Helping the homeless?

I think, Mark, you may have asked one of the hardest questions to appear on a blog post. First of all, I think it's awesome that you and your wife (or anybody for that matter) give money to charities. When I was growing up, there were many times when we used the help of organizations designed to assist the underprivileged. My mom was young and single with two kids and we hit hard times several times before I moved out to start my own path. That's why when I see panhandlers, I typically feel like they just aren't taking advantage of what structures exist to assist them. Although knowing about what help is available is part of the problem too. Some folks may not even know about it and that's unfortunate. My opinion is that if you have some change available to hand out in your pocket, where it's ready without opening your wallet in public, that's great if you give it away. But feeling bad about not giving... nah, you don't have to feel that way. There's lots of help out there for people who need it. One last comment before I sign out. Women should be especially careful of panhandlers, I think. There's a man who I see in a wheelchair in my neighborhood. I see him behind my apartment building in the alley almost every day at 5:30 when I'm walking my dog around the block and if I get home from work a little late, I see him at the corner of Lawrence and Damen at 6:30 asking for money from passers-by. My feeling on it is that I'm not sure if he is really disabled, and hanging out in a dark alley is always suspicious. I won't take any chances in offering help to him because should he be an able-bodied mugger, I'd be endangering myself indeed. So personal safety is also of concern, I think.

As something of a legendary soft touch, the best method I've come up with for myself is giving once a day to the first person who asks. I don't know whether it's the most effective way to do good in the world, but feigning indifference to the starving when I'm so fortunate can't be the right answer. As for the question of whether the hard-luck stories I hear true, or if the money is going where people say it's going — well, I look at that as an opportunity to have a little faith in people.

I felt the same way you do--and then I went back and looked at my tax bills. In addition to my 3-4 trips a year to the Salvation Army, my tax bills remind me of how much I pay this great city to provide the food, shelter and other assistance to people in need. I know this help is available and I cannot justify shelling out money to someone who really may just need a fix. I wonder what the response would be if instead of handing out cash, we handed out a list of all the places a person could go to get that help...