The Social NetWorker

A Need for Social Change (Despite Lack of Understanding)

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(This is a guest post by Megan Elizabeth Morris.)

I moved to Austin, Texas several years ago from a steel town in Ohio where my understanding of cities and street life and homelessness was dramatically limited by the fact that "downtown", for me, was one of a few very collegiate, specifically safe locations (like the music school, for instance, and restaurants on-campus). I rarely traveled down to Federal or Market Street, and didn't spend very much time in other parts of the downtown area unless I was in a large group of friends. As such, I didn't have much of a grasp of what it meant that people asked for change or lived on the street.

In Austin, of course, it's warm and sunny a much larger part of the year -- and whether that is the determining factor or not, there are a lot of people on the streets in Austin. As safe and beautiful as Austin typically is, it's still a street corner kind of city -- where stopping your car at a traffic light will probably put you just next door to a tattered fellow with a cardboard sign.

At first, I didn't know what to do with this. Never, never in my life had I been confronted with people living their lives in this kind of way. And then I had to think about which of them were really homeless, and which might be hard on their luck and scraping for cash, and which of them were party kids doing it for the extra dough. (And, incidentally, how the hell I could separate true tales of street life from untrue, and have any idea which rumors were fact and which were offensive, ridiculous fiction.)

But there was more. I don't do this "eye contact avoidance" thing very well. Avoiding eye contact was something I did with my low self esteem in high school, but over the years I've trained myself out of it; I want to smile and look people in the eye and find some way to make them laugh, or connect with them, or find out who they really are. The idea of shirking eye contact at every traffic stop in order to avoid a difficult conversation with a stranger was not appetizing. In fact, the idea that I'd even considered it in my uncertain wonderings made me feel guilty -- guiltier, maybe, than I felt not giving them something.

Because complain as most of us might, we do have change. We have clean clothes, and somewhere to sleep. We have family and friends who would give us a couch for a week or a loan for hard times, if it came down to it. Some of these folks -- some kind and incredibly real human beings -- have so much, so much less.

What do you do when you crave real social change, but can't even grasp the subject at hand?

I have gotten "used to" the street corner city (but not really). Sometimes I give them money, and sometimes I don't. Sometimes I keep a twenty in the arm rest, sometimes I see if I can identify the exchange: Am I giving money to someone who needs it? Someone who will use it? Am I making a difference in someone's life, or am I going about it all the wrong way? I have some friends who never give out change to people on the street, and some who only give money to established shelters and agencies that help the homeless. I have some friends who, reliably, every time, will empty all the change in their dashboard to hand to the person on the other side of the driver's side window. One looks the stranger in the eye and says, full of meaning, "Good luck."

There's a big divide, in my circles, over whether it's good to give money to folks on the street. I encounter strident opinions in every direction, and I still don't know where I stand.

But after several years in Austin, it still affects me. I still don't know what to do about it, but every time I contemplate an idea that might help someone in that situation, I experience a tiny panicked swell of emotion. Don't just ignore it, it says. Too many people just ignore it and keep living their lives as if they've seen nothing. Do something.

And I don't know where to start -- not yet -- but I know I will.

And man, you'll know as soon as I do.

Megan Elizabeth Morris (email)
Ms. Morris writes at Personal Revelations of the Magnificent Megan M. Megan Elizabeth Morris, or The Magnificent Megan M., [proper noun]: Superhuman font of knowledge, skill, determination & resourcefulness. Exudes enzymes that cause others to surpass their potential. Master thinker; writes, designs, manages, ideastorms, markets, inspires, connects, grows, teaches, makes things happen, changes the world, and throws a mean right hook. (Okay. Not the last one. Well! Not literally.)