight.”  “No, No they won’t – I’ll be okay.“

In my truck there was one more heavy blanket meant to cover my last fragile flowerbed. I grabbed it up and went back. The man was quite large and in a wheelchair; the front of his body and head were covered in a fleece throw. “May I lay this blanket across your back and shoulders?” He peeked out and nodded. His eyes were tearing, and as I rolled away the cans to step in to cover him, I saw the genius hidey-hole he had made. The lid of the dumpster, open and leaned back against the wall, created a windbreak, an enclosure he could would wheel himself into and perhaps survive night. He had done this before. This was his home.

It was so cold in my leaky, hundred-year-old cottage this morning that no amount of covers or cats could warm me up. It was 11 o’clock before I ventured out to drive my neighbor for a haircut and then begin uncovering all my gardens. I didn’t go look for the man. If he perished I’ll hear about it. I have to believe he survived and that I did the best I could.

Sarasota may be special, but her problems are not unique. On March 10, we have the opportunity to elect bright, capable individuals who understand that truly great, enduring and inclusive public policy cannot be built on the ever-shifting complaints, prejudices and narrow personal preferences of others, nor on the pretense that what has worked elsewhere will not work here. It’s time. 

SRQ Daily Columnist Diana Hamilton, after living 35 years in Sarasota, labels herself a pragmatic optimist with radical humorist tendencies and a new found resistance to ice cream.