helping the homeless

by Doug Millison

I was surprised at the power of making simple human contact and acknowledging this homeless person as a person instead of ignoring him as a pest. Surprised at the way simple gifts of conversation and food could feed my own soul.

I was working in San Francisco, south of Market on 2nd Street. Walking to and from BART, everyday I passed the same guy begging on the sidewalk under the Bay Bridge on-ramp. One evening I realized he lived in the parking lot there, under the on-ramp. I watched him unpack his bedroll and hunker down to sleep on the parking lot.

At first, I wouldn't look at him as I passed, irritated by his begging. Later, feeling guilty, I'd pull some coins from my pocket, shove them into his hand, and move on as quickly as possible. I didn't want to be infected by whatever was ailing him.

My reaction surprised me. I support organizations that work for social justice. I volunteer at the homeless shelter program that our church offers a couple of times a year, getting up early to help cook and serve breakfast to families down on their luck. I like to think I do what I can to fight against the systemic evil that lets some people enjoy obscene wealth while others starve in the streets.

But, I realized I had little compassion for this filthy, crazy person I encountered everyday.

One day I got tired of feeling ashamed for giving him money and otherwise ignoring him. He looked so alone. I stopped and asked him why he was out there, begging. He told me a long, confused story. He was getting SSI payments, but he couldn't make them last to the end of the month. He had an application pending for a subsidized room and expected to get it within a few months -- he showed me his application. Once he had a place to live he was going to try to get a job. A mess, but hopeful.

After that, I stopped and chatted with him for a few minutes every day, on my way to work and again on my way home. I didn't give him money very often. Instead, I got into the habit of bringing him food -- pears and apples, when they were in season, going unpicked on the trees in the back yard next door to our house, or something from our fruit basket or refrigerator.

In the morning, he'd spot me coming down the sidewalk a block or two away and he'd beam a broad smile. I'd stop and we'd talk for a minute or two. A simple, human connection. Some days he was crazy, some days coherent.

I asked him one evening, as he was getting ready to sleep in the parking lot, "How can you stand the noise out here?" The traffic roared constantly above, on the bridge on-ramp.

I thought of other parts of the world where monks go begging through the streets. In addition to their own spiritual growth, through humility and suffering, their begging gives other people the opportunity to enhance karma by giving. A two-way street. I remembered Jesus' teachings about sharing what we have with the poor. Was this homeless guy an angel, here to give me that sort of opportunity, my own personal boddhisattva? The idea appealed to me.

He disappeared one day. I prayed for him. Weeks later, he was back. Big smile when he saw me. Yes, he had gotten his room. He was trying to get his act together to get a job. He still looked and sounded pretty crazy, but he was clean, off the street, he wasn't pushing his shopping cart around any more, and he had a safe place for his guitar.

I was surprised at the power of making simple human contact and acknowledging this homeless person as a person instead of ignoring him as a pest. Surprised at the way simple gifts of conversation and food could feed my own soul.

I believe we must change the system that lets our brothers and sisters suffer in the midst of plenty. In the meantime, I'd like to think that if I go crazy one of these days or otherwise find myself at the end of one of these impossible-sounding -- but too common -- chains of events, somebody might give me an apple, or a dollar, or at least a kind word, if I wind up out there, hungry, homeless, and hurting, on the street.

(This article orignally appeared in the October 5, 1999 issue of Parishscope).