It is one thing to talk in theory about the homeless. It is one thing to caution those putting homeless housing near your home. It is another thing to go to sleep at night knowing the police cannot and do not enforce the laws to protect those who are not homeless. It is one thing to caution the City about this inequity that just increases in potential as the homeless flaunt their homelessness.

It is another thing when it happens to you!

This is Darryl DuFay’s story of his night before and morning of the Fourth of July with his encounter of a homeless person in his home. Darryl is a long-time resident of Venice. He has been active in Venice Median project which is meant for homeless housing near the canals.

By Darryl DuFay

Good morning. I’m glad I can say that.
It is five o’clock in the morning now and It is just beginning to sink in six hours later. I am increasingly not feeling well. I am having my own traumatic stress experience. I am overwhelmed with “what ifs.”  What if my face-to-face personal encounter with a mentally disturbed homeless person had ended tragically.

I was going to bed about 11 last night. My bedroom is on the second floor. There is no outside access to my second floor. It was hot and I open the first of two doors to get a cross draft to cool down the room. It was the second door that enters onto my outside deck that I now replay and replay over in my head.

There rose up a figure on the other side of the door, which has glass panes, not solid. Then, a scream matched only by my own. Standing there, slightly bent over. was a disheveled white male, maybe be in his twenties or thirties, with something wrapped around him. No shirt. He continued screaming. Something about being beaten up, that he didn’t know where he was, and to call the police. He had to have climbed up from the outside.

My first impulse was to try to get him out of my home peacefully. In hindsight because he did not want to leave — not a good idea. I closed and locked the door.. He kept screaming and screaming. I was in a personal panic when I called 911. He kept screaming and screaming.

I walked out and sat down outside by my front door to wait for the police and continued to look back upstairs, afraid he might become violent and break through the door. He kept screaming and screaming.

A neighbor was on the footbridge right by my home. I asked him to call 911 again, which he did. Five to seven minutes had passed. His friend Tiffany came on the bridge and over to where I was sitting. She asked how I was feeling and offered any help I might need. He continue to scream and scream.

The police arrived about ten to fifteen minutes or more later. I don’t remember how much time, but it was not right away. They came. I directed them where to go. They talked to the individual. He didn’t resist. He kept saying he was sorry. The police took him outside and had him sit down to talk to him. He repeated he didn’t know where he was at. The police said they were going to take him to the hospital.

The police apologized for not arriving sooner but said they were encountering other situations.

I end by repeating my “what if.”  For me this did not end tragically but in the growing, uncontrolled homeless state that grips Venice. Who knows what will be next. For 39 years I have lived in the Venice Canals.