spare change

I park my car at the corner store. I hop out and walk towards the door. As I approach the door, a homeless man opens the door for me and says, ‘here you go’‘thanks’, I reply as I look him directly in the eye. There was no secret to our next conversation…
I bought my few items and used my debit card.

As I turn away from the counter and head towards the door, I see the homeless man prepare to open the door. As before, I come to the door and it opens itself with the street fellow on the other side. ‘There you go’, he says. ‘Thank you for the offer’, I respond. ‘Do you have any spare change?’ he queries.
‘Sorry, no change – I used plastic’, I retort as I get into my car.
‘Have a nice day’, he replies with a victim like manor.

Now I could be wrong when I say he used a victim like manor, but it seemed as though he was trying to make me feel guilty that I had more. But now, what does he know? Seriously, I have that is different is more responsibility. Everything else just falls into place when we choose to do instead of ask.

As I drove home I actually said out loud…
Why don’t you go to a shelter?
Why don’t you go and volunteer?
Why don’t you go get a part time job?
Why don’t you join a support group?
Why don’t you get a roommate?
Why don’t you contribute?
Now I stopped myself there because I was getting nowhere by thinking out loud and I wasn’t going to go back and tell him this…

I remember back in the late ‘90s – I would always offer any homeless person (within reason) a job. I was always hiring labour at this festival tent company I worked for. I remembered that I had asked dozens of people if they wanted a job and only one ever said yes. Unfortunately, they never even called me after I had given them my card.

I don’t want to offend, but I have always thought that homeless people should get to work – do something…now I will allow for an odd exception to the rule here and there…but now I’m thinking – possibly the US better kick their production up before they too become homeless…

Would you work harder if?
You knew you would become homeless if you didn’t
Or
You knew you could get a home in the long run?

It most likely comes down to work ethic…you either have it or you don’t