With the way our economy has been, I seem to notice more and more homeless people, holding their cardboard signs, begging at intersections or off ramps. I’m not sure if there are actually more of them of late or that—due to my own financial situation—I am noticing them more. Recently I have found myself wondering if and when I might find myself in that same situation.
How many people do stop and give? How many times have I paused to pass along a dollar? I know I have, many times, but was it enough? And those times when I said, “I can’t help you right now,” should I have given?
I know some people who never give to someone on the street. I know others who nearly always give. I know others who offer to buy the person a meal instead of giving money.
They Choose to Live on the Streets?
Back in the 1990’s, Rush Limbaugh was taking the position that if you offered one of these homeless people a job opportunity, they’d turn you down. His theory was that these people were there because they wanted to be. And to some extent, that may be true.
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A business partner of mine in that decade told me that he’d tried it once. He had been an executive for a radio group in Santa Barbara, California. He saw a homeless guy with requisite sign standing at the bottom of an off ramp. He rolled down his window and the man trotted over, hand extended. My friend said, “Hey, we are hiring at my radio group. Can I take you there to fill out an application?” And he told me that the homeless guy told him to go bleep himself. So my friend has not offered money to another homeless person since.
I read a article once about a man in New York City who dressed in a suit and tie every day for a year and asked fellow subway travelers for ten bucks, saying he’d left home without his wallet. He wrote that he was more readily accepted as an equal than was a dirty street person. He went on to say that he made about $80,000 that year in cash. This type of story can dissuade anyone from helping another. Stories like this cause you to question to whom you are really giving and if you are being conned.
I am not judging here, whether giving or not giving is good or bad. I am just offering examples of events that I have considered in my own questions about whether or not I should give to strangers.
Loving People to Life
My friends, Patti and Greg Rittmiller, have a mobile kitchen for their catering business. One day, every other week, they take the kitchen to a few areas here in the desert and cook hot meals for the homeless and give them clean clothes. They call it their Loving People to Life on the Streets Ministry.
Once day I went with them, my trusty video camera in tow. It was very inspirational to see how grateful the homeless people were for the hot meal and clothing. It filled my heart with joy to be a witness to the day.
I had the opportunity to talk with a few of the men and they were happy to tell me how much the visits meant to them. As I talked with them, I pondered my own situation and how close I possibly was to joining them on the streets. I mentioned it to one of them, saying that if it wasn’t to Greg and Patti, I didn’t know where I’d be living at that time.
He said to me, “Well, if you find yourself on the streets, you can find our camp at the corner of such-and-such or Jimmy’s camp is across the freeway at another location. Just come and look us up, you’d be welcome and we’ll show you the best ways to survive…”
Talk about humbling! Here was a man with basically nothing, offering me a place to stay and to share his knowledge to help me out.
There But for the Grace of God Go I
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When I see someone standing at an intersection, I wonder what it would be like to be standing in that place. How many people would offer me a dollar for some food?
And I still wonder when I should give a portion of what little I have and when it is okay to say, “not this time.”
I’ve come to the conclusion that the first instinct I have is the correct one. I’ve decided that my first instinct comes from my soul and is the one I should follow. If that initial reaction is that I feel like I can share, I will.
My Gut Told Me To
Once, more than a decade ago, I was on the way home from a two-week vacation with my parents. We were driving back down the interstate and, when traveling this route, they always stopped at a particular casino to get the breakfast buffet.
I had forty dollars in my pocket. It was all the money I had to my name. Before we went inside, my mother slipped me a 20-dollar-bill, telling me to keep quiet about it.
As we ate breakfast, I noticed a woman busing tables. She didn’t smile, but didn’t dawdle and worked very hard. She reminded me of one of the women in those Southwestern “pueblo” paintings and I had a feeling that she might be, somehow, impaired; perhaps a touch of Downs Syndrome or something. I was overcome with the urge to give her a tip. All I had in my pocket were three 20-dollar-bills. Several times during breakfast, I nearly talked myself out of the tip. My ego began questioning my reasons for giving and whether or not she really needed the money. After awhile I told myself just to shut up and go with my gut.
I couldn’t let my father see me giving her money. He wasn’t the kind to offer money to anyone and he would have been very upset with me. But when we got up to leave, my father turned at the opportune moment for me to reach out my hand and offer a bill to her.
She accepted it without looking at me or saying a word, and slipped it into her apron and kept working. I turned back to find my mother smiling at me. She whispered, “You gave her a dollar?” I nodded. I didn’t tell her that it was $20, but the smile on her face gave me instant verification—at least in my mind, and for that instance—that I’d done the right thing.
What Goes Around
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Recently I had a weekend job as a prep chef at a retreat center. My friend had a job to prepare meals for a large group of Wiccans. After dinner one night I was taking a break on a patio. One of the men who was attending, was on that patio preparing for a presentation. I asked if I was intruding and he told me I wasn’t and took a break to join me. As we chatted, he asked how long I had been a chef. I told him I wasn’t; that I was a TV producer between projects and the evolving conversation led me to tell him I was currently struggling to make ends meet. We talked for a bit more and his questions had me telling him that I was still happier than I’ve been in many years and I was going to follow my heart and where the road lead, and to no longer do something with which I was unhappy. We talked about trusting a higher power and one’s heart. Then he eventually had to go. We shook hands and wished each other well.
The following morning, I was serving the oatmeal and this man was in line. After I filled his bowl, he reached out to shake hands, saying he’d been inspired by our conversation. When I shook his hand, I felt a folded piece of paper. For a millisecond I thought of saying no to him, that I didn’t need a handout. But I realized he was being compelled to offer a kindness and that it would be extremely rude of me to dismiss his offer of a blessing.
You know what it was, don’t you. A 20-dollar-bill. Somehow it had found it’s way back to me when I needed it more.
To me, this is just another reinforcement for my belief that following your initial instinct is the correct course of action. It is our soul speaking the highest good to us.
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