Let's do Lunch
Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for helping the homeless, but why do we give them money?
Case in point:
Homeless guy panhandling in the street. He’s got a few dollars already in his beat up Starbucks cup. Another guy walks by drops some change in the cup. Homeless guy looks in the cup does a quick tally, gets up, puts the money in his pocket and heads for the MacDonald’s on the corner. I’m thinking, “cool, he’s got enough for lunch.” As he casually bypasses the doors and heads for the garbage bin and starts digging, I start to get a clue. What this guy has is enough to either A: buy lunch or B: buy drugs. Food is never the priority.
Homeless people seem to have a system. Beg for change all morning, lunch at the nearest dumpster, then off to the local drug dealer, wait for the high to wear off then repeat cycle. Once in a while if the pickings are slim they might be forced to buy food, but it’s rare - too rare. We like to think we’re helping but we’re not. Those coins rarely, if ever, get spent on food. We’re not feeding them, we’re feeding their drug habits.
Maybe it’s the fault of Walt Disney and his ilk. Remember those old cartoons and movies? There was always some homeless guy hanging around. Back then they were called hobos, vagabonds, tramps. They always had this vague rough charm about them and you just knew they only needed that one break and all would be good in their world again. The hero would toss a quarter (for a cup of coffee, of course) to this charming scamp and fate would smile. A few scenes later the hobo would return, redeemed and renewed to save our hero in some uberfantastical way. Ok, a little melodramatic to be sure, but I think we do carry some romanticized idea that a few coins can change a persons life.
There was a time when homeless people really did want, and need, that little bit of help.
The great depression left us with a certain view of things. It’s not like that anymore. The problems post-WWII left us with another image of homelessness. It’s not like that anymore either. Back before fast food and the fine art of “dumpster diving”, those coins really did buy food. It’s not even like 10 years ago when shelters and food banks were harder (and in some places impossible) to find. Nowadays those coins just contribute to addiction. It’s not about food anymore, it’s about getting high.
Fast food to fine dining, it’s everywhere. Dinner for the homeless is only a trashcan away. They don’t want to eat out of the trash. We don’t want them eating out of the trash. But when you are a junkie saving up for that next fix, you suddenly don’t mind leftovers. When you think about the amount of food people throw out every day, a homeless person never “has to” spend all that hard begged money on food. There are also food programs in various forms serving meals to the homeless almost daily. Drugs can come first because our “help” gives them that choice.
We know better than to give beer to an alcoholic. Everyone knows what enabling is. Yet here we are giving people money for drugs. We’ve become enablers. We aren’t helping anyone when we give them money. What we’re doing is financing serious drug habits and contributing to a problem that is getting bigger every day. We’re killing these people one quarter at a time.
Shelters, soup kitchens and food banks are equipped to give the kind of help that will get these people off drugs and off the streets. They always need a helping hand in the form of donations. Instead of giving money to people begging on the streets, we should be putting that change aside and dropping it off at the nearest shelter. The homeless need all the help they can get, but we really are going about it all the wrong way.
Case in point:
Homeless guy panhandling in the street. He’s got a few dollars already in his beat up Starbucks cup. Another guy walks by drops some change in the cup. Homeless guy looks in the cup does a quick tally, gets up, puts the money in his pocket and heads for the MacDonald’s on the corner. I’m thinking, “cool, he’s got enough for lunch.” As he casually bypasses the doors and heads for the garbage bin and starts digging, I start to get a clue. What this guy has is enough to either A: buy lunch or B: buy drugs. Food is never the priority.
Homeless people seem to have a system. Beg for change all morning, lunch at the nearest dumpster, then off to the local drug dealer, wait for the high to wear off then repeat cycle. Once in a while if the pickings are slim they might be forced to buy food, but it’s rare - too rare. We like to think we’re helping but we’re not. Those coins rarely, if ever, get spent on food. We’re not feeding them, we’re feeding their drug habits.
Maybe it’s the fault of Walt Disney and his ilk. Remember those old cartoons and movies? There was always some homeless guy hanging around. Back then they were called hobos, vagabonds, tramps. They always had this vague rough charm about them and you just knew they only needed that one break and all would be good in their world again. The hero would toss a quarter (for a cup of coffee, of course) to this charming scamp and fate would smile. A few scenes later the hobo would return, redeemed and renewed to save our hero in some uberfantastical way. Ok, a little melodramatic to be sure, but I think we do carry some romanticized idea that a few coins can change a persons life.
There was a time when homeless people really did want, and need, that little bit of help.
The great depression left us with a certain view of things. It’s not like that anymore. The problems post-WWII left us with another image of homelessness. It’s not like that anymore either. Back before fast food and the fine art of “dumpster diving”, those coins really did buy food. It’s not even like 10 years ago when shelters and food banks were harder (and in some places impossible) to find. Nowadays those coins just contribute to addiction. It’s not about food anymore, it’s about getting high.
Fast food to fine dining, it’s everywhere. Dinner for the homeless is only a trashcan away. They don’t want to eat out of the trash. We don’t want them eating out of the trash. But when you are a junkie saving up for that next fix, you suddenly don’t mind leftovers. When you think about the amount of food people throw out every day, a homeless person never “has to” spend all that hard begged money on food. There are also food programs in various forms serving meals to the homeless almost daily. Drugs can come first because our “help” gives them that choice.
We know better than to give beer to an alcoholic. Everyone knows what enabling is. Yet here we are giving people money for drugs. We’ve become enablers. We aren’t helping anyone when we give them money. What we’re doing is financing serious drug habits and contributing to a problem that is getting bigger every day. We’re killing these people one quarter at a time.
Shelters, soup kitchens and food banks are equipped to give the kind of help that will get these people off drugs and off the streets. They always need a helping hand in the form of donations. Instead of giving money to people begging on the streets, we should be putting that change aside and dropping it off at the nearest shelter. The homeless need all the help they can get, but we really are going about it all the wrong way.