Homeless Man Speaks

So, you’ve never had the nerve to actually talk to a homeless guy? Well, Philip takes a little time each day to talk with a homeless man who lives nearby – and he blogs the conversations.

PHILIP
“You’re looking thinner.”

TONY
“When it gets to be warmer outside, people just figure a homeless guy’s got things a bit easier than in the wintertime, which is true but you still gotta eat.”

It’s a good read – it’s good insight – it’s from Canada – homelessmanspeaks.com

If It’s Hard To See, It’s Real Life

I knew one homeless guy who had a very real and serious injury to his foot. It became infected and would not heal. He did seek out treatment for an initial bandage and pain killers. And he had a pair of crutches. And he seemed to like showing people how bad his foot looked. It looked like it required amputation. And he got a lot of milage out of this injury. He eventually obtained several prescriptions for pain killers, but he was a crack addict and would trade pills for money or crack. And he avoided letting his foot heal. Some people, including myself, told him about a respite care center where he’d be able to get off his feet until he healed up, where he’d get the attention of a real nurse. And he would always say that he tried that, but that “they” wouldn’t take him in. “Oh, they don’t really care,” he’d say. So, I went and got the director of the respite care and brought him to the guy with the injury, and I watched as the director offered to immediately take him in, and he refused it. Of course not directly. He said he’d return to the respite center in the morning, but he never did. From all that he did, and the look of the injury, I have often wondered if it might have been self inflicted. Eventually, he panhandled the wrong people – people who volunteered for the Room In The Inn program. And there is a strict policy of no panhandling anyone associated with the program. He had asked them for money to fill one of his prescriptions. He was then barred from Room In The Inn for the rest of the season. He disappeared shortly after that, and I’ve not seen him since.

Now, some people will use this one unique and extreme example and will accuse all homeless people of this kind of behavior. But that claim is simply not true.

I tell this as a precautionary tale. As real as his need was for help, he wasn’t using the help he was getting for any good purpose. Of course it would have taken a good deal of time and energy for people to determine the ways in which he could have been helped. But, most people are just not inclined to do so.

And, yes, homeless people like this can be helped. Sure, it would require some effort from people. But any and all effort towards saving a person from this kind of life is well worth it.

Panhandlers Clarified, Somewhat

Still, there is a great deal of debate in our country concerning panhandlers. If everyone would have read my post on panhandling that I wrote back in 2002, we wouldn’t be still arguing over it. (Yes, that was an attempt at humor.)

The biggest problem is that people have such diverse views and opinions about panhandlers, and most of it is based on inaccurate information. So please bear with me as I try and get a couple important points across on this subject.

First of all, we should admit that panhandlers are a very unique type of person. And for that reason alone, I think that they should be treated separately from all others issues, especially homelessness.

Most homeless people do NOT panhandle. What the exact percentage is, of the homeless who do panhandle, I couldn’t tell you. But, I do know that they are very much in the minority. About 50 percent of all homeless people work at least 20 hours per week at a real job, or through temp agencies. That group of working homeless have their own source of income, so they don’t need to panhandle. There is also a percentage of the homeless who get disability, pension, or other kinds of financial assistance, so those people don’t need to panhandle either. And almost all homeless, employed, financed, or not, get food clothing and shelter at homeless service centers. Yes, a majority of the homeless are alcoholics and drug addicts, but most of these people pay for their addictions with their own money.

Though most panhandlers are homeless, there are some panhandlers who have homes. Still, I believe that the tendency to panhandle was developed by these homed people at a previous time when they were homeless.

The prime motivator for panhandling is drug and alcohol addiction. I have come to learn and accept that not all panhandling is done for the sake of getting the next high. There are some places in the United States that have almost no services for the homeless, and so some people do, in fact, panhandle for life’s necessities, like food, clothing, and shelter. But, lets be real about this. Every city, even small cities like Fargo, have services for homeless people. And so the “need” to panhandle for the basics is quite small.

Panhandling is very humiliating, and degrading, which is what I believe prevents most people, even most homeless people, from doing it. The act of panhandling requires a very strong motivator – the kind of motivator that only real starvation can create. Being that food is readily available to homeless people, in most every city in the country, starving for food is not a reality. But, starving for the next drug induced high is.

Once a person has developed a skill for panhandling, it is not unreasonable that he/she would use it to obtain other things for him/her self. Drug addicts still need to eat. I’m sure that spending the day wandering the streets begging for money causes a person to become famished. Certainly a panhandler will use some of the money gained for food, drink, or other items – items that they could have gotten from a homeless service provider.

Besides the ruse of hunger, homeless people have learned all sorts of tricks to get money from people. There are numerous stories of automobile trouble – most of those start with “I’m from out of town.” They’ll claim that they are out of gas – they may even be carrying a small gas can around. Or their car has broken down and needs a repair. These stories are also commonly accompanied by explanations that whole families, wife, kids, etc are back at the car, waiting on the panhandlers return. Though this bluff can easily be called, very few people ever try to verify the story. Another trick, especially by those panhandlers addicted to pills, is most seemingly legit. They spend a lot of time going from one doctor to the next, complaining of some illness and hoping for a prescription. Once they have a prescription form filled out by a doctor, they will present it to people they are panhandling, and ill ask for help in getting it filled. Most times people will throw a couple dollars towards the cause. But, of course that money never makes it to the Pharmacist. And yet, panhandlers are not stupid. To maintain an appearance of legitimacy, they may allow a person to call their bluff on this one. If a person says, “I won’t give you money, but I will go with you to the drug store, And there, I will pay the bill.” Then the panhandler will agree with this. He is still getting something for free, and perhaps while in the store, will be able to get you to pay for other things he needs. And in this situation is where the most confusion develops. Can you separate, in your mind, the panhandler from the person with a genuine need?

I have always advised people to never give money to panhandlers. BUT, I am certainly not saying that people should never give to people in need – especially when it comes to homeless people. As I have said before, if you want to help a homeless person, you should take the responsibility of determining whether what you are giving the homeless person is actually good for them, is going to help them in some way. And the only way to determine that is to spend time with the homeless person, talking to him/her and getting to know them. And getting to know a homeless person can be a difficult thing, and will take some decernment on your part, to figure out how honest your homeless friend is being with you. It is very difficult for homeless people to trust others, and will often only say things they think you want to hear.

More on this later…

Soles 4 Souls

Soles 4 Souls recently gave out new shoes to many of Nashville’s homeless. I happened to miss the announcement, and thus am still wearing my old pair.

Ask “Why” For The Cure

To respond to anyone’s bad behavior, homeless or otherwise, with punishment, does nothing to prevent the bad behavior from happening again.  But, to give thought to the cause of the behavior, to ask “why” a particular behavior occurs, will lead towards knowledge that can be used to end that behavior.