There are various pieces in this book, but one that struck me as interesting is this story called "Million-Dollar Murray". The story looks at the life of one homeless man (a veteran and alcoholic) named Murray. Murray it reads, was a severe alcoholic who gave up the juice only briefly during a voluntary rehabilitation program, but when the program ended and Murray was kicked back onto the street, the 6 thousand dollars he'd earned and saved while in the program was spent on alcohol and Murray resumed his life as homeless. Because alcoholism and street-life can be detrimental to one's health, Murray was in-and-out of hospitals all his adult life, accruing hospital bills in the tens of thousands. It is calculated by the social workers involved that the sum cost to the society for sustaining Murray's lifestyle was a million dollars. Patrick O'Bryan - a bicycle cop in downtown Reno - stated "It cost us one million dollars not to do something about Murray,".
Perhaps quite paradoxically Murray was well loved amongst the police and social workers who were in frequent contact with him. He was known to be a pleasant and loving person. Marla Johns, a social worker in the emergency room of St. Mary's hospital in Reno, NV paints Murray in divine light stating "When we [Marla and husband Steve] started a family, he would lay a hand on my pregnant belly and bless the child. He really was that kind of light." [emphasis mine].
Murray made quite a lot of friends, who also happened to be his captors under the social system. To the extent that many of them were upset to learn that when he passed away. Marla relates the story as follows:
Marla Johns got a call from her husband, Steve. He was at work. "He called and woke me up," Johns remembers. "He was choked up and crying on the phone. And I thought that something had happened with another police officer. i said, 'Oh my gosh, what happened?' He said, "Murray died last night.'" He died of intestinal bleeding. At the police department that morning, some of the officers gave Murray a moment of silence.
There are not many days that go by that I don't have a thought of him," she went on. "Christmas comes - and I used to buy him Christmas present. Make sure he had warm gloves, a blanket and a coat. There was this mutual respect [...] You know when he was monitored by the system, he did fabulously. He would be on house arrest and he would get a job and he would save money and go to work every day, and he wouldn't drink. He would do all the things he was supposed to do. There are some people who can be very successful members of society if someone monitors them. Murray needed someone to be in charge of him."
But, of course, Reno didn't have a place where Murray could be given the structure. Someone must have decided that it cost too much.
"I told my husband that I would claim his body if no one else did," she said. "I would not have him in an unmarked grave." (What the Dog Saw and other adventures by Malcolm Gladwell pp 197-198)
