Posted 6/29/2016 3:11 PM (GMT 0)
Rockyfords, thank you for a sincere and well-expressed account of your experience with a money-seeking person on the street. It was certainly enough to make anyone reading it at least wonder about how one should handle this situation when it comes up (which most of us have probably faced).
First, why are we all facing this situation at all, now, in the early years of this century? In the past, going back a few decades I guess, I for one simply don't remember this being the case, at least where I lived then, that strangers would come up to one on the street and ask, even beg, for money. I have no doubt there were impoverished people back then, eager to get money any way they could, but I simply don't recall ever being approached on the street by people outright and on a regular basis asking for money, the way we see it happening today.
Is this an American phenomenon? Hey, some of you guys from outside the U.S., is this happening in your countries as well? Do people just come up to you on the street and ask you for money? If true, is this happening because of some global economic slowdown or something? I don’t know. But whatever the reason, it really is widespread now, at least in the U.S.
If someone might suggest that talking about this is off-topic to this thread, I think an argument could be made that it actually is on-topic in a way. Is your attitude toward giving or not giving to someone on the street, that is, how your personality reacts to it, the same now as it would have been 10 years ago? 15 years ago? Would you have felt differently about it if stopped on the street before you had heard your PCa Dx?
How to handle this situation when it confronts us on the street is of course a personal call. As for myself, I usually don't give anything. I simply don't know anything for certain about this person in front of me or why he or she (yes, it's sometimes a woman) is wanting money from me. What I usually do in these situations is simply two things. First I say "Sorry, I haven't got time to talk, I really need to so somewhere right now and I've got to go (as I move along quickly and enter my car). Good luck to you." But then as I'm closing the car door I say "Try going to the St. Francis House downtown. (That's the local homeless shelter here in Gainesville. It's Catholic-based, but open to everyone, and provides good services). They may be able to help you." All the while I'm polite but firm. Then I leave.
I remember one exception to this policy that I made during the past ten years or so. It was the day when I was exiting the grocery store where I shop and noticed an odd sight indeed. Near the store entrance was a young mother, mid-twenties I would guess, an attractive young woman actually, trying to control her two toddler children, a little boy and girl, maybe 2 and 3 years old, while holding up a crudely-drawn sign with the words "Please Help." My eyes caught hers, which prompted her to say to me "Mister, can you please help me?" She them went on to tell me her story, that her boyfriend and father of her children had left her, she was jobless, out of money, not sure she could keep staying where she was, and desperate for help. All the while she was trying to control her two young kids who were scrambling around, and then she started to cry. By that time my attitude had become, "Lady, you have got to be for real!" So I gave her $10. I also suggested that she find a police officer and ask him for directions to one of the local assistance facilities (including the St. Francis House mentioned above) where she might go for help. Then I wished her well and left.
So it's usually a judgment call, but sometimes the facts of what you see before you, such as the above case of a young mother and her two kids, are so moving and appear so authentic, that they give you a good indication of what you should do.
As for the question of guilt, if I have provided information on where the person might go for assistance, as described above, I don’t feel it I so much. Along that line, maybe you might learn the name and location of an assistance facility there in your city, and be prepared to mention it to the person the next time you are asked for money on the street. That is, telling them where they can go to get help for themselves is in fact helping them, and you have done that.
Getting back to the original thread topic, maybe a personality changing over time does lead to changing attitudes and actions over time, and something that would profit us to consider when faced with an ethical question, such as giving or not giving to someone who may possibly be in need.