E-mailing with Sullivan today brought to mind something that's been on my mind a lot lately, homeless.

There's a huge homeless population in New York City and it seems to have grown in the last year or so. I assume it could be for any number of reasons: the economy, an escalating drug problem, the outrageous cost of living in NYC and the lack of a proper system to care for the mentally ill and disabled.

I used to look upon the homeless as dangerous and lazy, until I moved in with my current roommate a few years ago. She has taken a great interest in the homeless problem and shared her learnings on how the US system shifts people who need medical attention through the legal and jail systems and then spits them back out onto the streets without medication or direction until the cycle repeats itself.

The homeless seem to be everywhere I look lately and sometimes, I can't help myself from being intimidated by them. I run-walk early in the mornings along the East River drive, heading uptown into Spanish Harlem. Along my way, I pass under a couple of short and open underpasses, both of which groups of homeless camp out and sleep.

I've never seen any of these people move when I've jogged past them, but sometimes I feel a sense of panic about crossing this area because I've heard, like everyone else in this city, the stories of them attacking strangers without provocation, bludgeoning them with a brick or pushing them off the subway platform and onto the tracks as a train approaches.

When I head back to my apartment, I frequently take a shortcut at 95th street, jogging across a small cement island that used to teem with homeless until Guiliani rounded them up and removed them from the area. Then I turn down first avenue on the sidewalk, passing under scaffolding areas where more homeless sleep.

Sometimes they mutter incoherently to me but often they say nothing as it's early in the morning.

This weekend I stopped in at the family owned bakery up the street. I saw an old man wearing tattered clothing silently lingering against the wall of the store as customers placed and picked up their orders. Doing as so many do, I briefly laid my eyes on him and then approached the counter, forgetting him a moment later as if he were invisible.

I was the only customer in the bakery, I placed my order and set about rearranging my change in my wallet, completely forgetting the old man was even there. I heard one of the girls behind the ancient bakery counter where her mother has worked for years and her grandmother worked before that, beckon the man. He shuffled over. She asked him if he's like something to eat and he didn't speak, he just nodded. Embarrassed, I looked down and she set about filling a large bag with rolls and pastries and conversationally asking him if preferred this over that, just as if he were any other customer.

I immediately realized that my embarrassment was not over the old man's position, but over mine. I had passed this man countless times in my neighborhood, but unlike others that live here, I never said hello or smiled at him. And here he was, waiting patiently for the morning trade to slow so that he might be given a roll or two for the day. I can't imagine the last time he had eaten a good meal or felt full and here I was, stopping on a whim to buy black and white cookies that neither my roommate nor I needed.

The next day, when I went jogging, as I passed under the underpass, I looked at the forms laying on the cement under old blankets and saw that one was using a beautiful leather attache case as his pillow. I wondered who he had been, before he was homeless. A writer who couldn't pay his bills, a former dotcom employee?

I have no solution to the current homeless problem but I can tell you what I'd like to see done. I'd like to see the money proposed for Bush's tax relief plan, the money this government doesn't have to give back to the people but is giving anyway and putting the country into deficeit - I'd like to see those checks diverted to a nationwide program started in urban areas with high homeless populations and then rolled out to underlying areas, and used for a work training program to get those homeless who can work trained to earn a living. I know the Doe Fund is out there, but I'd like to see the City, State and Federal governments acknowledge these people and provide relief for our own citizens rather than liberating oil rich foreigners.

So that's it then. If the government doesn't read this page, I am going to cash my tax refund and give it away to the homeless in my area. Maybe just drop bills on the sleeping figures as I run, or when I pass them on the street.

I may not have the power to change White House PR policy's, but I can do my part with the check coming my way. I hope you'll join me.

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