POLICE SAY FEW HOMELESS MAKE CAPE GIRARDEAU `HOME'

Roy Dale Blocker sat at the Interstate 55 exit ramp Wednesday, holding up a hand-lettered, cardboard sign.

"Homeless. Need help. God bless."

He scratched his red beard and studied the cars that passed with a practiced eye, predicting which ones would stop to give him a few dollars. In 30 minutes, Blocker made $7. He averages between $75 and $100 per day.

The 41-year-old man is a rarity for Cape Girardeau. Police Sgt. Carl Kinnison said few homeless ever stay here, although a few stop, claiming to want jobs, but then refuse to take them.

Even Blocker said he hasn't met another homeless person in Cape Girardeau, although he meets hundreds in St. Louis, Detroit, Chicago and the other cities he hitchhikes to.

"The homeless aren't something we usually have to deal with," Kinnison said. "If they begin interfering with traffic or trespassing, the police get involved. We tell them to leave, and they usually do."

The police also provide Salvation Army vouchers for one night of shelter in the Downtown Motel. About 600 people, most of them men traveling alone, take advantage of the service each year, said Salvation Army Capt. Elmer Trapp.

If the people decide they want to get a job and stay in Cape Girardeau, a Salvation Army caseworker sees that they apply for public assistance and are set up in an inexpensive home. The organization's goal for 1995 is to get more involved with homeless people, making them realize they can find jobs here and stop living off the public.

"To some of these people, being homeless is as much of a lifestyle as yours and mine," Trapp said. "They know there is assistance available, and they take advantage of it."

Such is the case with Blocker, the homeless man on the exit ramp, and he readily admitted it. Hidden in the grass next to him was a large bottle of vodka. Although he suffers from a diseased pancreas, Blocker continues to drink.

His money also goes for prescription painkillers and medicine to control epileptic seizures. The prescriptions come from doctors in the emergency rooms he frequents. Blocker ended up in Cape Girardeau after being attacked by crack users in Cairo, Ill. He was treated for stab wounds at Southeast Missouri Hospital.

A social worker there tried to get him into drug and alcohol treatment, but Blocker won't go. After divorcing three times and losing jobs as a mechanic, drywaller and greenskeeper, he said he has no pride and no goals, except to find a "good, honest woman."

"A man offered me a job in St. Louis paying $5 an hour," Blocker said. "I asked him why I should wash dishes all day when I could sit on my butt on the side of the road with this sign and make double the money."

On Wednesday, he planned to spend the night under the Route K overpass, then hitchhike to Paducah, Ky., today. He intends to spend the coldest part of the winter begging in Florida.