Don't Feed the Homeless?

I know this is quite a touchy subject for many people, but I absolutely had to write about it. What inspired this post was an encounter I had recently. I watched a girl, a girl I believed to be a college freshman, offer a homeless man holding a sign asking for money her cigarettes in place of the money she felt obligated to give to him.  I should say that I work on a very busy college campus and all summer this place was basically a ghost town. Not a homeless person or people with signs asking for money in sight. But lo and behold, freshmen week came and suddenly from my perspective the homeless population in Minneapolis doubled. These people were clearly targeting the thousands of new freshmen and returning college students with lots of student loan cash (and apparently cigarettes) to spare. Now this observation is nothing profound. The homeless clearly flock to more heavily populated areas because they more people they come in contact with, the more money they are likely to collect. Not to mention all of the new freshmen coming to a big city from various small towns in Minnesota who’s only weakness is their new found independence and desire to make a difference in the world. The first time anyone encounters a homeless person with some sort of heart wrenching sign explaining how hungry and cold they are, they are bound to feel a little obligated to “help” that person. The catch is this, their “selfless” act of giving is actually more selfish than they realize. They only thing you are doing is relieving the overwhelming sense of guilt that you feel when you see someone less fortunate than yourself. That dollar is not going to help that person in any way. All you are doing is perpetuating the vicious cycle that person is stuck in.

Best case scenario: you see a homeless man holding a sign that says he is hungry. You feel that proverbial tug at your heartstrings. You pull out your wallet, give that man a dollar. That man sits there all day collecting hundreds of those dollars, tax free. The man spends that money on food or a place to stay for one night. Gets up the next day, does the same thing, spends the money again and is back to square one: homeless, hungry and broke. That man has no way to save money so his only option is to spend it as quick as he can get it, on whatever he can. You really think he is going to save up all that cash for a security deposit on a new apartment or on a new interview outfit so he can go get a job? Be realistic.

Unfortunately, here is another scenario: you see a homeless man holding a sign that says he is hungry. You feel that proverbial tug at your heartstrings. You pull out your wallet, give that man a dollar. That man sits there all day collecting hundreds of those dollars, tax free. The man spends that money on drugs, overdoses and gets picked up by the police and dropped at the nearest hospital. He does not have health insurance. The hospital spends thousands of dollars in resources trying to help this man. If he lives, he is just back out on the streets drinking and doing drugs again. If he dies, your dollar didn’t really do too much to save him did it?

Many are correct in their assumption that not all homeless people are addicted to drugs and alcohol. Some people honestly just found themselves in very tough times, lost their job their home and somehow wound up on the streets begging for money. However, 62% of homeless people reported drug and alcohol problems, and that is just those who were able to report. I will never forget the time outside a Walgreens in Milwaukee, when I bought a homeless man holding a sign that said “Hungry, haven’t eaten in days, anything helps” a sandwich. He looked at it and said “no thanks I don’t like sandwiches”. Obviously, he was not that hungry. I was later told that man was a regular at the liquor store across the street from that Walgreens.

What the homeless really need:

-Help finding a job

-Help finding and paying for affordable housing

-Job training

-Medical Care

-Psychological Care

-If you really feel compelled to give, volunteer.

It’s not that I think I am better than homeless people because I worked hard, took out high interest loans and went to college. I don’t think that I am better than the homeless because I have a job and earn a paycheck every other week. It’s that I feel that every person has the right and the ability to work hard and earn a living. By giving them that dollar you are assuming that they do not have the ability or mental capacity to over come their very unfortunate situation. What the homeless really needs is shelter, education and medical care; they don’t need your dollar. These things are made available for them; maybe they just don’t know where to look! Don’t give money give food or offer resources. Avoid the possibility of this person using this money to buy alcohol, cigarettes or drugs.

Maybe you feel better about yourself for giving that man a dollar or bumming a smoke but they only good that is coming from giving that homeless person a dollar is just that, your own personal satisfaction, and giving for personal gain is not exactly “giving” is it?

Caught Red Handed

City Survival Guide: Postgrad Edition

Moving here from small town wannabe big city Madison has been quite the transition. Even in comparison to Milwaukee, the dirtiest little city I have ever seen, Minneapolis is a whole new world. Now I know it is no New York, LA or Chicago but this is honestly all the city I will ever need right here. I never thought I would admit this, but as I get older I may actually prefer suburban small town life. Anyway, here are a few things that I have learned so far through my journey:

1. Always carry quarters! From parking meters and laundry to vending machines and my personal favorite: using a bag of rolled quarters as a defense mechanism when being chased through a dark alley.

2. Don't call a cab if you don't know where you are going. Trust me, they don't know either. Any experience I have had so far with cab drivers is that they will pretend they know where they are going until you point out that they have been driving around in a circle with the meter running. You are better off using those quarters for parking, because like a mouse expects a glass of milk with his cookie, that incompetent cab driver will make it clear that he expects a tip after getting you lost and dropping you off at some random street corner downtown.

3. Starbucks Card is golden. If you are everything-intolerant like me free soy milk is almost as good as pumpkin spice lattes are delicious. 70 cents is 70 cents is all I'm saying.

4. Never, ever, EVER let anyone including that annoying cashier or A&F floor model (sorry friends) talk you into that store credit card. I let some snob at Gap talk me into destroying my will power one $10 off coupon at a time to the tune of 23% interest. All I get out of the deal is the guilt of wearing clothes hand stiched by homeless children in Taiwan.

5. You can run but you can't hide.... from your student loans. The only logical option? Go back to school and defer payment. Whats that? You thought your salary was going to add up to a whole lot more than you actually end up with every month? Yeah, me too. Turns out if you try to do the right thing, work hard, get a degree, and get a job after graduation all of that effort will just be punished with $500 monthly payments to your private student loans that you OBVIOUSLY cannot afford. Get your head out of the clouds, bankruptcy isn't an option, student loans will never be forgiven. Guess you really will have to get that THIRD job waiting tables at Applebees across the street. Who needs free-time, or sleep for that matter?

6. If you want to look like you are someone important, pretend to be texting (aka sending a "very important email") on your cell phone as you walk down the street. Don't worry about watching where you are going. If you are on your phone people know you mean business and will definitely get out of your way. There is only enough room for important people on the sidewalk. If you don't have important business to attend to, walk in the street. Honestly.

7. No one wants to finance a personal loan to a 23-year-old recent graduate with a sub par credit score. Not like I am trying to earn an honest living or anything. If I have learned anything from these banks, it is that I am basically useless. Everyone wants to give out private student loans, but no one wants to consolidate or refinance them. Good luck future students.

8. If you are ever having a bad day, do not, I REPEAT, do not go out and cut your hair thinking "a change will definitely make me feel better". That is false. You will hate your new haircut for the rest of the long and painful months that it takes for it to grow back.

9. More to come.

It is better to have loved and lost, than to never have loved at all.

Today was the official release of my all time favorite drink the Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte! I wait all year for this joyful drink which is only offered through the fall promotional season. Naturally, I made the trip to get myself a cup of deliciousness. It was a beautiful fall day, 60 degrees, the sun was shining birds chirping, puppies frolicking through the grass. I was thinking about how happy I was for the first frost and then end to my allergies. And then, something horrible happened. I had only taken a few wonderful sips of deliciousness before it happened. My mentally handicapped dog Miley darted off, pulling hard on her leash and my cup of happiness went flying out of my hands, through the air in slow motion right before my eyes. Before I could stop any of it from happening my wonderful Pumpkin Spice Latte was spilled all over the sidewalk. For a few seconds after it happened I tried to quickly think of a way that I could scoop up all of the liquid up back into the cup so I could go on enjoying it's sweet heavenly taste, until reality hit and I realized that it was all over. I stood there trying to remember those few sips I had enjoyed before it was suddenly ripped away from me. It really was good while it lasted.