Like many people I'm sure, I find it far easier to give money to charitable organizations than to give or perform acts of charity directly to individuals. I'm not talking about friends, family members, co-workers or other acquaintances. Of course it is easy to act altruistically toward them. I am talking about strangers, the guys holding signs at the freeway off-ramps or holding out a cup on a busy downtown street. The ones who approach you at gas stations and ask you for money for gas so they can get home. I am naturally distrustful of them. I was taught to be by my mother and by a childhood spent in the conman capital of America, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In Philly, the blind man asking you for change is probably picking your pockets at the same time. The deaf kid who tries to sell you pencils walks away with your shopping bags before you know what happened. It has made me distrustful.
When I look at the guy holding the "Will Work For Food" sign I am looking at him for signs of drug or alcohol abuse. I am looking to see if he has any injuries and handicaps that would explain why he doesn't already have a good job. Before I give him my money I want to know that he is really going to use it for food and isn't going to buy alcohol or drugs with it, that he isn't some horrible felon. I want to know everything about them as if I was going to give them a job instead of just a dollar or some spare change.
Well, I began thinking about this recently and the absurdity of it. Why would I so readily send money to Goodwill or Big Brothers Big Sisters or Adopt a family for Christmas but will not lend a hand to people standing directly in front of me? It is true that a great many homeless people have dependency issues. But it is also true that a great many of them are mentally disturbed or disabled. With the woefully inadequate number of beds available for mental patients in most cities they are being pushed out onto the streets in droves when most of them are not capable of finding jobs and supporting themselves and so they wind up on the streets. It is also true that a great many homeless people are now our neighbors who have lost their jobs to the recession and lost their homes to foreclosure.
It has occurred to me that, were I to lose my job in this economy where jobs are so scarce, and I was to wind up homeless on the street, struggling to support my family, I would not be the sort of person I would give money to. If I saw someone who looked like me asking for money to buy his daughter diapers, I would walk right by him, wondering what such a healthy, obviously intelligent person was doing begging for money instead of working a 9 to 5. That is one fucked up realization to come to. Sometimes, we all need a helping hand and I now feel that I have failed my fellow man with my distrust and skepticism.
I have done exactly what I have accused conservatives of doing. I have trivialized the suffering of others, assuming that everyone is as equipped to succeed as I am. This is simply not the case. We are not all equal. We are not all educated equally. We do not all begin life with the same opportunities economically or otherwise. We do not all have the same emotional strength. We do not all have the same intellectual abilities, the same mental faculties.
There are some who, through no fault of their own, have fallen behind and some that will never catch up, that will always need extra help. And I know that this will make the conservatives among you cringe, but there are many that we as a society have failed by trapping them in ghettoes and providing them insufficient education, healthcare, and economic opportunity. There are some who were doomed from birth, who have been so emotionally damaged by their parents and others that they will never succeed without help and that help may be as simple as a meal, a shirt, a jacket, some shoes, or the change from a stranger's pocket in a time of desperate need.
With this being the case, I am trying to amend my thinking about charity. I am trying to be more altruistic to those who are right in front of me rather than continuing to send checks to charity while overlooking the outstretched hand in front of me. It is a hard road. I am no less distrustful. I am not saying that I will now give without thought to every open hand. There are still many who need to just get a job. But there are many many more who will always require the kindness of strangers to survive and, for them, I will try to be there when I am able.
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4 comments:
A beautiful post, Wrath. I'm glad I picked today to drop by and catch up with your news.
When I was a kid, Dad had an uncle on skid row in Vancouver. I remember Mom could be kind of judgmental about it, and Dad would say to me, when I copped her attitude: "Well, kiddo, remember, you don't know exactly how he got there. You never really know a person's story, and, in different circumstances, that could be you." Dad went to visit said uncle, took him to where he was staying at the time, working construction, and let his uncle clean up, then Dad took him out for a meal. I asked Dad why he did that? He said, "That way, I knew he had a good meal in his belly, and he didn't buy any booze with it."
Couple years back, when I went to a con in Vancouver, hubby and I saw a homeless man outside London Drugs. Hubby decided to go talk to him, and for just a moment, my mother's attitude from back when cropped up in me, but then I heard my dad's voice and that old story. Hubby gave the guy a pepsi and just talked to him. I was proud of him for that.
Anyhoo, take care, Wrath. I'll have a promotion update over this week, too.
Wrath, love you, brother, but you are talking about a subject (help the homeless) that my friends and I were discussing yesterday. I have met a few people who actually do need help and they are at the homeless shelters and church organizations that screen people like that out. Salvation Army and St. Vincent DePaul can afford to give money to anyone, I can't. I have enough problems of my own but I try to hold up my end. The crazy part for me is that I know some of the homeless. At one time I was homeless by choice. I know a guy who holds up a sign and sits in a wheel chair when he can walk perfectly well, in order to panhandle. I know one guy who has a particular freeway On-ramp where he makes at least 60 dollars an hour. (My Opinion that comes from My Experience) The money is better spent sending it to a charitable organisations and shelters that screen out the shiftless con men for the real needy. That is my suggestion and experience. Take it for what it is worth.
Arizona Mildman
Steve W. of Phoenix
Thanks for your post, Steve. Undoubtedly there are a great many frauds out there who are neither invalids nor homeless who beg as their primary vocation. Still, they are an infinitesimal part of the overall homless in America. I would hate to punish the majority because of a corrupt minority and that is what I have been doing by only donating to the big charities.
If you give the money with reservations or conditions, you are not giving, you are loaning. You are expecting the same credit guarantees as a bank. Once the money leaves your hand, it is not yours anymore. You have no right to burden it with conditions, expectations, etc. You give, you give freely, you don't, you don't. Simple as that. Do you think that you are not ripped off far worse by charities. Name one charity that has not been tainted by scandal, even the Salvation Army has. Not to mention what telemarketers, etc. skim off the top of your donations. So, be kind, if you don't want to give your cash, buy a coffee, a donut, a hamburger, some dog or cat food for a pet perhaps........spent a little time...money is only money, time is priceless. If you really talk to people, you will be surprised what you find out about them and maybe, just maybe, you know something or someone that can lend them a helping hand. A strict accounting of the money sounds like something a Christian would demand...hahahahah. That should change your perspective from the jump off....
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