Pan Handlers

It seems that when we help people, more often than not we get taken advantage of.

Sometimes we’ll build a website for someone for free who doesn’t use it.  Sometimes we’ll show up at a park to take pictures of someone who needs them and they won’t show up.  Sometimes, and this is the worst, we’ll try and help someone on the street who turns out to be a thief.

Once we gave a woman all of the change that we had, which was like 25 cents, because she said she wanted to get some McDonald’s to eat and hadn’t eaten in 3 days or some such thing.  We knew that if the story was true there were better ways to help her, but we were about to get on the bus.  We gave her the change and she gave us a dirty look.  We didn’t get a “thank you” or even a smile.

Apparently, she was under the impression that we had more to give and were holding out on her.  We saw her again two weeks later in a different part of downtown Seattle, the story was the same but this time she was just trying to get some Subway because she hadn’t eaten in 6 days.

When we told her “no” she just walked away without another word or even an acknowledgment that we had bothered to respond.

On Wednesday we were near Pike Place Market in downtown Seattle.  A man, by the name of Curtis, came up with a very convincing story about needing $22 to stay in a hostel.  He, his wife, and his niece (or was it daughter?) needed a place to stay because their house had burned down two and a half weeks ago and they hadn’t showered since.

This was questionable, but I decided to go along with it.  He was probably full of crap, but I wanted to see how far he would take the lie.

We’re not prone to just give people money (we’ve learned that lesson) so we asked if we could walk there with him.  He said yes, it was about 5 miles down Pine Street.  And we started in that direction. 

We were impressed that he went along with it, and I didn’t want to walk for 5 miles, so we tried to find another way to verify the information.

I tried to call the hostel, he was fine with that. I couldn’t find the number on free 411, but I knew that I had heard of the Green Tortoise Hostel before.  As I was trying to find the number I asked him what his wife’s name was and if she would be there to talk to.  He said that her name was Lavie(sp?) and that she would be there, that they had already paid most of the bill.

His story was consistent.  And he hadn’t flinched since it began.  I had asked a lot of questions and all of the answers fit.  So we prayed with him.  He said that he was a Christian but his wife was not.

And then we gave him $10.  I told him we couldn’t afford the full $22, which is kind of true.  He took off and we were pretty sure that we had legitimately helped someone.

On Thursday we were walking down the street about a block from where we had met Curtis, and we saw the Green Tortoise Hostel.  That was either the shortest 5 miles in America, or we’d been taken.  That guy should play poker.

Things like this make me not want to help anyone any longer.  They make me want to say that it’s not worth helping the bad guys to help the few good ones.

We certainly learn lessons along the way, but the answer can’t be to stop helping people all together.

Paul said that some people have helped angels when they thought they were helping people in need and they didn’t even know it.  Jesus said that when we’re called to judgment he’ll vouch for us if we help our fellow brothers in Christ.

We just watched The Bucket List the other night.  The two characters (Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman) make a list of the things they want to do before they die.  Jack Nicholson writes down “Kiss the most beautiful girl in the world”.

Morgan Freeman asks him, “How do you propose that we go about doing that?”

He answers in one word, “volume”.

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We’d love to hear your thoughts in the space below.

Comments

What do you think Curtis did with the money? Does it even matter? Did you not help him?  He needed money for some such thing and he got it from you in a terrible way....but you still helped him.

That what you wanted to do: Help.
Don’t get me wrong I fully support investigating the cause you’re supporting and making decisions to help based on whether or not you think the help will be used in a good way, but you still helped Curtis and the bus lady.

Do you expect humility from the homeless? Do you expect honesty from liar? Do your best to show God’s love, unbiased unabashed raw pure love…

That said, I know exactly how you feel. That the world contains people who are willing to go to such lengths to lie to get money is depressing.

Keep giving and keep showing love to all those you can.

It’s interesting that you bring this issue up, whether or not to help, because I’ve pondered it myself a few times . . . I arrived at the following conclusions . . .

Jesus says that even pagens love their brothers, we must love everyone, or what else seperates us from the pagens?

We should give unto others, regardless of what they may do with the help.  It is not for us to decide who is/isn’t worthy, God created each of us, and after all, their sins are on their hands, not ours.  I try to hate the sin, not the sinner . . . it boils down to grace.  Just as we are forgiven, we must forgive . . (Sorry for the lack of specific scripture)

~ MUCHO easier said than done ~

Melody

God helps those who help themselves...these people helped themselves to your money and with very little effort on their part by preying on your emotions.  Many of them know exactly what they’re doing...Panhandlers are professionals...it’s what they do for a living and they’ve likely been doing it for years.  Many of them are mentally ill (bi-polar or schizophrenic) unfortunately and they need psychiatric help & medication.  Our homeless situation has gotten way out of hand in America.  Perhaps you can focus your thoughts on helping others in a different direction.  While there’s no doubt these people need help, giving them money is not the answer--they need guidance, professional help (and a job!) but most of them will refuse it because they know that eventually someone will give them money which is fuel feeding the fire...why work if you can get away without it; that’s their mindset.  Why not focus on orphanages, soup kitchens or maybe even being a foster parent?  There are lots of organized charities that need good people like the American Cancer Society, March of Dimes etc.  What about doing mission work or perhaps helping Habitat for Humanity?

The panhandlers in downtown Seattle are professionals at what they do.  I know you genuinely want to help people, but seriously, these guys are running their operations like a business.  Also, some of these people aren’t even homeless.  They panhandle all day and then drive home to their nice houses.  They make a killing doing this.

Oh, and that park right by Pike’s that overlooks the water has the worst infestation of crack addicts that the city is continually having problems with.  It’s so bad you can see drug transactions out in the open on a daily basis.

Maybe God wants us to do more work to help people. Maybe that means not taking the easy way out and just handing over the cash. That means truly getting to know the person and their problem, and helping them solve it, in a way in which you can weed out the crooks. In this case, I would have made sure to pay the hostel directly, rather than give him cash. Or, buy the lady a McDonalds meal. It’s impossible to protect yourself from thieves otherwise. And while the theory that doing it anyway will eventually lead you to help the few honest ones may just be “the easy way”, which isn’t always the best way.

Either way, you two are wonderful, and have put more thought into this than most citizens, and for that you are doing God’s work.

I like the Jack Nicholson analogy. It may work comparatively to the extent that giving money to everyone makes one more likely to help the most unfortunate person in the world. For Nicholson though, he should have corrected the script before saying those lines, because beauty is something that one can see from afar, and not something that is only revealed after the kiss like in the case of the frog prince. So judging how a stranger will respond to generosity is a different matter, because it’s not tangible or visible or even in the now. It is a prediction that can only be made with the available evidence; an educated guess by definition. The seemingly trustworthy expression is sometimes as likely to come from a practiced fraud as it is from somebody who is really in trouble --- the way that serial rapists are often said to be charismatic or charming: ‘it is the lie they make their bread and butter by’ - that’s Hemingway. So the real dilemma comes from misinterpretation - from the possibility of not just giving free money away to the fraud, but, more seriously, from denying aid to someone who really needs it.

There is another question of whether handing someone a bill can really help them for more than just a few hours, even if they are in a truly distressing situation. This is the same problem that (true) conservatives should have with the welfare system. It creates a perpetually poor and dependent class, which could otherwise lastingly benefit from real investment in new job training and community reorganization. If someone is temporarily down on their luck, say, stuck somewhere just needing a lift to the next stop where they’ll be able to take it from there, then giving the lift is providing that link between dependence and independence. But if when they get there somebody else just has to pick up where you left off, maybe it would have been better for the guy to have walked in the first place through the cold or whatever: an experience possibly terrible enough to manifest a personal change, the point of epiphany, awakening or realization that the only way this is going to work man, is if you - I don’t know - just pull your shit together and if it doesn’t kill you, hopefully you’ll start to make some changes. But this is also the indoctrinated ‘pull up your bootstraps’ excuse to abandon other people; an unoriginal and oft repeated oversimplification or crudity that purports to be moralistic. None of this should be taken seriously though coming from somebody as my lazy self, who has been handed nearly everything.
- If one also respects the degree to which circumstance and talent are arbitrarily distributed throughout humanity it is also possible to come to a conclusion that is more… socialistic, as the world turns upside down again on useless rhetoric.

A friend told me he was in Columbus and was “hit” on for money by someone who had not had food for a “week or so” he told the guy he would walk with him to a sandwich shop and eat with him. At frist the guy refused but when he found out it was food or nothing he went along.  While eating the friend told the guy about Jesus.  The guy had to listen!  Did it change a life?  Who knows but God.

I work downtown and I walk between buildings everyday.  As I walk, the same people everyday ask me for money.  I know their faces and they know mine.  But they ask anyway.  When I see someone new, I give him some cash.  For the regulars, I think there is something they could be doing that would help society in some capacity for which they would get paid so I don’t support their chosen career by giving them money.  I believe McDonalds is hiring and they will hire just about anyone.  It is getting so bad downtown that I can’t walk three blocks without four solicitations.  I am convinced that giving them money only makes the problem worse.  For me, it isn’t even about the money.  It is about supporting a problem that will never go away since asking for money is so profitable.

Maybe the one hand should not see what the other is giving?
I think you want “worth for your money”. Is that “chistian”? Why not keep a few dollars in your pocket and distribute them, daily or weekly, regardless of whether someone is conning you or not? Leave it to God to decide who “needs” it most.

If people are homeless, I suppose they need money every day, just like some of the commenters here who do have a roof above their heads. So yes, they will ask you every time you pass them. Will the burger place hire you when you smell of street???
What happens when you fall ill, or are suffering from a mental health problem? Do you not need care every day? What about suffering from addictions? What does society do for those who went wrong, let them care for themselves, like one commenter suggests? Yeah, I know what you will say: it is their choice. Well, is helping someone who made a bad choice un-christian?