How to Feel About the Homeless

The title of this post is ridiculous, and I did that on purpose, because there is no one way and no right way to feel about the homeless, if you’re a person with any sort of soul.  And that’s what I’m here to talk about today.

I never had to think about them very much, living in a semi-rural part of PA, but of course here, there are jobless, homeless, foodless individuals all over the place.  Sometimes I go down to Michigan Avenue just to walk and clear my head and distress, but seeing these people around every corner provides me with a different kind of stress altogether. 

What are you supposed to do?  I’m hardly able to help a person in a significant way; I’m a student with very little disposable income and my own expenses to worry about.  And plenty more people are just like me.  You can’t help the less fortunate all the time because you simply don’t have the means.

Dig a little deeper, though, and there are more ideas at play.  I’ve heard so many times that homeless folks are alcoholics, druggies, or just lazy people who don’t care to work.  It’s true often enough to be a valid concern, and it’s the reason why I haven’t blown my student loans on taking care of these people.

It’s just not true often enough for me to ignore the homeless completely.  Sure, if someone is openly drunk and begging for change, I’ll be happy to avoid them (the same goes for the ones with cigarettes, heartless as that may be).  But how can you tell, just by glancing at someone on the corner, what they do in private?  How they use the handful of dimes you give them?  How important is it to find out?

I am very easily (too easily) swayed by the opinions of others.  One person will say that giving to the homeless is a waste of time and money, which quickly leads me in the direction of cold cynicism towards homeless people.  Then someone else says that he gives what he can, when he can, and instantly I begin to see through compassionate lenses again.  And—much like the generalization about the homeless themselves—neither response is true or good enough to work all the time.

So now, I try to follow my instincts.  It doesn’t even have to include homeless people; some young boys selling M&Ms for their Little League teams got some of my change, and so did an old man sitting in the hot sun near the river yesterday.  The sun was in his eyes, and I’m not sure if it was the bright light or something else that kept causing him to tear up.  (It wasn’t because of me and my extraordinary generosity or anything; this was before I gave him any money, just so we’re clear.) 

I don’t know his story, and I’ll likely never see him again, but somehow it just seemed right to help him out a little bit at that moment. 

Everyone has their own way of responding to these issues: you help, you don’t help, you feel guilty, you don’t care, you want to do more and can’t, you could do more and don’t, you rationalize, you justify, you cry, you hope, you pray.

I don’t know the right answers.  I just give a little bit when it feels right, and I hope that it does whatever little amount of good it can do.

My fellow city-dwellers, what do you do?  What do you think?