I gave money to a homeless man today.
He was not more derelict, or dirty, or impoverished looking, than others. He had no attractive wares to sell, was not actively calling for money, and did not have a starving pet with him.
He was sitting in a doorway midway up the street, wrapped in a surprisingly clean looking doona. Before him, the vessel that invited the generosity of passers-by: a used plastic coffee-cup.
The city is full of similar images of poverty and despair. Men and women of all ages, wrapped in whatever scraps they can find to keep out the biting wind, with hollow objects sitting on the ground in front of them, signals of their desperation for any spare change that might be offered.
Often, these people are ignored; they are the symptoms of a problem that no one really wants to confront in the course of their day. So, invisible, the beggars remain in their niches and crevices, holding out for change.
The man I saw was no different in this respect. Except that, rather than simply walking past, I decided to stop this time.
Something in his expression caught me. Our eyes met, and I recognised the usual emotions of despair and resignation. But there was something else too. Something like hope, not just for the possibility of some spare coins, but also more generally. He had his face turned into the wind, looking back into the CBD, and his expression was completely calm.
I stepped up and deposited my offering in his cup. I mumbled a hello, and his response was raspy and parched, but grateful.
I don’t know anything about this poor man, other than that he happened to be the beggar I passed in that doorway that afternoon. Perhaps I imagined the emotions I read in that expression. Certainly his position is not unique; homeless people all over the city must feel the same as this man. But I like to think that the change I spared him may have genuinely helped him to have a more comfortable night, and perhaps add a spark to the hope that seemed to burn behind those accepting eyes.
networding 