Someone I know posted this week about giving away some food downtown and thinking that maybe they should always have some extra food when they go.
I have recently been through a similar process and so am totally in sympathy with that.
Someone else felt differently, though they didn't want to come right out and say it that way.
This person lives in another city, so there can be different dynamics.
They wrote about it as a safety matter for the employees of their bake shop. Their safety measures are not giving away anything or talking to the unhoused in the area. They don't want to encourage that presence.
She did mention her shop being in an upscale area.
One thing I found very interesting was that she talked about them donating to other charities that meet the homeless where they are. I can see the value in that, but it sounds like you are actually trying to get the people away from where they are to somewhere else.
You can talk about safety issues, but in general homeless people are more likely to be in danger than to be a danger. Sure, there are always exceptions, but overall it seems like there were many reasons given defensively but not accurately. It seems most likely that they don't want to have to look at the results of an economic system that grinds people down once they start falling behind.
I mean, you wouldn't want to start thinking that everything that you have may not be deserved.
I'm just going to put this here:
https://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2019/september/HomelessQandA.html
I promise that as I write about getting to the point where we have no poor among us, not every single post will be about homelessness.
It will come up a lot. It may be the most visible sign of our failures, as well as the one we put the most effort into not seeing.
I used to hear it all the time: Don't give them money; they'll just spend it on drugs or alcohol. If you really want to help them give it to a shelter.
I also remember many years ago that the guy who was operating Baloney Joe's was a predator, that more recently Salvation Army is terrible to gay people, and that people have picked up lice and diseases and had their medications stolen at shelters.
I don't want to be critical of shelters or the people who work in them. I know there are people doing good work and they are trying to do something that is very hard.
I also know that sometimes it is great to have choices.
I know that in their determination not to give, some people will avoid any eye contact or acknowledgment of humanity. I know that so much dehumanization takes a toll.
This is a better approach:
https://facinghomelessness.org/
In addition, I believe that constantly looking away gets us into a state where we believe that it is not our problem, allowing us to disconnect.
Moreover, sometimes when people see problems that they can't solve, as illogical as it is they develop hostility to the people suffering from the problem.
This is not the time to look away. This is not the time to rely on the systems already in place.
We can work with those systems and check in with them. Maybe you can pick up some volunteer shifts or go to an informational meeting... there are a lot of options.
Regardless -- and remember that this is primarily a religious blog -- if we want to be God's people we cannot turn away from the poor.
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