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I'm Broke. Please Help

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“I hate to ask,” the hand-written sign apologized, “but I have to. I’m broke. Please help.” It’s mid-morning, mid-week, and drizzling. I’m stopped several car lengths down from the traffic light where the man with the sign stands unprotected from the elements and the stares of strangers.

What’s he doing there? As a former East Coast urbanite, I’m accustomed to glassy-eyed drunks sleeping on the sidewalk, homeless panhandlers, and prostitution in broad daylight. But this bald admission – from a man who looks clean and like he has his wits about him – is rare in our southern Indiana university town.

It’s not that people aren’t struggling. We’ve got hundreds of ridiculously underpaid campus janitors, secretaries, and food service workers, a slash-and-burn Republican governor at the helm, this year’s tsunami of an economic downturn – all the usual. My own stepdaughter has two kids and no health insurance.

Yet, this guy, just standing there, sign in his hands, gets to me. I’m embarrassed, saddened, and just a little bit annoyed: he hates to ask and I hate to see him asking. I suspect that most of my fellow motorists, the ones who even bother to look in his direction, feel much the same way.

It’s a bummer of an interruption on a Wednesday morning.

I expect these interruptions to come more frequently. A just released study by the U.S. Census shows that 47.4 million Americans live in poverty. That’s 1 in 6 Americans. It’s a number that’s more startling when you look at the government’s definition of poverty: to be poor, individuals have to earn less than $11,000 and a family of four has to have a combined income of less than $22,050. I can’t imagine that the person earning $11,001 is feeling middle-class right about now. With these numbers, it’s surprising to me that more people aren’t panhandling on the streets.

I can’t give each person I see that extra $10,000 they really need. The coins in my pocket feel insufficient–and they probably are. My rabbi recently told me a story about a day many years ago when he arrived in Jerusalem right before Shabbat. As he entered the Old City, a clearly destitute man approached for help, and after fumbling through his pockets, he handed the man a not inconsequential handful of shekels. A gracious and heartfelt thank-you did not follow, but rather a lecture about miserliness: “I’ve given you the opportunity to practice a mitzvah and this is the best you can do?”

This is the best you can do? That’s what the guy on the corner of East 3rd Street was asking. Not directly, of course, and not consciously, but his very presence made visible the dry and disheartening statistics those of us whizzing by in our cars would prefer to avoid.

So what am I to do?

Look, I am no Mother Teresa of the slums, nor Simone Weil refusing calories and comfort out of political solidarity. I’m just an ordinary person trying to figure out how to do what’s right, with my overheated explanations for our present state of unequal affairs, my categories of deserving and undeserving poor, my list of less-fortunates who deserve my attention and those who are someone else’s problem. I think we sometimes feel it’s all or nothing, we have to give it all or give nothing. Instead, I’ve given myself a list of rules. Here are some of them.

Carry spare change. I bring at least a dollar’s worth of change, preferably quarters, in my coat pocket or purse whenever I go out and give some to the first people who ask.

Be nice. I try to live by Maimonides’ suggestion that one should not be a glum giver. I respond when the person on the receiving end blesses me – even if it’s in Christ’s name. I try to remember to say have a good day, even as I know that’s may sound just blame dumb to someone with their hand held out. I apologize if I don’t have any money on me.

Utilize public pushke boxes. I like public pushkes, a delivery method inexplicably up near the top rung of Maimonides’ ladder. Our homegrown coffee places – not the Starbucks, you’ll be surprised to know – all have their favorite causes: books for prisoners, the local food bank, domestic violence center, coats for kids. I try to divide up whatever change is left from the purchase of my latte between the communal tip jar and the pushke of my choice. You’ll note that I’ve not yet given up the latte itself.

Alleviate hunger. Hunger – or its absence – is a good marker and a concrete symptom. Mazon, created in 1985, has given almost $50 million from the Jewish community to organizations and communities around the world fighting hunger. They are always on my end-of-the-year tzedakah list. I’ve given my time, but mostly my money and canned goods, to the local food bank. Sometimes – very sometimes – I eat one less candy bar or other treat and put the extra dollar in our tzedakah box in the kitchen.

Give well. There are literally hundreds of organizations committed to political and philanthropic alleviation of poverty around the world. My spouse and I set aside 10% of our income (including birthday gelt) – which the sages of old recommend and which we can safely afford. Every Christmas Day, we spread out the solicitation letters and make our choices. (Check out www.urj.org/socialaction/issues/nets/, www.kiva.net, and www.heifer.org - for malaria prevention, micro-lending, and sustainable agriculture.)

Never cross a picket line. If people are to stop being poor, they need to be able to earn a decent living. States with the lowest unionization rates also have the lowest wages. Enough said.

Get off my ass. Nothing – and I mean nothing – will fundamentally change without social action. I try to do something about the big picture at least once a week. It only takes 5 minutes to call my Congressperson – which I do, even if I hate it every single time (non-contagious phone phobia).

Lest you think I’m a saint, there are also many days when I just can’t bear to admit that my quarter means more to someone else than it does to me. That’s when I cross the street, blast my iPod, indulge my consumerist fetishes, and keep walking. I didn’t stop that Wednesday morning and give one red cent to the man standing at the intersection. I didn’t even slow down.

Most days I suspect that I’m failing miserably at what is being asked of me. But I’ve made a start. And that does count.

p.s. If you want to really get off your ass, join a social justice organization in your area:

In Chicago: Jewish Council on Urban Affairs, www.jcua.org In DC: Jews United for Justice, www.jufj.org In California: Progressive Jewish Alliance, www.pjalliance.org In Boston: Moishe Kavod House, www.kavodhouse.com and the JCRC, www.jcrcboston.org In New York: Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, www.jfrej.org Anywhere: The URJ’s Just Congregations provides a model for Congregation-based community organizing. In San Francisco, a local synagogue helped pass Healthy San Francisco, one of the first city-wide health care programs in the nation. Local action can make a difference!