The Guilt of Turning Away the Homeless

If you live in an urban city, chances are you probably pass by at least five homeless people every day. My commute to my internship required me on a lot of days to walk from New York Penn Station to a block away at our designated shuttle stop. I’d wait about 10–15 minutes for the shuttle and in the meantime, I’d probably see an average of five homeless people each day.

When we see them in tattered and dirty clothes, holding out a cup for any spare change, our first instinct (hopefully) is to help them. But two things keep us from doing that. The first is what society has told us about homeless people. We’re told not to give them money because they’ll go buy alcohol and drugs with it and that wouldn’t be helping them at all. But really though, who can blame them when they most likely live in terrible conditions and drugs and alcohol offer a brief escape?

The second reason, one more subconscious, is that we don’t want to be responsible for their homelessness and poverty.

When homeless people are left alone on the street and we walk by, we assume their struggles are a result of personal bad decisions or a terrible hand that society has given them or a combination of both. “It’s not my fault they’re like that,” we tell ourselves and we can move on.

But when we have the option to help — the time and money to assist them — we can come face to face with a voice that tells us not to do it because it means in that moment when we help them, their troubles are ours to burden and alleviate.

When a homeless person singles us out on the street and comes up to us and asks us for money, they single us out as the person to alleviate their pain and struggle; we are momentarily the decider in if they get to eat or not that day.

And that kind of burden, albeit quite small and an easily rational decision, is something no one wants to be in charge of. “If I give her two dollars, she might be able to get something from a vending machine. And if I give her nothing, she could starve for the day.” Our general response of turning people away doesn’t come from us not wanting to help, it comes from the visceral place of not wanting to be in charge of something that has such horrible consequences. We want to decide on something that has simple and small options and consequences, not possible life or death.

Homeless people going up to strangers asking for money often times see the reaction of… no reaction. People just stand there not responding. It’s more comforting to us to stay out of the decision than to enter and decide. It’s only comfortable to us when we see them alone on an upturned bucket shaking a styrofoam cup and we can decide from afar to engage them and make the decision to drop coins into their lap. It’s more comforting to see a passive audience in need and for us to take the initiative because it helps our self-esteem because we did something good for someone. Once they become active, that is, coming up to us and asking us personally for money, they express their emotions and pleas and we are forced to confront the humanity of their struggle and of them. That subconscious warning sign of “don’t engage this crazy decision with horrible consequences” goes off and we turn cold, afraid of facing our own emotions and humanity by looking at that homeless person and feeling sorry for them.