Daly's condo -- Room for one more?
First, a shout out to SFist, who thoughtfully posted about us today. It was a good article, and it's resulted in quite a bit of traffic and e-mail. You can read it here.
Now then, "theotherfrida" writes:
"I nearly tripped over this man who was passed out on the sidewalk downstairs from my studio this evening as I was carrying my groceries home. I don't know if he was homeless, a passed-out substance abuser or just really sleepy.
Unlike most of us, Chris Daly lives in a nice new condo in the upper-Mission. I've heard that it was paid for by a family trust fund, although the $100,000 [ed.: $120,000, actually] that he gets paid every year as a supervisor no doubt helps. I wonder if he has room to take in one of the many people that are lying on the sidewalks in our neighborhood. Don't they say that charity begins at home?"
Now then, "theotherfrida" writes:
"I nearly tripped over this man who was passed out on the sidewalk downstairs from my studio this evening as I was carrying my groceries home. I don't know if he was homeless, a passed-out substance abuser or just really sleepy.
Unlike most of us, Chris Daly lives in a nice new condo in the upper-Mission. I've heard that it was paid for by a family trust fund, although the $100,000 [ed.: $120,000, actually] that he gets paid every year as a supervisor no doubt helps. I wonder if he has room to take in one of the many people that are lying on the sidewalks in our neighborhood. Don't they say that charity begins at home?"
posted by the clicker at 6:01 PM
4 Comments:
If charity begins at home, why did you take this man's picture without his permission, with his face showing? How do you think he would feel about seeing this weblog entry treating him as a symbol of something bad? Why didn't you offer him a pillow or a cup of coffee yourself?
I won't presume to answer for "theotherfrida"; for all I know, she took him home, fed and bathed him and bought him a new wardrobe. Or, she took him home, and he robbed, raped and murdered her. Who knows -- that sort of thing happens to women around here, I'm sad to say. In 2003, the most recent statistics I could find, there were 6 murders, 15 rapes, 286 robberies and 268 aggrevated assaults in the Tenderloin. How many of those 575 victims were women who were attacked by strange men?
I'm amazed by the naivete you demonstrate. Offer him a pillow or a cup of coffee?! How long have you lived in San Francisco, Martha? The vast majority of people like this aren't the sort you offer a pillow and a cup of coffee to; it's like offering a band-aid to a person who has just chopped off their own hand!
The week I moved into this neighborhood, I was walking to work downtown when a man asked me if I could help him. He was in his late-40s, not very tall, with a close-clipped beard; looked a bit like a small Ernest Hemmingway. He said that someone had stolen his wallet which had his money, credit cards and bus ticket in it, and he really needed to get back home to -- I think it was Ukiah -- and could I spare $5 towards the bus fare? I pulled out $5 (then, the equivalent of about a half-hour of my labor), and wished him well. The very next day, on my way to work again, I saw him sitting on the steps of that old church on the corner of Post and Mason, smoking a cigar. I asked him what happened, and why he was still here. He immediately looked away and ignored me. I still see him from time to time, putting the touch on tourists. Disgraceful.
For a few years on, I actually was still willing to give a dollar here and there to people who claimed to be hungry. They never turned it down. I started to wonder how so many people could be hungry within a few blocks of St. Anthony's. But when I started pointing that out to them that St. Anthony's was serving dinner, or I offered to buy them a bagel or whatever was nearby, they would get defensive or just dismiss me.
I suggest a little test, the next time you're feeling like a "good Samaritan": when a person in the Tenderloin tells you that he's hungry and asks for money, let them know that St. Anthony's is about to serve dinner, or tell them that you'd be happy to stop in the nearest grocery store and pick up some healthful food for them. Sure, maybe 1 in 20 will take you up on it. But the vast majority of the "down and out" in our neighborhood aren't hungry because no food is offered, and they're not lying on the sidewalk because no help could be found. They're people who have long histories of making bad decisions, and they will abuse the hospitality and generousity of others in a heartbeat. In any other city of the world, I'd still practice proactive compassion on an individual level (rather than giving to the charities that help people, as I do). But San Francisco has become a magnet city for the countless losers, freeloaders, con artists and addicts who recognize a city of easy marks when they see one.
That fellow lying on the street two blocks from Glide could have just asked anyone around him, and CATS would've taken him to Walden or Delancey or any one of a number of other places where he could be helped in whatever way he needed, and it wouldn't've cost him a dime. All it would've required would've been for him to ask for, and accept help. Clearly, that wasn't a transaction that interested him.
TN, I'm sorry you got suckered, but I'm also sorry you became embittered by the experience. The fact that false-sob-story panhandling is an ancient and well-developed art doesn't contradict the moral imperative to help the afflicted. Can you think of any major religious doctrine or moral system (OK, other than Ayn Rand's) that preaches against charity?
Martha --
As a long-time atheist, I don't care about religious dogma or the related morals they produce. If they had any practical value, then the societies who are ostensibly the most religious/moral would also be the most virtuous. Instead, there seems to be a directly inverse ratio of the two. The societies that are the most secular tend to be the safest and most peaceful, and with the broadest rights. Compare Japan and most of northwestern Europe with the US and most Middle Eastern nations. We, the "moral" nations, have far more crime, oppression and poverty than they, even though we have about the same resources and wealth.
Regardless, I have absolutely nothing against charity. Indeed, even though my income is about $20,000 a year, I donate about $600 a year to various causes. But I NEVER give money to people anymore. If a charity is found to be wasteful or corrupt, it can be shut down; those responsible can even be jailed. If a person cons people out of $5 here and there every day, what can be done? I've no doubt that there are people on the streets of SF today who have been conning tourists here for decades.
If a person wants to give money to another person, that is their right, and I'm not in a position to object. However, if that person is sitting in the parking lot at Rainbow Grocery, many days every week, I believe that Rainbow is doing all parties a disservice. By Rainbow institutionalizing panhandling, they are literally maintaining a system that keeps panhandlers with their hands out. (And there are laws against "career panhandling" from medians and ramps that should be enforced.)
We often criticize politicans and their "pork barrel" finances -- taking public money when it isn't really needed, like Alaskan Senator Ted Stevens and his "bridge to nowhere" that taxpayers are expected to pay $315 million for. The word from the Left is generally that such pork should be cut off and those who benefit from it should "get a job" to support themselves, rather than living off taxpayers. But the guy who sits on the milkcrate in the Rainbow parking lot -- shouldn't he "get a job" instead of relying upon the largess of others? Shouldn't the hundreds of able-bodied men who hawk Street Sheet also "get a job"?
Jobs ARE avaialable. Better yet, people can be entrepreneurs. I know a guy who was unemployed and homeless a couple of years ago. I would run into him at the corner store fairly often, and one day he overheard me talking about eBay, where I sell things as a sideline. He asked how it was done. I went with him to the library, got on one of the free internet terminals there, set up an eBay account for him (free), made a list of things he should search for at garage sales and thrift stores, taught him how to write up items and search for similar ones on-line so he could use their photos, and so forth. Two years later, he has his own studio apartment, computer and digital camera, thanks to his eBay and CraigsList business. ANYONE can do this.
My primary objection is to the government dispensing charity to the people it chooses worthy of it, out of the taxpayers' pockets. And governments are famously subjective in chosing their recipients. The Right gives charity to politicians, corporations, weapons contractors, farmers, the rich, etc. The Left gives charity to nonprofits and directly to the poor, no matter how the poor got to be that way. There are people out there who have even less disposible income than I, for whom any excess charity by their government exacts too high a toll. Why should they be forced to support others?
There is an infinite number of people who would prefer to avoid the challenges involved in being self-sufficient. Should we enable them? Or should we set real-world standards for people, and stop enabling people who could make it on their own? I think it's like being an addict. The addict thinks of kicking their habit as almost impossible. But if they can get over the threshhold and get clean, they'll find that the same amount of effort that they used to put into scoring their next fix, avoiding getting caught, etc., is now all that is required to live clean. As long as we keep handing out the free junk to the addicts, they're going to keep using.
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