By MIke Archer. To get to know James Breckenridge you have to sit at a sidewalk coffee table with him and try to keep his attention while his eyes keep darting about, keeping an eye on some people who don’t always stand out in a crowd.

The police and the media provide us with an image of the homeless that shows only the most destitute among us and, in the process, help us confirm our inner most thoughts that we just don’t really want these people around.

The images are certainly not untrue but sitting with James you meet people who live on the street and survive from hour to hour. But then, as though in slow motion, you begin to notice the same people as he is noticing. They are people just like you and me and they don’t look homeless. They just look a little worse for wear.

These are the walking wounded in our society. These are the ones who faced and suffered from the same ailments as we face but they slipped and fell. And now they’re outside.

Those who don’t know him are new to town and will hear about him soon enough and my purpose is not to tell his story. Suffice it to say that James is an intelligent, educated and erudite man who hit bottom years ago and has been making his journey back on a different track ever since. If there were sins for which he has been trying to atone, they were were paid for long ago.

James helps others. That’s what he does.

He also shoots his mouth off because he can see through the bureaucratic procedures and excuses of the poverty industry. We spend lots of money not finding people homes. And that drives James nuts.

He can’t grasp the kind of mind that would think that we’re actually doing a good job taking care of our doomed fellow men and women. He can’t accept that dogs, spotlights, guns and batons in the middle of the night is the way to deal with destitute people many of whom wish they were dead.

He certainly can’t abide the men and women in the poverty industry who make a good living not finding people homes and fail to understand that it is dignity our friends need. Not pity.

While we sat drinking coffee and discussing the complex financial mess in which the City finds itself, a nicely dressed young professional women, stopped by our table, leaned down and picked up a cigarette butt, before smiling and quickly moving on.

James grabbed my cigarette package (he doesn’t smoke) and asked if he could have a cigarette as he yelled her name over his shoulder. She came back and he gave her the cigarette. A fresh, clean brand new cigarette. And she said “Thank you.” to which he replied, “No. Thank Mr. Archer. He gave you the cigarette.”

She smiled at me, said ‘Thank you’ and walked away.

I may never be able to sit having a coffee on the sidewalk in the same way again.