The Day Center for the Homeless attracts a crowd of visitors every day in downtown Tulsa. 
A toddler was running and having fun at the Tulsa Day Center for the Homeless in downtown Tulsa. (Photos by Ashton Elder.)By Ashton Elder
Drive downtown, down past Denver Avenue and at the north end of Denver, turn left. You will see a different world there, a world of old and abandoned buildings, lone men resting on filthy sidewalks, deterioration everywhere you look.
This is not some Third World country. This is a part of the United States. This is a city slum. This is Tulsa, Oklahoma.
I walked in the rain toward the Tulsa Day Center for the Homeless. Ahead, I saw several groups of clustered outside, smoking, talking, or simply staying dry.
A group of African-American women was sitting on a bench with cigarettes. They laughed as a younger woman's toddler skipped around them, joyful, unaware of where she was and what that might mean for her future.
A man named Juan, an older Hispanic gentleman with faded tattoos and scars, offered to help me carry my boxes of donations. I thanked him, but he quickly relied, "No, thank you."
As I observed the groups of people gathered in the courtyard, what struck me the most was the lone man leaning against the corner, tattered clothes, thin, with rough skin.
The expression on his face was something beyond sadness, even hopelessness. His face revealed a blank stare at nothing, as if he was sleeping with his eyes open. It was an expression that was marked by years of struggling to survive.
Ashton Elder is a TU communication student from Tulsa. She loves to read.
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