Column Amid economic mirage, homeless speak truth
By DEMETRIA
MARTINEZ
I always keep a stash of quarters by my front door for washing
clothes in the laundry room of my apartment complex; but more and more the need
for spare change follows me out into the streets of Tucson, Ariz.
Every year thousands of homeless people make the brutal pilgrimage
to our city, because street life is less lethal in a warmer climate.
Everywhere, from street corners to strip malls, beggars extend empty palms. I
cringe to think of the stories embedded in those lifelines: hard luck, mental
illness, Vietnam ...
Those of us who give spare change on the streets often are chided,
told that a lot of those people dont want to work. To be
honest, thats fine by me. Our nation is full of able-bodied people who
dont want to work either -- they just lie about it and trudge away at
jobs they hate in order to consume products they dont need.
So I unload my quarters, wishing I could see Christ in the face of
the people I encounter. I rarely do: Im too busy feeling guilt about my
good luck and anger at a system that screws the poor. The hope I usually
experience as an activist working for economic change goes limp.
Then I hate myself: I should save those quarters and write out
more checks to United Way -- or to groups that lobby Congress to repair a
tattered safety net.
The goal is to make charity obsolete, I tell myself. The problem
is I cant bring myself to say that out loud to someone living on the
streets.
Its astonishingly narcissistic, this spin of feelings and
ideological debates -- given the plight of the person in front of me. Who, in
return, often gives me all he or she has left: a thank-you or
God bless you as I walk on into the pharmacy to buy a lipstick I
dont need.
Such are the contradictions we live with, we who belong to that
one-fifth of the worlds population that controls almost 83 percent of the
wealth.
I nearly veered off the road when a leftist friend said he
didnt give handouts because a lot of homeless men at days end pool
their money to purchase alcohol.
Hello? What is it we of the middle class do at birthday parties,
restaurants, first dates, potlucks, you name it. Except for those who have
forsworn alcohol altogether, there are few among us who do not imbibe,
pooling our money with that of friends to make for a better party,
funnier jokes and sexier one-liners.
It seems to me that whatever someone does with his or her handout
is that persons business; its one point of dignity in an otherwise
hellish situation. No homeless person owes me a grant application for my
generous endowment, detailing a breakdown of expenditures.
As Bishop Thomas Gumbleton said in a recent speech in Tucson,
wealth belongs to God and thereby to all. That is, my money doesnt belong
to me in the first place; the very vocabulary of charity blinds us. We imagine
we are doing a favor rather than giving what is owed.
Of course thats easier said than done. The mind races. What
if the money is spent on drugs?
But how can one know? And even so, whos to say the high will
not lead to the crash that will lead to the rehab center or the telephone call
home? (We have many runaway youths here.) Grace happens, too.
I think of all the times the Creator gave me some spare change in
the form of a friendship or a beautiful day or what have you -- handouts
Ive squandered so many times it sickens me.
Yet the spare change keeps on coming with a new chance to make
good.
Many cultures throughout history have held the beggar in esteem as
the occasion for the sacred act of giving alms. But today in our culture the
poor are blamed for being poor. You dont even hear the word beggar
because it conjures places like Calcutta, and that ruins the giddiness of good
patriots in a prospering economy.
The homeless, be they thieves or bodhisattvas, tell the truth
about our society: Wed rather throw people in the streets or in prison
than exercise a modicum of political will to meet basic human needs.
Opinions differ as to the best way for individuals to spread some
of the wealth, even as we work to reduce the need for charity. This is not an
argument for handouts, by any means. One of the better ideas Ive heard
about is a system whereby charitable groups sell vouchers worth free meals that
one can give away in lieu of spare change. Such a handout might alleviate the
squeamishness many feel about parting with cold cash -- and more homeless might
benefit.
An eternal tension: the quick fix vs. the long, hard fight.
A poem by the great visionary Bertolt Brecht, called A Bed
for the Night, describes a man in New York who, in the depths of the
Depression, appeals to passersby to get beds for the homeless:
It wont change the world It wont improve
relations among men It will not shorten the age of exploitation But a few
men have a bed for the night For a night the wind is kept from them The
snow meant for them falls on the roadway Dont put down the book on
reading this, man.
A few people have a bed for the night For a night
the wind is kept from them The snow meant for them falls on the
roadway But it wont change the world It wont improve
relations among men It will not shorten the age of
exploitation.
Demetria Martinez lives in Tucson, Ariz. Some of her poems were
recently included in a collection of Latina poetry titled Floricanto Si
(Penguin, 1998).
National Catholic Reporter, March 20,
1998
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