Rich And Poor

I just did something that would have appalled even me had I not been fully aware of the details of the situation (I almost wrote sacraments instead and this must be a Freudian slip).  I gave a quarter to a rich man and denied alms to a beggar.  Never in my life would I have imagined doing this.  What a horrible person I must be especially being myself poor and giving a quarter to someone who likely earns in excess of ten times my wages while refusing a beggar in a wheelchair. 

Yes, there is a story there.  The rich man is from London and visiting here.  He asked me to change a five dollar bill so that he could pay the parking metre.  I didn't have enough change.  He mentioned that he just needed a quarter so I gave him a quarter and asked him to pass it on.  Then I encountered the panhandler, a middle aged man in a wheelchair.  He lives in supportive housing nearby and I don't even know if the wheelchair is a prop.  I know for a fact, having interacted with some of these people, that there are panhandlers who are not disabled and use wheelchairs as a prop to gain more sympathy and better donations.  I have also seen him work in collaboration with a woman friend who seems herself to have addictions.

Why did I give that rich man a quarter?  Kindness, I suppose.  I felt for the awkwardness of his situation.  Why did I deny the poor man in a wheelchair?  Too much circumstantial evidence against him.  I used to give more generously to panhandlers.  Now I usually just give two dollars or more to the food bank whenever I shop at Safeway, which occurs maybe once or twice a week.  Occasionally I will give to someone on the street, but there must be a sense of connection, an intuitive sense that my generosity will not be abused.

It is almost always impossible to tell.  I could go on giving to almost everyone who asks while impoverishing myself and the money going up their noses or into their veins in the majority of cases, or up in smoke or whatever.  But I don't know why they are there and when I ask I don't often get much of a story or I'm not sure how honest they are being because in order to survive they have likely had to lie all their lives.  They are so smashed in and broken down that it really cannot get much worse for them.  Maybe toss them a few coins and hope for the best, or risk getting to know them more and being invited into their lives by first of all inviting them into my life?

I am also poor and I said to the man in the wheelchair that when I was homeless I never begged.  But I didn't suffer from addictions, I was not a smoker and I was very good at budgeting.  I could only find myself being able to really help someone begging on the street by first knowing what help they are already getting and how willing or able they are to connect with treatment, rehab and housing services.  This is always a crapshoot. 

At the end of the day, I am not God.  I can only watch, observe and try to help where I can, and withhold it when I think I am being scammed.  Like the little Dutch boy with his finger in the dyke, knowing there is nothing I can do since the forces I am battling are far stronger than I am and without the support or tools that I need from the community nor the permission of people suffering on the street there is really very little that I can do except continue to lobby for social and political change and try to be that change in whatever small way I can.