What is the best way to help the poor? We may face
this question several times a day - poverty has many faces.
Suppose you encounter a panhandler on the street. Are
you reinforcing a dependency or meeting an urgent need, if you hand him a $5 or
$10 bill? Are you paying for a hot meal or cheap rum? Is the
hand-off of money intended to ease your own sense of guilt that you have so
much? Or, is it perhaps just to let you get safely past him without
engaging him personally? People who say there is an easy answer might be
failing to listen to either their head or their heart.
One may feel some personal satisfaction when we think we are
helping someone, but can we help them so much that we have weakened
their own desire and ability to gain the freedom of helping themselves
as much as they might? Perhaps we need to ask a few questions, and
fine-tune how we should make our loving gift.
I believe in the well-known slogan: "It is better to
teach a man to fish, than to simply give him a meal!" Giving the
meal is very short-term, "dead-end" help. Teaching him to fish
is a gift that keeps on giving, as it will provide him with many future meals.
We need to be smart about how we help people, so as to build
up their own personal capacity, and thus lessen their dependency on others.
Seeking the "right" balance between help and
dependency is not limited to "churchy" situations. Parents face
this dilemma daily with their children. It often seems easier to do
something for the child, instead of patiently waiting for the child to
do what is required. What is age-appropriate child obedience?
Parents often do not agree on this, even within the same family. I think
I was fortunate because I was the eldest child ---- my parents were much more
forgiving of my slow learning than they were with my younger brother. My
parents were not what popular literature today calls "helicopter"
parents, hovering over their children. But, they learned from experience
and nurtured the long-term goal of developing in each of us as much
self-reliance as we were able to handle.
At Central Presbyterian Church, we try to help relieve
poverty by doing more than simply giving donations to poor folks.
In the spirit of trying to "teach the poor to fish," we often look
for partners with the skills and programs that teach these "fishing"
lessons. Then we work with the partner by contributing to their financial
resources. For example, in 2014 we contributed from our Lena Willis Bequest to
a not-for-profit organization in Morristown named Homeless Solutions,
Inc.(HSI). Our 2014 grant of $12,500 was to help them continue their good
work of helping their "guests" rebuild their lives and successfully
return to independent living.
Homeless Solutions, Inc. provides emergency shelter and transitional
housing in Morristown for the homeless and working poor of that
community. They have been helping those in need for over 30 years, and in
2014 served 378 people. But, importantly, HSI provides much more than
just shelter!
One of the features of their work is the Family Shelter
Program for women and their children, providing case management, independent
living skills training, parenting education, counseling, linkages to medical
care, child care, and transportation. Over 50% of those entering the
shelter are victims of domestic violence. Approximately 25 to 30
families, including over 50 children and 20 single women are served each year.
HSI also has a single men's program, providing shelter for
as many as 25 homeless men at one time, with about 100 men served
annually. The Men's Shelter Program provides case management services,
including money management training, and assists with benefit enrollment, plus
placement in permanent housing.
Yet another way that HSI "teaches people to fish,"
is the Transitional Housing Program. The purpose of this program is to
support and train families who are making the move to independence. In
order to eradicate the underlying issues associated with recurring
homelessness, structured supervision is provided to foster
self-sufficiency. The participants are housed in ten self-contained
apartments.
So, what's the answer? Is the writing of a check
($12,500 in the case of HSI) the best way to help the poor? CPC finds a
way to do more than just write a check. Without CPC's gift, and the
financial gifts of many others, the folks in Morristown's HSI programs would not
be "learning to fish". HSI would not be able to claim "A
hand up - not a hand out." Many lives would be
stuck in dependency.
But CPC itself alone, cannot do the on-going, face-to-face
work undertaken by HSI. And HSI does not have the financial resources to
undertake their programs alone. Working together, however, CPC and HSI can make
a long-term difference in the lives of many people. We would not
accomplish this if we merely handed our gifts of money directly to the poor.
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These thoughts are brought to you by CPC's Adult
Spiritual Development Team, hoping to encourage you to pursue some personal
spiritual growth this winter at CPC.
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