My two little boys on Mumford Street are gone.

We went to pick them up yesterday and the house was boarded up for code violations, with a form stating cockroaches as the reason. Looking at this building, I could see so much more - no glass in almost all the windows, holes covered up with styrophone and plywood, siding peeling off, the front porch that is just indescribable, holding just one worn and dirty upholstered living room swivel rocker sitting in solitary splendor amid garbage and abandoned clothes and toys. And the house next door is totally nailed shut, with the side yard holding a large dumpster spewing garbage.

Jamie, being braver than I, started knocking at the door and talking to neighbors, leaving me nervous and alone in the car as she disappeared into doors and rooms up and down the street.

"Good people." "Really struggling. "They have not much, but always ready to help." Those were the things said by folks up and down the block, some struggling with the English language. "Maybe they are in a nice place with people taking care for them," someone quietly observed.

Jamie was crying and I felt like punching in a door as we drove around looking for them, truly a fool's errand. We even went to a hotel on State Street that houses temporarily homeless welfare recipients along with and next to the pimps and prostitutes. But we had lost our heart and will; neither of us could bring ourselves to knock on those metal doors.

A little aside here, this is the same hotel that housed little Exstasy, the girl who had bleach rubbed in her eyes by her stepfather. This is a notorius building, yet it is often used as an emergancy shelter for families. When some of our children wind up there, they lie when I bring them home at night. "Let me off at the corner," they say, or "I'm just meeting my sister there." Even these small people are ashamed to have anyone know they live there.

I have a funny story here, a change of pace, if you will. Last fall, I went to a meeting at Proctors where a 10-year plan to eradicate homelessness in Schenectady was announced. I was part of the two-year planning group for homeless children, so I went and listened. Afterwards, we joked that it should be only seven years because we we'd already spent three years preparing this study.

Whatever happened to that plan anyway? It was heavily funded and there were multiple groups of prominent people involved. Probably more than 100 individuals and 20 or 30 organizations.

At this meeting, I met a husband and wife ministry team who had just moved to Schenectady to take over a church in the Avenue A section of the city. And they related this tale; read it and weep (or laugh or whatever): On their first night here, they needed a place to spend the night. They did not have much money, but they wanted a decent motel, so they picked the Scottish Chalet on upper State Street.

Now, this was not a young couple, but a pair in their 60s, wearing seriously unstylish clothes and plain gray hair. They were greeted at the front desk with the line, "How long?"

"One night," they replied.

"No, how long?"

Thinking there must surely be a language difficulty they responded slowly and carefully. "We just need it for one night."

"No, no" said the desk clerk, "how many hours? $10 for one, $20 for two."

Dumbfounded but valient, they again responded, "One night, the whole night."

"For that" the clerk responded, "I will throw in clean sheets."

And that was their introduction to Schenectady. We in the private little group shifted our stance, shuffled our feet and looked to each other for guidence, until these two sweet-faced pastors broke into laughter. The female said she was flattered because no one had even mistaken her for a prostitute before, and then her husband chimed in, "Now wait a minute, maybe I was the hooker and you were the customer."

That shattered all our discomfort and enabled everyone to move on and quietly smile to themselves.

Just think, have we as citizenry become so blase, so inured to the difficulties in our city that we do not rise up as one in rightous anger (see rightous anger in previous blog) and look to our elected officials for change. We are all accountable, we all live here, we support the city with our work and our taxes and yet we shy away from going public. Are we, like those we complain about in the ghetto, also afraid to snitch, to get involved? Think about it.

About my two boys, I finally found them, we fed them, gave them food, clothes, a new pair of sneakers and took them to a location that I will not divulge. How many more children like this live in odd corners and crevices in this town?

For these forgotten ones, there is no safety net. They are part of the system, but not really protected or helped by the system. Their lives are never really lived; they just grow older and probably poorer. How many will end up like those sad people collecting cans and bottles on the street?

There is one elderly gent who has a bicycle with a plywood wagon attached. I see him pedaling mightily down McClellan Street, dragging his breathtaking load behind him on his way to cash them in. What is really bizarre is that his bike sports an American flag on the handlebars.

And just today, I saw an emaciated woman who had so many enormous bags of clink and clatter that she could no longer ride her bike, but was walking up Union Street, dragging her immense load of treasure behind her.

Look how far we have come as a people, yet we care naught for either our children or our elderly.

Look at yourself in the mirror, look straight into your eyes, the eyes that are the pathway to the soul. Ask yourself, honestly, "Am I proud of my life? Can I not choose to do something more, no matter how tiny?"

As they say in the ghetto, "Call me." I'm still here, waiting by the phone, just to hear from you!