Should I Give to Hobos?

Ahem. This question has often circulated within religious and intellectual communities, not that the two are at all mutually exclusive. Since people inevitably fall pretty nicely into one of the categories, (that is, their actions are governed either by rational thought and ethical principles or by rational thought and moral dictums) let’s explore both sides.

We’ll start with religious people. I've seen countless examples of industrious Christians asking if they should share their hard-earned dollars with beggars, and the overwhelmingly popular answer is no. With “charity” and Christianity being so closely associated, it is an interesting phenomenon. The argument is as follows. Some people think that since Christ often begged himself and performed generous acts, he was all for charity. He didn’t just hand out cedar walking sticks and try to teach lame men how to adapt, he actually healed them. Or I guess we could just go with the whole “Give a man a fish; he’ll eat for a day. Teach him to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.” expression, because he did that, too. Jesus gave people fish, okay? Yet others point out that saving that dollar bill handout is actually doing society more of a favor. Having that industrious Christian spirit and contributing instead to larger charities and institutions is promoting help for those who deserve it, who want to better themselves and will put the work in like the rest of us. The Bible stresses the importance of work to human existence and how staying away from idleness contributes to all people in society.



Countless other religions have role models who begged for their food or lived upon charity while disbursing it likewise: Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism. In each, monks and prophets roamed around in skeletal bodies with dirty feet and lunatic ideas, but people believed in them and their “worth” to society. They were truth-seekers, and whether or not people agreed with the truth, they gave to those they found worthwhile on an intangible level, a spiritual one. Indeed, many religions have sects of holy people who survive solely by charity and are still considered worthwhile.

Now to the intellectual community. Certainly charity perpetuates the life of someone on the streets in that it keeps his body functioning, and he then continues to beg or eventually better his situation. There's that old question of whether or not people grow up to say, “I want to be a beggar, and since people give to hobos, I could really make a life for myself." Maybe some people do… I don’t know. If the recipient of charity is a drug addict, she could certainly use the money for drugs, but what about food donations? Can buying someone a sandwich possibly be a bad thing? A small inconvenience for one person to show a little charity could be a large inconvenience to society if the recipient is a psychotic killer. I know you intellectuals thrive on this stuff, so have at these questions and your consciences. For atheists with no ethical foundation whatsoever, congratulations. You are probably the only group, besides sadists, who can withhold food or money from beggars. As for secular humanists and all others, people guided by an ethical code, godless or no, it’s simplistic, but consider that humanity is waiting for a chance to learn how to pay it forward.

I’m not talking about that thing where people in the drive-thru of a coffee shop (here I go again, I know) pay for the $6.00 drink of the person in the car behind them. I’m talking about buying a $4.37 sandwich for a homeless man in a coffee shop with freezing cold hands and a thin waistline (like my pathos here?) One action supports what is likely a caffeine addiction of one’s own kind, in the upper class, and one keeps someone alive for another day. Even if the homeless person is an addict or murderer, are we really to judge all our actions by future events and consequences? Applying that kind of hypothetical questioning (like the intellectuals do) to real life could be debilitating. Likely this hobo is useless, tangibly speaking, to society; he is not the next Jesus or Buddha, right? And certainly his wife and children are not living in a tent under an underpass, but besides the fact that they might, and you might have the ethical obligation, hear this.

For the same reason that people have helped wandering anorexic monks or what-have-you, we can help beggars. I’m not saying to hand out lots of money to every beggar, all the time. But think about the habits we are breeding in fellow humans when we do. Compassion is gravely lacking in our society. Building and maintaining the ability to be compassionate and inspiring others to the same is something we should keep in mind. Regardless of how you express that, institutionally, through charities, or through handouts, how about not judging others’ ways of doing it? Who's to say that institution isn't discriminatory, that charity full of crooks? Compassion is vulnerable; things will happen. It’s the holiday season, folks, this couldn’t appeal to your tender hearts any more than right now. So consider it, hm?