It was a morning misting sprinkle that I jogged through to get into the gym. It's a welcome change to feel in a desert, to be able to choose to step out into the rain or not.

The gym is one room in a space otherwise filled with more generic office spaces. My trainer and I started the warm-ups when we noticed the moaning underneath the stairs opposite the gym's glass-paneled door. The moans continued until we realized a gentleman was tucked under the stairs, wrapped in a blanket.

We debated what to do. What would be the best call? Should we call the police, or would that just escalate the situation? It was a moment of risk assessment too. Did we feel safe enough to talk to him? We did and decided to investigate. We walked out, and my trainer asked him if he was OK. He apologized and said he was just trying to stay dry and out of the storm.

It had been a perfect storm that had moved through our town in recent years. First, in 2018, the city revised its panhandling ordinances in response to a U.S. Supreme Court decision and ACLU pressure, which ruled that panhandling was a form of free speech. Then came COVID-19, which rattled every industry with layoffs and furloughs. Lastly, the exponential growth of rental prices ripped through our town, which recently netted our town an unhappy top ranking.

In May 2023, apartment rental agency Dwellsy released a report that our town had seen a rent rise of 51.4% since the previous year, the highest increase for a city nationwide.

Curious, I went to check the prices of the apartment complex I rented in before my husband and I were lucky enough to buy a home (with help from our parents.) Rent for a two-bedroom about nine years ago was about $550. Now it's $1,000. This wasn't a swanky joint. When the complex was sold, the new owners promptly filled in the pool.

And, in nine years, I doubt that few households doubled their income.

Back under the stairs, I didn't know that man's story. He could have been numbing his situation with an addiction. He could have spent the night walking to keep warm or stay safe. He could have lost a job and slipped through the cracks without a support system.

However, it wasn't my job to judge the situation but to be in that moment in the ways that allowed us to coexist, even when it meant thinking of those cracks that come close to so many of us in ways we cannot control.

Months back, driving with my kids in the backseat, a man in a dirty white shirt walked across the road as I was stopped, about to turn. With grand gestures, he engaged in a heated conversation with someone that none of us in the car could see. My son asked if he was OK.

"You know how you get sick in your stomach?" I said. "Sometimes you can get sick in your brain too. Our society has a harder time caring for sick people like that."

It's not a great answer because it admits that our society has its failings. I'd love to protect my children from that, but they're a part of it, and when they see the frayed ends that we haven't been able to spin back into threads that make sense, it calls on us to examine why.

My trainer suggested we make him a coffee. We went back out and asked; he enthusiastically said yes. He had a warm Styrofoam cup in his hands in a few minutes.

Ours are little ways, but larger forms of change only come when we work together on solutions that make sense for each town. For our town, right now, it's housing. And not just for the person under the stairs, but the family that lost a job, the elderly widow whose fixed income doesn't keep up with the relentless rental increases or the veteran who gave what his country demanded of him and realized that he couldn't get even the simplest help in return.

There are many who are housed now, who are very close to being unhoused, who are very similar to us. And, still, there are people who would prefer to throw rocks from their homes instead. When we are told that empathy is a weakness, and that judgment is a better answer, that's a far cry from a solution.

Cassie McClure is a writer, millennial, and unapologetic fan of the Oxford comma. She can be contacted at [email protected]. To find out more about Cassie McClure and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Photo credit: Nathan Dumlao at Unsplash