Samaritan House News

What Lessons Have You Learned From the Homeless?

Ann Arbor has a lot of homeless people, but I can understand that. If I were homeless, I'd want to be in Ann Arbor too, because people here tend to be generous. There are many homeless people downtown, but there are also a number of freeway exit ramps or shopping center traffic light exits where they regularly stand. Of course, I cannot give every person money every time they ask when I'm walking downtown, or when I am at a ramp or traffic light. It feels rough to pass them by, but I just can't, especially since I lost my job last August.
Sometimes I will give something just because I happen to have an extra dollar that day or I am just in the mood. But sometimes it's stronger than that. Today was one of those days.
The light at the exit ramp was green and I drove on by, but the image of the man hunkered down in the cold with his sign, "Homeless and hungry -- please help" stuck in my mind. I've often passed that man but never given anything. I felt very strongly, though, that today God was telling me to go back to that man and give him something. I just finished a 5-week temporary job, so I have a little more money than usual. I had just come from the grocery and thought about giving him one of the boxes of cereal I had bought (about the only thing I bought one could eat without cooking). I kept driving toward home, but the farther I went, the more I knew God wasn't going to let it go... he was urging me to go back. So finally I turned around.
On the way back, it came to my mind that I had gotten a roll of quarters to wash the car. With all the salt on the roads, this is an important thing to do to keep your car from rusting out. I felt led to give the man the roll of quarters.
If I have time, and today I did, I prefer to talk to the people I give money to...ask them their name, hear a bit of their story. So I parked the car beyond the ramp and walked back to the man.
I said, "Hello."
He replied, "Hello," and before I could say anything else he quickly added, "You're a religious man, aren't you?" I was surprised that he came up with such an assessment so quickly... he hadn't even seen me coming.
"Yes I am," I replied. "But how did you know?"
He said, "I could tell by your spirit." Boy, that really made me feel good. Often I wonder there's any evidence visible of Christ living in my life; it was a great reassurance to hear this.
I asked him to tell me his story. His name is Victor, and he said his 60th birthday was this past Monday. He used to live in an apartment in a nearby town (same metro area), but his company closed the factory and moved the factory to Mexico. After that he was in the hospital twice with heart problems, one of them being a heart attack. Eventually his unemployment benefits ran out, so he couldn't afford the medical bills. That gave him a bad credit rating, so that created additional difficulties because he couldn't pay those bills. He is a veteran, and eventually his GI benefits ran out too.
Our church has a homeless ministry, and they have said that so many of the people who are homeless have become that way due to job loss or medical bills they cannot pay. Or, as in the case of this guy, both. He said to me, "Why can the American government give so much money to people all over the world, but not take care of us, its own citizens?" He was especially upset how little the government helps veterans. Many homeless people are also veterans. These people go fight for us in wars, and then they end up homeless later in life. Something is wrong with that picture.
Victor is a black man, and he told me a story of when he was growing up. Back then, he said, the white people called him 'ni**er' and he called them 'h*nky'. One day he did that in class, and got in trouble for it. When his dad found out, he took Victor to a trunk at home where some pictures were. He pulled out a couple of photographs from the 19th century, one of an American Indian woman and one of a white guy in a tall black hat and a big long, curled moustache. His father said, "See that man? He's your great-great-great grandfather. And this Indian is your ancestor too." His father continued, "Don't you ever judge a person by their appearance. You judge them by their character." Victor said it was a lesson he never forgot.
When I gave him the roll of quarters, he gave me a hearty hug. Before I left, a young Asian woman in an SUV opened up her window and gave him a beautiful red, heart-shaped box of chocolates. When I left, he hugged me again.
It is good to talk to homeless people. It keeps them from being just those beings on the street begging; when you hear their stories, you realize that it could be you on the street. Some people take the attitude that there are "legitimate" ways for homeless people to get help, and many of them are not getting the true help they need if you just give them money. For example, "If you give them money, they might just spend it on cigarettes and alcohol."
But I picked up a valuable attitude from my church: What they do with their money is between them and God; what I do with my money is between me and God. How do I know if they really need it for food or they are going to blow it or they're just moochers? If I had the fullest selfless love, I'd get involved in their lives and help them get on their feet. But I'm busy, and giving money and sometimes hearing their stories is something I can do that at least goes part way.
When I worked downtown, I used to eat lunch with a homeless guy there about once a week. I couldn't give him money all the time, but I shared my lunch with him as we talked. He was a Korean War veteran, and a schizophrenic (he told me so the first time I met him, and he did have some active conversations with invisible people when I was with him). He gave me this big long speech many times something about how the government ruined the value of money...I never did understand what he was talking about, as many times as I heard the rant and asked questions to try to understand, but I could tell he enjoyed the company. And he never asked me for money again, after that first time. Perhaps it works both ways: I was no longer just some person on the street who has money to hand out.
What life stories have you learned from talking to homeless people?
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This account is from a blog I subscribe to, www.revelife.com Where do you see homeless people in Chautauqua County? Have you talked to them? Do you notice them? We have helped them through Samaritan House.
Just one of the many stories of the poor, or is it a catapult to move us to help? Think about it….