WHAT WOULD HILLEL DO…?
August 16th, 2007
We hate it when the invisible people get in our faces. There is a dating rule that advises people to watch carefully the way a date treats their restaurant server; the idea being that the way we treat those without power speaks volumes about who we are at our core. This story in today’s Plain Dealer screams.
The Downtown Cleveland Alliance, a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving Cleveland’s downtown, is passing out fliers to downtown businesses and apartment residents with the message “Don’t Give Where It Can’t Help.”
I disagree. We must not give people permission to turn away.
Beggars (I hate the term homeless because it provides us too easy an out for the problem: give the homes!) do what they do for more reasons than I can list. There are those who want that man with the McDonald’s coffeecup to be a devotee of Neville St. Clair. The realities are different and myriad.
Dropping a dollar in the McDonald’s cup, or carrying cans of food in the trunk of your car to hand out, or giving up your coat on a cold day are all ways of helping.
Making contributions of time, material and money to social service organizations are also ways of helping.
None of these actions exclude an other.
We can, and ought to, take part in all courses of caring.
But a purportedly caring organization saying the following burns me up.
Turning down panhandlers, the Alliance says, is really for the best. Some of the panhandlers aren’t even homeless. Panhandling intimidates visitors to downtown and a donation to a social service organization would help more than a handout on the street.
Beggars are not an eyesore to be removed from our streets. In the moment on the street we have no way of knowing what action will help the most, but we can know what caring act we can perform then and there.
And why didn’t Patrick O’Donnell fisk Lammon when he claimed:
“We’re not trying to punish the homeless,” said Mark Lammon, special projects manager for the Alliance, whose employees spotted about 300 panhandling attempts downtown in May. “We just think there’s a better way to do it.”
About 300 panhandling attempts. In an entire month. In all of downtown.
Let’s take a worst-case scenario of the sampling.
There were 23 weekdays in May. That means Alliance employees spotted an average of 13 panhandling attempts per day.
Let’s take it a step further and say that the employees were watching only during working hours, call it 10 hours — 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. — that makes it out to be 1.3 panhandling attempts per hour.
Of course the Alliance employees didn’t observe every attempt, but even some reasonalbe multiple of the 1.3 panhandling attempts per hour is hardly a dire epidemic that is driving suburbanites from spending money downtown; which is really what all of this is about.
I’d also want to ask O’Donnell if he observed the first rule of journalism and followed the money. Not the panhandlers, the Alliance’s.
Who are the major contributors to the Alliance? Who sits on the boards of the foundations that are financing it?
The whole idea has set my Lemmings Meter ticking and I have to wonder if the not-for-profit organization might not be just another Astroturf front for the same folks who want to tax us more to line their pockets with the cash from building a convention center?
Do you think?
And do we remember that a panhandler who asked for 25 cents was shot and killed last week?
Helped are those who understand that they cannot fix the World but that they can give here so that another’s burden may be lightened in that moment.
Bravo. In a time when cities are are making it a crime to feed hungry people, we need more people like you who are willing to to relieve suffering where ever they find it. There’s a place for social services, but we need individual giving, too. We need to be intimately aware of those in need, and have the courage to meet them face to face. As you said, there should be no permission to look away and claim it is someone else’s problem.
It’s time we stop criminalizing poverty and mental illness and tossing them in jail to keep them out of sight so we’re not uncomfortable. Their situation could happen to any one of us – that’s what we don’t want to acknowledge.
Every single person can make a difference to someone, even if it’s only for a few moments. I think we have a moral obligation to.
Shalom Terry,
That’s true. You’re absolutely correct.
B’shalom,
Jeff
Gifts with strings are not gifts. I love what you say here, Jeff.
Shalom Sherry,
This is principle problem I have with all forms of giving: the presumption of reciprocity.
And I’m guilty of this as well. Several years ago I made a concerted effort to send my parents, my siblings and my nieces and nephews greeting cards recognizing birthdays, anniversaries and other holidays.
I mailed nearly 20 carefully selected cards.
I didn’t receive a single card on my own birthday.
At the time that really hurt me, but I finished out the year and didn’t send cards the next year.
Your simple statement has made me realize that I was wrong. I should have kept sending the cards because they were meant to be gifts, and I was attaching strings to them.
I’m going out this week and buy more cards. It doesn’t matter what the response is. It just matters that I send them.
Thank you very much.
B’shalom,
Jeff