Homelessness
Now Playing: Genesis: Trespass
Topic: Philosophy
[index] [bot]02:39 Wednesday, 11 January, 2006
Endwell, NY
Maybe this is why I didn't feel ready to go to bed. I'd had a small snack at 11pm, freeing myself to go to bed, but for some reason I'd felt disinclined to do so. So I tinkered around on the computer some more, getting things done, and even went back for another snack at 01:00 before finally concluding -- at 01:50 -- that I really had no good reason to continue staying up, and really should get to bed, even though I felt like staying up but didn't know why. And now maybe I know why: after reading a chapter of the Bible as I do every night at home, I started praying, which I frequently forget to do. The prayers were broad this time, and after a few brief, personal steps, I reminded myself that there's so much more in the world that needs help, and thus thought of all of the homeless people I saw this weekend while staying in Manhattan.
For the past fifteen years, I've frequently thought of the homeless problem in the world, but -- and I'm glad for this -- I thought about it a lot more this weekend when I had to walk around it all day every day. I'd read an article or heard something just last week, a quote of Michael Jordan saying his take on the homeless situation was this: he won't give money to anyone on the street, because he doesn't want to encourage such behavior. He figures that if someone can stand on the street everyday and say 'You got a quarter?' to everyone he or she sees (hey, you know, you don't see too many female peddlers, come to think of it), he can just as easily have a job standing to say 'Welcome to Wal-Mart.' I really liked the sound of this solution, and I was really glad I'd come upon it just before going to the city. It had offered me a final rest to the always-present question of how to respond to a beggar. It doesn't solve the homeless problem, obviously, but it allowed me to not feel guilty not giving a dime to someone.
I got further insight into that feeling of not having to worry while riding the bus home from New York today. It has nothing to do with homelessness, but with not having to make a decision. While I was waiting for the bus to arrive in the station at the Port Authority, there was a mother watching her one-year-old daughter toddle around. Everyone waiting was amused by this, and the girl next to me was as amused as I was, which led us to make eye contact and smile at each other a few times. This made me wonder if I was supposed to strike up a conversation with her or something, especially considering that we'd both be on a bus for the next four hours. I began to take more notice of this girl: she looked like she was from India, and she was beautiful, but was wearing very normal and modest clothing, which is my favorite kind of beauty. If someone has to flaunt her notable qualities, I lose respect for her, or him. So I was even more drawn to the fact that she was beautiful but was wearing nothing to draw attention to that fact. Anyway, she got on the bus before I did, so I took the empty seat across from her, to at least give me the opportunity to say something, even if I still wasn't yet sure whether I should or could. So, as we got under way, she continued just staring out the window in front of her, and not engaging in any common time-consuming activity like listening to music, reading a book, or sleeping. So I obviously had an opportunity to talk, and wouldn't be interrupting her by introducing myself. But I was struggling so much with whether I should (and even if I should, whether I could bring myself to) say something, that I found myself quite relieved when I glanced up and noticed she'd drifted off to sleep in an upright position. The relief was immediate, and I was consciously aware of this sub-conscious reaction, and began to wonder at it. If I'd wanted to speak with her, I should have been disappointed at having lost the opportunity to, but since I was so nervous to say anything, I was relieved at not having to worry whether to or how to. I hadn't decided to have this reaction, I just did. And here's the point of this whole tangent: I think the same thing was true with myself in the case of the homeless. Every time I'd been presented with the opportunity to give money or something to a homeless person, I'd struggled over whether I should or should not, but could never answer the question. Even though I usually didn't give something, I wasn't sure that it was right that I didn't, and that's what I wanted, that certainty that what I was doing was right. So, finally, Michael Jordan had offered me that certainty. I shouldn't give money, because it only encourages them to sit on the street and continue begging, rather than getting a real job.
But, then, I get to New York, and within half a day I'm no longer convinced by Michael Jordan. First of all, there's no Wal-Mart in the City. This is a fact that had occurred to me after walking around for a while, and a fact for which I am quite grateful. I don't particularly like Wal-Mart, though I do occasionally take advantage of its convenience and fairly consistently low prices. However, it made me really happy to realize that there were still places in the world not ruled by Wal-Mart. There's no space in a down-town area for a huge, boxy store, and this is one town that certainly isn't going to give in and collapse under Wal-Mart's threats. However, it also means that these particular homeless people can't get jobs there. The second problem I had with Michael Jordan's solution is that it really doesn't solve the problem, or even address it very well. I'm not intending to disagree with him, and I wouldn't argue that he's wrong, I just know his answer didn't work for me when it really came down to it. And here's why: let's say we did give these homeless people jobs as greeters at Wal-Mart. We'll skip the process of getting the managers to trust them enough to hire them in the first place, and even give the homeless the benefit of the doubt and assume they actually are trustworthy people and really do just need to be given a chance. Even if a homeless man were given a job, how would he get to work? How would he present himself in the clean and orderly fashion that is required for the job, since he doesn't have anywhere clean to sleep, anywhere to store his clean clothes, or anywhere to shower? How much money would he actually end up taking "home" after feeding himself and clothing himself and getting himself to work? I think I now have a little insight into the debate over a livable minimum wage. The current, national minimum wage is $5.25 an hour. Let's give that wage to a grown man, starting from scratch, off of the street. We'll assume he has no family to support and no debts to pay, but also owns absolutely nothing. He'll probably fall into a very low tax-bracket, so we'll give him a generously-assumed-and-easy-to-calculate take-home pay of $5.00 an hour. If he's lucky enough to get a full-time position, that gives him $200 a week, $800 a month. With that money, he must pay for a place to live, water to bathe himself with (a requirement of the job but one that was not a life-or-death requirement for a homeless man), healthy food to eat, transportation to work, presentable clothing, and laundry. This doesn't include anything to sleep on at night or to sit on while eating, or anything we might consider "fun" (like staying up late philosophizing about the plights of others). So, I'm just not convinced.
I continued this train of thought, and remembered what I'd had to keep in mind while starting this whole idea as I was lying in bed: I'm not going to find a simple solution to such a complicated problem, which has pervaded the entire world and all of human history. But maybe I can help. How? Well, by working with one of these organizations dedicated to helping the homeless. And this brought me to another interesting thought: that the people who are worrying the most about helping the homeless are people who are underpaid or not paid at all. I'm not talking about the homeless themselves, but about the volunteers and employees of non-profit organizations, who have chosen to sacrifice themselves for those whom capitalism has sacrificed. It made me wonder if there was some underlying reason behind this fact, that those who are working the most to help the unemployed are themselves underemployed. It certainly fits into the theory I'd been working on for the past few years: that in order for people to live in excess of what's required to live, the same proportion of people have to live below what's required to live. So having people choose to live and work uncomfortably -- by volunteering or taking budget-cuts at their non-profit organizations -- is another piece of the below-average pie that is required to balance the lives of us who are living above the average. And it may be significant to this puzzle of mine, the fact that the only people who try to help the homeless are those who are dedicated enough to lower their standards of living.
...Of course, I could be wrong in that assumption. First, there are certainly rich-and-famous people helping the homeless. And second, people often volunteer to help the homeless because they feel guilty getting paid to help someone whom no-one will pay.
[index] [top]
