Citizen Columns
Question
Should we give money to people begging on the street?
Answer
The standard reply given by those who work most closely with street people is “no.” And there are lots of good reasons for this. What you give may be used to buy drugs or alcohol. If panhandling pays, then drug use is perpetuated. It leads to increasingly aggressive begging. It brings neighborhoods down. It deprives others who don’t beg of what you could otherwise give more thoughtfully through many existing charities. It too quickly and falsely assuages your conscience. For these reasons, the city of London, England started a “Killing With Kindness” campaign to stop well-meaning people from giving to beggars. But I have to confess that I do not follow this advice and usually do give a little change, because I have experienced what not giving does to my own heart.
When I walk past in a deliberate effort not to notice or give I have to consciously harden my heart. I have to strangle a natural human instinct for generosity and caring. Someone once said that the opposite of love is not hate but indifference. And to repeatedly harden ones heart is spiritually damaging. I have found that even a fleeting connection through the few coins given with even minimal kindness is more valuable to me, and –who knows?—maybe, despite the rational advice, to the person who receives.
It also depends on where you are in the world. There are many places where poverty is so pervasive that begging is sometimes the only means of support. Also, in some cultures there is a kind of spiritual bargain that is made in the act of asking and receiving. The entrance to many churches in Russia, for example, is lined with elderly women asking for alms and praying in return. Could asking our own beggars to say a prayer for us give them a sense that they are not the only ones in need?
With love in Christ,
Fr John
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