Charitable Acts, Charitable Mind.

I was accosted by a homeless man outside Derby station today. First he asked me whether I could spare a little tobacco and a paper to make a roll up, which I gave him. Then he opened up and talked roughly and angrily about the experience of being homeless, especially about how cold it was on the street at two o’clock in the morning. He said he was trying to gather enough money for a train trip to Sheffield, and asked whether I might have a pound or two to spare. I gave him two pounds. He said I was the first person he’d met that day who didn’t treat him like a piece of shit, and then shook my hand and left.

There are those who would tell me I’m naïve – that he didn’t really want the money for a train trip at all, but to buy more cheap booze. C’mon, do you think I don’t know that? The point is this:

Charity isn’t the same as trading or sponsorship. Charity is the process of giving for the sake of giving. It isn’t a conditional process. If I give money to somebody in need, who am I to say how he should spend it? If he chooses to spend it on drink in order to ease the psychological and emotional impact of being on the street through a winter’s night, who am I to say he shouldn’t? And who am I to know whether the drink will kill him quicker than the heightened suffering to be had through sobriety? (Not to mention the deeper question of whether his life is worth living anyway.)

Somebody once said to me that he had no sympathy for the homeless because they choose to be there. Well, it isn’t quite that simple. I talked to a lot of homeless people when I worked for the charity. I know that behind every one of them is a story, and that we should be fully cognisant and understanding of those stories before we presume to judge them.

And the politicians, of course, turn a blind eye because homeless people don’t vote. The only time the politicians deem the homeless worthy of attention is when comfortable people who do vote find their close proximity uncomfortable.