Norwood Block Club

Love your Neighbor: What to do about Panhandling

Apr 07, 2005

A couple of weeks ago my wife and I were just arriving home from a Mother's Day get-together when we were approached by a woman who was crying and hungry. She asked us for some food and, over a quick and makeshift dinner, told a long and sad story about losing her children and being repeatedly rejected in her search for a job. We felt glad to be able to feed her and later give her a ride to her shelter.

A couple of days later, the woman was back again. This time she was overjoyed and telling us how she had miraculously landed a job, thanks to the help of a placement agency. She just needed money for bus tickets to get to and from work. At this point we got a little suspicious, but we still (despite our doubts) gave her some cash.

Later we checked the phone book for the name of the business where she claimed to have a job; it didn't exist. Just in case she got the name wrong, I took a bike ride to the place where she said it was located; it wasn't there. We also checked the phone book and called information to find the name of the placement agency. It also did not exist. Nor was there any shelter where we had dropped her off.

This experience reminded us of some lessons we had learned years ago when we lived on 25th and Wisconsin and people were asking us for money almost daily. We decided then never to give out cash. We would make sandwiches for people or hand out McDonald's gift certificates. We would pour a gallon of gas into their gas tank or give them a bus ticket, we would give them a list of service agencies that could help them, but we would never hand out cash, simply because we couldn't be sure of how it would be used.

Having a standard policy for everyone helped us to feel less guilty about refusing to give out money; we could state the policy but then try to help in another way, and since we did it this way with everyone who approached us, no one ever felt like we trusted them less than someone else asking for help.

Somehow, we had forgotten these lessons when we moved here. Perhaps a more ideal neighborhood led us to be more idealistic. We still want to help people when we can, but we want to be part of the solution, not part of the problem. As Benjamin Franklin put it, "Love your Neighbor; yet don't