17. Can you spare a dollar to help me get home?
Today’s letter is about a listener who wonders about giving money to a person with a cardboard sign. Here’s the letter:
Last weekend, my partner and I were out walking our dog and I gave a guy $20. He had a sign that said he'd had a bad year and needed help. He was in pretty bad shape and the way I saw it, we would've just wasted the money ordering lattes on Postmates, but my partner flipped out. He said the guy would 'blow the money on alcohol and drugs' and that twenty bucks won't make any 'sustainable change.' What do you think?
We have a long history of not trusting poor people to handle money. And an even longer history of over-trusting that rich people know what to do with money. It’s a story as old as time. As a result, we have built a lot of middle men and middle steps to supposedly protect the money from being blown. Not to protect the people who actually needed the help, but to protect the money.
And here’s the ironic part, we know that when we just give people the money directly, we reduce the time they will have to wait, they get to keep all of the money we intended for them without losing it to middle men, and they are able to apply the money to their lives with a surgeon’s accuracy for how they need and want to use it. So, if you really want to help someone, just give them the money.
But to be honest, I think there’s also the moral hand wringing that we need to address here. This concern that the guy with the cardboard sign will use some or all of the money to buy drugs and alcohol. In two words, so what? Is your partner sure that poor people use more drugs and alcohol than rich people? Based on my observations occupying both types of spaces, I’m not sure that’s the case at all. Or is his point that poor people shouldn’t be buying drugs and alcohol because they aren’t financially secure? Why not? Are drugs and alcohol the reward for having a financial cushion? What else are the rewards? Cigarettes? Caffeine? Sweets? Soda? Art? I’m trying to draw out the line of thinking because I think sometimes these beliefs are hardwired without ever really questioning them and thinking through them out loud.
I don’t know you or your partner, but when I hear “that won’t create sustainable change” I can’t help but wonder if that’s really and truly what they’re worried about. If a house is on fire, you throw some water on it. And then you discuss how can we prevent this house from catching on fire again. You don’t stand there observing the flames and say “well, we can’t throw water on it again, because it will just catch on fire again next summer.” It’s both. That’s how we help people in crisis. We put out the fire and we also try to reinforce the house to prevent the next fire. Maybe we look at the greater context to find out why that house keeps catching on fire. Is it located next to a restaurant that dumps it’s toxic trash in the backyard of the house? Is it downwind from an explosives manufacturer. You get my point, you don’t stand there and debate these things while the house is on fire.
So have your partner listen to this episode and keep talking it out. I could imagine you being a great team to fight injustices because there is space for the short term fire fighting as well as the systemic changes. Please just make sure your partner is actually ready to do the deep work, not just standing on the sidelines tearing down all of your efforts.
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