Stephanie Street

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Well, it’s been a while since I’ve written anything, and in case you were wondering, I’ve semi-failed at this no smoking thing. I pretty much only smoke in the comfort of my own home, don’t bring them out with me, etc, etc.

Anyway, I was standing in line for the bathroom in Starbucks yesterday, and this homeless guy walks in and gets in line behind me. Nevermind his AWESOME beard, nevermind the homeless-guy stench that overwhelmed my senses as he stood next to me. A thought struck me. Is it appropriate to offer change to this man, standing in line for the bathroom? Isn’t he, technically, on break from panhandling? Now, I would imagine that any homeless man wouldn’t turn down an unsolicited offer for money, but there seems to be something out of place about doing so in that situation. I mean, usually if you give money to a homeless person, you drop some change into their cup and walk away–you feel good cause you helped out a homeless person, and they feel good cause they have more money. And then immediately each of you moves onto the next thought. But say I were to have given the guy some money. Then we’d just be standing there, musing on the exchange that just took place. Likely, I would have felt some sadness for the guy, maybe a little guilt for not giving more when I clearly could have, not to mention non-homeless-person guilt in general. Not that these things aren’t there regardless, cause they are, but I would think that they would be heightened by the exchange of money from my hands to his.

And then other questions started roaming around in my head, questions that I wanted to ask the guy, but just couldn’t bring myself to. Like, do you have a panhandling work schedule? Do you like being self-employed? Is there an unofficial homeless person union? A kind of community? Or is it a dog-eat-dog underbelly of New York? I then wondered if the homeless guy would appreciate me asking these questions. Would he find it rude? I certainly wouldn’t want to offend him, for both my and his sake. I would imagine there’s an element of embarassement associated with being homeless, but I wonder, if you’re homeless for long enough, do you start to become comfortable and accepting of your status?

Is all of this offensive? Homeless people are both invisible and an eyesore, a nuisance and a subject of public concern. I’m just trying to be honest about my experience of being in proximity to a homeless person outside of their…campground?…it really doesn’t happen very often, and it kind of threw me for a loop. Clearly.