one little cog

This post is for Blog Action Day 2008.  I’ve had the opportunity to read the posts of a lot of people in advance and they generally have such a grand statement about various issues pertaining to poverty.  I don’t necessarily have that knowledge to write something so complex but I can talk about my own perception of poverty and how it impacts me on a daily basis — and more importantly what I’ve thought of this issue.

I wasn’t born Catholic — my family wasn’t either but in the middle of my elementary school years — my mom became Catholic and I found myself being dragged to Sunday mass (I wasn’t kicking and screaming but you could say I wasn’t very enthusiastic either … com’on kids … it’s mass).  The biggest impact it had on me every week was watching a basket being passed around as people attending mass would place a little bit of money into it.  I kept bugging my mom to put more in so that we could help more people but I was told that we put in our fair share.

I figure that’s when I discovered the new meaning of spare change.

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Everyday I wake up in the morning and I walk on a typical northern Toronto suburban street to get on to the bus and head to work in downtown Toronto. The vast differences between where I live and where I work is astounding but the differences that you notice almost instantly are the people and the smells.

After arriving in the downtown core, there’s a massive wave of people (myself included) who rush out of Union Station and disperse into the vicinity. Along the way to work, I am bound to notice the homeless or panhandlers who are either sleeping near vents or sitting near key intersections holding a small Tim Hortons coffee cup — hoping that someone passing by will drop a few coins — some spare change.

What stuns me the most is that there are likely to be thousands of people (including myself) who walk past these homeless individuals each day and none of us do anything about it. Maybe it’s because we don’t actually live in the downtown core — would we do something about it if this were in the immediate community we live in? Would we be more inclined to do something about a person’s situation if we merely visiting the area for the first time?

More importantly — why do we continue on our daily lives with little or no hesitation?

Photograph by moriza

Everyday, on average, I run across 4 to 5 homeless individuals:

• Some are lying on the street sleeping
• Some hold hand-written cardboard signs — hoping to receive a bit of change
• Some hold a small cup crying for help
• Some walk up to me asking me for a few coins for food

When did we suddenly begin to wield such immense power over whom we want to help?  I guess we always have had that power…

Sometimes I choose to offer help, other times I walk by without regret:

• I don’t feel like it.
• I’m tired in the morning and after work and just want to start or end my day.
• I feel like helping you … right … about … now.
• I actually don’t have change to offer.
• I just don’t want to help you.
• I don’t have time — in a rush.
• I helped another guy up the street already — no more change for today.

Reasons like that often passes through my mind, but so does guilt.  It’s often a war between choosing to help or guilt against choosing not to help.  Of course reasoning and choice is typically based on one’s personality, upbringing, and past experiences.  For me — time and budget also come into play.

Whether we like or not, the idea of helping one another is embedded into us as individuals and a society.  We’ve just been trained to some degree to control that part of us.  Unfortunately, the way we approach solving a problem such as homelessness and poverty tends to be very similar to that of group work in high school or even in professional life.  Anyone who wants to point at welfare or some form of social safety net should already realize and understand that there are major flaws in the system — starting with perception.

• Some of us don’t trust the homeless
• Some of us simply let others do more than their fair share.
• Some of us feel that the taxes we pay are already enough.
• Some of us feel that higher income earners should do more.
• Some of us feel that people earning lower incomes expect us to act as a crutch.

In the meanwhile, we continue to silently debate who should do what — pointing invisible fingers at one another while no one is really able to offer a solution.

Photograph by the girl

How We Tend to Perceive the Homeless and Panhandlers

Just a few distorted perceptions and generationlizations:

• They are drugs addicts or alcoholics — quite a popular belief.
• They almost seem to resemble telemarketers for some odd reason.
• They aren’t going to use money we provide them to get food.
• They are too lazy to find work or are refusing to work for minimum wage.
• They aren’t trustworthy — many were likely troublemakers and now unproductive members of society.

Why We Hide Behind Our Perception

Just as there is that ringing in the ear sometimes, our ability to tune things out is vital.  So is deciding not to pick up the phone when a telemarketer calls.  With poverty, it is a similar case  because we’ve deemed it as a reoccurring problem that cannot be solved with relative immediacy and so we begin to focus on other priorities that are higher up on our list and we begin to let the problems that homeless individuals are having drop down the list until we practically ignore them on a daily basis.

It isn’t that we do not want to help but rather the problem is actually so large that we can’t figure out what to do and so we ignore it.  The irony is that if each the thousand people that passed by a homeless person dropped a nickel, that person would have $50 to obtain proper food and shelter.  Then the question of dependency pops up — how long do we have to support this person?

It doesn’t help that there are people who pretend to be homeless.  It also doesn’t help that people don’t understand or realize that a large percentage of homeless individuals have some sort of mental illness.

It typically all comes down to one thing — trust — accountability.

From my experience, it’s usually quite amusing.  I don’t tend to question the use of the change that I’ve given to people but I do tend to throw in the idea of budgeting wisely.

One time I ran into a man asking for a few dollars so that he can get a bagel from Tim Hortons.  Meanwhile I’m thinking that he could get four or five really fresh bagels from the St. Lawrence market for that amount of money — why not?  So I suggested it to him.  It was only a block or two away.

I received a rather odd stare back.

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I spoke with a colleague later about it and mentioned it to her.  She suggested that a lot of homeless people just want to feel human again by having the ability to purchase food, sit down with other people, and eat.  On one hand, that was an eye opener but on another level — I still look at tossing away money that could be saved to Tim Hortons as stupid.

It was an interesting encounter as I happened to read an article shared by Melanie Mcbride on diet and class from the Guardian.

Overcoming The Lack of Connection

Very often, we don’t talk with the people who ask us for spare change.  We just drop a few coins and go on our way.  Perhaps we need to stop for just a moment.  Bryan Eisenberg pointed out a very powerful short film about the lack of connection between a homeless blind man and the people who pass by, and how a sign changed all that.  Since re-writing signs for homeless people is not necessarily the most effective solution to the problem (although you never know…), we have to control our own ability to empathize.

So what are we going to do about spare change?  How do we decide whom to give it to?  I guess it’s ultimately up to us as individuals to decide who we want to support.

Odd isn’t it?

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