Help the homeless by writing a check

21 December 2001

What's Christmas without a little guilt?

Shopping bags in hands we pass by homeless men and women with their hands outstretched. Panged by our consciences, struck by the contrast of wealth and poverty, we dig into our pockets.

It may seem like a kindness to hand over some spare change. In truth, it usually hurts more than it helps.

Those sound like harsh words, particularly during this season. After all, isn't the Christmas story about compassion for those who, like Joseph and Mary, were themselves homeless?

Not really. If anything, that story is about the need to build more hotels. Joseph and Mary weren't homeless. They were traveling. They needed a room and one wasn't available.

A bit of charity solved their problem. The situation for the homeless is far different and vastly more complex.

Ten days ago, Boston conducted its annual census of the homeless. The results were disturbing. The total, 6,001, is only a 3 percent increase from last winter but is a dramatic jump from the 3,893 counted a decade ago. And the most heart-wrenching of those - the men and women spending their nights on the street - numbered 277, a jump of 30 percent from last year.

Admittedly, any census like this is prone to errors. Many homeless themselves are far from eager to be found and counted. Still, the trend over the years clearly has been upward. Boston's shelters report that demand for their services is rising. More people are showing up for a meal; more are seeking a bed for the night.

A good number of the people counted in the census - about 32 percent - are invisible to most of us. They are, typically, single women with children. They are rarely on the street and hardly ever panhandle. Instead, they are living in family and domestic violence shelters. Theirs is a problem of economics and family breakdown.

Those remaining, usually single adults, number about 4,000. They are the ones with whom we are more familiar.

There is a myth about the homeless, one that portrays them as some sort of free spirits, rebels charting their own course free of society's strictures.

The myth is a lie.

To be homeless is to be at the last and most tragic stage of a long series of personal crises, crises that may include prison, abuse, joblessness, mental illness, or addiction. They have brought a person to a place of near complete degradation.

Programs for the homeless - and there are more than a dozen in the city - do far more than provide food and shelter. "We rehabilitate," says Ira Greiff, executive director of St. Francis House. That means providing counseling and job placement, working to create a path for a homeless person to move from despair to independence.

It's a difficult job. Perhaps the hardest task of all is persuading a homeless person to take the first steps toward recovery by getting off the street and into a long-term program. That task is complicated enormously by the fact that the vast majority of the homeless - well over 80 percent by some estimates - are addicted to either drugs or alcohol. Sometimes the addiction is the cause of the homelessness. Other times, it's a consequence of it. Either way, it's present.

Addiction blots out the pain of living on the streets; it becomes the excuse that prevents someone from taking control of his or her life. That's why most shelter directors and advocates for the homeless urge people not to give a handout to the homeless. The money collected, they say, goes to feed the addiction.

The message, says Thomas Lyons, who runs the Veteran's Shelter near City Hall, is one of "tough love." By giving their spare change away, well-meaning people often and unintentionally end up promoting addictive behavior. Doing so gives the panhandler another pretext to avoid going to a shelter or getting help.

So what should you do? Rather than give money to an individual, volunteer or write a check to a shelter or a food program. The help and money are desperately needed, especially now, when demand for services peaks. Unsure of what programs are out there? Call Boston's emergency shelter commission (617-635-4507); staffers there will give you a list.

All of that makes sense, of course. Still, telling a guy holding open the door to your local 7-11 that you donated to a shelter sounds akin to saying, "I gave at the office." Walking past someone holding a hand-lettered sign begging for 50 cents seems cruel.

Our intellects may tell us one thing. But in the cold winter air, our hearts says otherwise. It's a problem even those working with the homeless understand. Some homeless are unaware of the shelters or afraid of them. "There are times," admits one shelter director, somewhat sheepishly, "when I'll give a buck or two."