She leans forward with her head in her hands. The dirt in her hair matches the color of her
fingernails. Her cardboard sign sits exposed on her lap as it makes its appeal to anyone who looks down in time to see the human being sitting on the sidewalk: “Pregnant & Homeless. Please Help.”
It’s a familiar scene in many cities across the United States. In New York City the number of people sleeping in public shelters is currently hovering around 55,000. Estimates vary on those who are on subways, park benches, and cardboard mattresses, but all of them are significant.
The bottom line is that if you travel into any major city in the United States, you will inevitably encounter someone who is without sustainable housing. So what do you do? How should you respond?
One of my friends who lives in a more suburban environment recently told me that in a few weeks, she and her husband are bringing their child to NYC for the first time, and she asked me a great question: “What are some sensitive things we can tell him in preparation for the homeless population we may see?”
I’ve written pretty extensively on best practices for engaging folks who are homeless or panhandling. I haven’t spent as much time addressing some of the common misunderstandings and assumptions surrounding homelessness and why we should change the way we think about the people we encounter in the street.
The reality is that if we don’t change the way we think about homelessness, we will never be able to serve our homeless neighbors without doing more harm than good..
Homeless people are not all drug addicts. According to one report by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, in 2003 around 38% of homeless folks were dependent on alcohol and 26% abused other drugs (Substance Abuse and Homelessness). So even if this study happens to be way off, one could make the argument that not only are not all homeless people drug addicts, not even most homeless people are drug addicts.
What we think about homelessness matters and if you walk around whatever city you happen to be in assuming that every panhandler and homeless person you see is addicted to drugs or alcohol and cannot do anything but spend all their money in a self-destructive manner, you will inevitably miss the opportunity of a lifetime to engage with, and learn from, the child of God who is right in front of you.
Our assumptions tend to block our ability to learn anything new. If you already “know” then there’s nothing left to learn, and if there’s one thing that I can say about engaging someone who is struggling with homelessness, it’s that each person has something of value to teach and share.
Another assumption that I think is extremely common for people to adopt regarding their homeless neighbors is that “they don’t want to talk to me.” It’s so easy to think that someone who is sitting by themselves on the floor of Penn Station has little interest in the people around them. I mean if they did, why would they be sitting all by themselves? The irony is that as soon as that person walks up to anyone else waiting for their train, the reaction is often, “Crap, they want to talk to me!”
I think more often than not we assume that homeless folks don’t want to talk to anyone because that lets us off the hook from actually making an effort to start a conversation with a stranger. We create these wild scenarios in our minds about what they might say in response to our mildest of initiatives and we literally talk ourselves out of talking to someone who might be dying for any contact from another human being.
It’s true that some homeless folks don’t want to engage with people who are walking past them, but it is not true that all homeless folks want to be left alone. One of the most common issues associated with homelessness is isolation and one of the best ways to help someone who is homeless is to simply smile and say hello.
I think another aspect of this assumption is that we feel so guilty about not being able to “help” the person in some tangible way, that we avoid making contact because we are afraid that if they ask us for something like money or food, we will be stuck between a rock and a hard place.
It’s true that if you initiate contact with someone who is homeless, he or she might ask you for money. It’s also true that you can say, “No, I’m not going to give you any money today” without destroying the person’s sense of self. Don’t forget that people say, “no” all day long, usually by simply pretending that the person asking doesn’t exist. Far fewer actually take the time to say, “Hi! What’s your name?” Trust me, you can say hello without pulling money out of your pocket, even if the person asks you for it.
Lastly, I think we need to remember that homelessness is a situation, not a state of being. That guy you walk past on your way to work every day is a human being who is dealing with homelessness, not a homeless being.
There is a difference.
In our society we are way too conditioned to associate our being with our doing. I read an article once by a guy who shredded the fact that we often ask our kids, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Obviously, this question actually implies, “What do you want to do as a career when you grow up?” If you don’t believe me, go ahead and try it with anyone under the age of ten. I promise that you will get answers like, fireman, police officer, scientist, or astronaut. The fact that we don’t make that distinction when we are talking to our kids shows just how ingrained this twisted ideology is.
We are not what we do, and the same should be remembered about our homeless neighbors. Our society almost always considers homelessness as an identity rather than a situation. This way of thinking has infected us all to some degree. We must consider the language we use and the way we talk about people in order to change the way we interact with them. As long as we think that our homeless neighbors are more homeless than they are neighbors, we will treat them like an issue to be addressed instead of person to be loved.
So to answer my friend’s question about preparing your child for an encounter with someone who is homeless. I’d say this:
Tell you kids that people are not all born with the same opportunities, or with families that love them and take care of them. And sometimes as a result, people end up without a bed to sleep in or a place to call home. But we know as Christians that Jesus loves each person more than he or she can possibly imagine, so it’s up to us to show them. And sometimes Jesus even dresses up like a man or woman without clean clothes, a shower, or a place to sleep, so it’s extra important that we always smile and say hi, just in case it’s Jesus in disguise.
