I have visited Austin, Texas, numerous times over the past five years to visit my son. On a recent trip, I noticed what seemed to be a marked increase in the number of people asking for money on the streets; plus, an encampment of homeless people living in sleeping bags and tents under an overpass near my hotel seemed to have grown.
During a cab ride with a lovely driver from Ethiopia, I asked about this change. “Austin is a welcoming and safe place,” the cab driver told me. “And people who live here are generous,” he said. “Poor people know that Austin is a city that will help them.”
My cab driver went on to tell me how he is regularly called to pick up someone sick or in distress at a homeless shelter and transport them to the hospital or urgent care. “Sometimes the shelter pays for the ride. Sometimes the person I am taking even pays me. Mostly I just do those runs for free.”
My conversation with the taxi driver touched me. I was moved by his kind and loving perspective concerning the homeless population in his city, and his willingness to drive people to get medical attention without being compensated.
I also realized that our conversation made me think about Northampton, and a feeling I have had but never said aloud. I believe that like Austin, Northampton is a welcoming place, and that people in financial need know that they can come to our city streets and those of us with the means to do so will help them. I believe that Northampton has a reputation as being a place where people in need will find many folks with open hearts and open wallets ready to assist them. And in my mind, that is a good thing. It is something for which I am grateful.
Northampton is home to people across the spectrum from poverty to great wealth. I consider myself middle class, and I am aware that I can afford to be generous. I can afford to leave my house with extra dollar bills in my pocket to share on Main Street.
Years ago, I used to hand out oranges and socks to people asking for money downtown. But then a person I had conversed with many times on the street finally told me the truth. He did not want oranges or socks, he needed cash — for coffee, hot meals and to squirrel away money to someday fix his car, dead in a lot in Springfield. When he told me, I felt bad that we had talked on the street many times, but I had never directly asked what he needed. When he finally opened up to me, he was clear about his needs, and I was grateful to be educated.
In my tradition, as a Christian, being generous is considered one of the “fruits of the spirit” — an outward expression of faithfulness to a religious practice. Walking down Main Street in Northampton gives us numerous opportunities to be generous, and I do not resent that.
I am glad people in need think of Northampton as a city that will support them. I am not being Pollyanna-ish when I say that. I am truly grateful that Northampton is considered a welcoming place, and I am touched that many people who walk around downtown are generous.
I do not agree with the folks who say that people asking for money downtown are a problem for other pedestrians or a deterrent to shopping on Main Street. Those who are asking for money on the street are giving the rest of us the opportunity to exercise one of the fruits of the spirit.
I know that handing out a few dollars downtown does not solve the problem of homelessness or poverty. I am aware that poverty and homelessness are painfully connected to other forms of systemic oppression, such as racism. I know that the accumulation of tremendous wealth and financial assets in the hands of too few — and handed down from generation to generation — is also part of the problem.
I know that the issues of homelessness and poverty must be addressed by a whole host of solutions that include considerably more affordable housing, job training, closing the obscene gap of income inequality, hiring more social workers and case managers at social service agencies and supporting those agencies with more funding and resources, and the list goes on.
I have absolutely no expertise on issues of poverty, homelessness or income inequality. But I do know that the folks asking for money on the streets of Northampton are not the problem and should not be labeled or treated as the problem.
It takes more than a village; it takes our entire society to confront and solve issues like income disparity and the agonizing injustice that some members of our communities are living outside or in shelters. It is an enormous issue, demanding honest investigation, continuing conversation, creative solutions and diligent attention. We must create local, regional and national budgets that fully fund social programs that meet human needs.
I believe the ongoing dialogue happening in our community about homelessness, poverty and people on our streets asking for money is an extremely important discussion that requires open minds and hearts. The dollars that I, like so very many of you, hand out on Main Street are not solving the problem. But handing out those dollars helps us continually confront this issue of painful inequity, and those small acts of generosity help prepare us to struggle further with this issue.
The Rev. Dr. Andrea Ayvazian, of Northampton, is part of the ministerial team of the Alden Baptist Church in Springfield. She is the founder and director of the Sojourner Truth School for Social Change Leadership, which offers free movement-building classes from Greenfield to Springfield. She writes a monthly column on the intersection of faith, culture and politics, and can be reached at opinion@gazettenet.com.