Beware of False Friends
From the moment a person becomes homeless, trusting others becomes extremely difficult to do. The vulnerability of being homeless leaves a person in a state of constant distrust of everything and everybody. Whenever assistance is offered, it has to be accepted with a certain amount of hesitation. Sometimes the assistance is not really assistance but a trap or perhaps a sick joke meant to humiliate the homeless even further, something that happens often enough. Other times the assistance comes with conditions that are more than suspect. Still other times the assistance is so ill directed as to do more harm than good. It is for that reason that the homeless have to be on guard all the time against false friends, as they seem to be everywhere.
It is not inaccurate to say that true friendships are a rarity in the homeless world. Friendships require a certain level of security in order to thrive, and that security is conspicuously absent among the homeless. When people are fighting for their very survival, friendships are often a commodity that is unaffordable, one that gets discarded when needs become too great. False friendships, on the other hand, are a dime a dozen in any society. It is only that among the homeless, desperation often makes these false friendships look very attractive, too attractive for comfort.
These friendships may manifest themselves in the form of persons who are willing to offer help in exchange for sexual favors or for the social benefits a homeless person may receive. Food and drink may be offered that are laced with drugs, poison, or other substances intended to cause harm. All these bogus do-gooders manage to do these nefarious deeds without getting caught; were anyone to try to file a police report, it would be one homeless person’s word against the word of someone who was allegedly trying to do a kindness, and who would be believed in the end?
Organized charities themselves are sometimes less than blameless in terms of the way they administer their help. Charities are, after all, organizations run by human beings with human failings; it is quite possible for a group to do wrong just as one person would do wrong. The homeless cannot necessarily let their guard down just because a charitable organization sponsors assistance.
Before you accept help from someone, stop and consider the implications of your actions. Trusting the occasional Good Samaritan who comes along has considerable risks that cannot be ignored. Is the person truly to be trusted or is the person just another false friend? The risk is entirely yours; you have been duly warned.
Yes, my words sound very cynical. Cynicism goes with the territory once a person becomes homeless. Altruism is a word in a dictionary that has no practical meaning when it comes to homelessness. Referring to the proverb that says that a pessimist is an optimist with experience, I can state that bitterest experience has taught me that when it comes to friendships among the homeless, more often than most, alliances prove to be too costly to sustain for very long.
posted by MasterWriter at 12:58 p.m.
1 Comments:
Well said, Masterwriter. People who have never been homeless have certain "beliefs" about why "other" people become homeless. Mental illness, drug addiction, alcoholism top the list of homeless person attributes.And if you don't fit into any of those categories, the agencies entrusted with the funding to "help" you are lost. As they say--the road to hell is paved with good intentions. I became homeless after I was brutishly fired from my job for bringing in a doctor's note explaining why I needed a reasonable accomodation for a physical health condition.I could barely keep up with the bills and rent when I was working, so of course when I lost my income, I had to leave my apartment. The people who actually helped me-- a handful of social justice advocates, Teamsters who were walking a picket line and had little income themselves, and a single mother on welfare, and my son. The social service agencies did nada. I was offered $10 a month in food stamps, still have a $1,000 plus emergency room bill because I couldn't afford to keep my health insurance under Cobra.After 9 months I finally found a job and it took another 8 months to find an apartment I could afford on that income, save up the deposit, etc. In the four years at that job, I literally starved sometimes, going for two weeks eating nothing but rice. rice and ketchup, rice and soy sauce, rice and vegetables grown on my porch... A couple of months after I moved into my apartment after being homeless for 17 months, I had to write a pro se appellate brief for the lawsuit I filed against the employer that fired me and made me homeless.I wrote this sitting on the floor because I still had no furniture. There is absolutely nothing wrong with my work ethic, but people who work need to be paid. Enough to live on, enough to live with some dignity, enough to eat, to visit a dentist, enough to save a little, so they won't be one paycheck away from the street. There is something morally wrong when work doesn't pay. And forcing homeless people to read the Bible, as one "shelter" in Tampa, FL would do is not going to fix this.
Peace--Cris
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