Brother, can you spare a granola bar?

I have a tendency to theorize, and nowhere does this manifest itself more than in the area of “what’s wrong with the world.” Not only have I thought long and hard about what’s wrong with the world, I’ve thought long and hard about what we can do to make it better. I’ve had plenty of conversations with friends who also have a penchant for this type of theorizing, and their ideas encourage me. I have confidence that in the future, some of my classmates will be helping to end world hunger and other atrocities.

But in the meantime, there’s a situation we service-minded people encounter every day, and one where our theories can get confounded: That situation is homelessness. And not homelessness as in “a problem afflicting cities, which could probably be solved using X.” Homelessness as in “a guy outside Morton Williams begging for some change.” What do we do then? What’s our response?

For a long time I thought there were only two responses to this situation: give the guy some change or walk by and pretend he didn’t exist. I’ve never really felt comfortable giving change, for a variety of reasons. Conventional wisdom states that you shouldn’t give homeless people any money because they’ll just spend it on drugs, alcohol, or cigarettes. While I’ve never really bought into this wisdom, I can’t help but think of all the times I’ve gone to the store to buy shampoo and ended up buying candy, and wondering if a similar thing might happen when the homeless man spends the change I’ve just given him. Then there’s the fact that I don’t usually carry a lot of cash on me, and giving a homeless man fifty cents just seems insulting. And I’ve read too many Barnard Public Safety emails to be comfortable with pulling out my wallet in plain view of everyone on Broadway.

But conversely, I can’t walk on by, either. All my theories about saving the world seem hypocritical the moment I choose to ignore the man. Because all my theories of “what’s wrong with the world” include unfeeling, unseeing masses, completely numb to injustice right in front of them. People who would dismiss a homeless man like they do a garbage can. People like I’ve just become. I’m stuck—we’re all stuck, as I suspect many of you have the same ambivalences about this situation as I do. Where’s the way out?
Lately, I’ve started to realize that there are other options. We could make a habit of carrying food, like granola bars or crackers, around with us, and giving it to someone begging for change. We could offer to buy them a sandwich or some water. And if we don’t have anything to give the man outside Morton Williams, we could look him in the eye and say “Sorry, I don’t have anything for you today.”

I’ve been testing this out for a couple months, and the results aren’t what you might expect. First of all, I have never had anyone refuse the food. They’re almost always incredibly grateful­—more grateful than one would expect for a granola bar. The same kind of gratitude shows up when you ask, “Can I buy you something to eat?” The most unusual thing I’ve ever bought a homeless person was a pomegranate, but he described the joys of eating a pomegranate so thoroughly that I ended up buying one for myself too. And saying “Sorry, I don’t have anything for you” doesn’t usually elicit a reaction. But that’s not really the point.

The point is that when anyone else in life, from friends to telemarketers, asks you for money, you acknowledge their requests even if you’re about to refuse them. Why should a homeless person be any different? Until we can stop homelessness for good, we should treat homeless people like the human beings that they are. They have a whole wealth of stories and insights that get overlooked as people pass them by every day. Here’s my challenge, to start the year. One of these evenings you will probably see a man with a beard and white baseball cap sitting on the steps of that church by Starbucks.

His name is Kevin. Feed him, sure, but also ask him what he thinks about Shakespeare. He’s got some definite opinions on the subject.

Make him feel like less of a garbage can and more of a human being. And watch as your practices and your theories become a little more aligned.

Kathryn Brill is a sophomore at Barnard College.