Part 1 – The Problem

Do you know those feelings of uncertainty or even guilt when someone asks you for money?  You want to be a good person, a compassionate person, and beyond that if you are a Christian, you want to obey the teachings and commands of Jesus when it comes to caring for the poor, but you also don’t want to be taken advantage of or support someone’s bad choices.  Besides prayer, how do you know what the right thing to do is in those moments?

My wife Carrie and I have been living around and working with poor people for ten out of the last thirteen years.  Two of those years were spent in a poor white and Hispanic neighborhood and seven of these have been spent in Edgewood – a neighborhood were the poor people are primarily African American.

It has taken a lot of time and a lot of trial and error to find our bearings with helping poor people without enabling them or doing more harm.  It takes a lot of experience to learn to discern the difference between an expressed need, a real need, and a con job.

There are tons of people who make a life for themselves by manipulating people out of their money (called “finessing” in our neighborhood– there is a certain art, dignity, and sense of accomplishment that comes from successfully “finessing” someone out of their money, while the term “begging” just seems to the practitioner, a derogatory and demeaning term).   Some people who are homeless are living the life they choose because it is a life free of responsibility.  Some people make all the money they want finessing an hour or so a day from people they feel sorry for because of their stress, responsibility, obligations, and then spend the rest of their day hanging out with friends, reading books, and enjoying other amusements that can be found cheaply on the streets.

Some people beg because they have found that it is easier to get other people to pay for their poor life choices than it is to change.

Some people beg because they have become a slave to drugs or alcohol and they beg to get money to pay for their addictions, or to get food that they can sell or trade for their addiction, or to get food so that when they do get money they can spent it on their addiction instead of food.

Some people beg because they have become a slave to drugs or alcohol and they would really love to be set free but may not know it is possible for them or know how to get help.

Some people beg because they are in a difficult position caused by abuse, trauma, mental illness, or financial misfortune.  Some of these people want real help, some of them don’t, and some of them want help maintain the life they’re living.  Some of them would really like real help but are too afraid, depressed, or disillusioned to take that first step.

All of these things and more could be what is going on when someone tells you a story or holds up a sign and asks you for money.  How do you know what the truth is and how do you know they best way to help them without making things worse?

How do we act as faithful followers of Jesus when someone asks for money?

[Click HERE for Part 2: A Solution]