What do you do when the same 8 people ask you for money every single day?

This is the situation I face working in Harvard Square. Like every city in the United States these days, Cambridge and Boston have a lot of people who've gotten so desperate for the necessities of life that they've abandoned all their pride to ask total strangers for money. Someone told me that this is the worst thing he ever had to do.

There are a lot of issues with hunger and homelessness, including the lack of funds from the government to house every person in the country, the culture of independence and "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps," the best solution to the problem, and how I feel about it myself, that I can't go into in a short format that is the blog. In the context of the subject of this blog, though, let's add up the cash:

If I gave one dollar (which isn't a lot, by the way) to every person who asked me for money every day I work in Harvard Sq: $6-10 per day (let's average at $8)

I work approximately 230 days per year: $1,840.

If I spent my money this way, I would not-even-close support 8 people for a year, and only on the days that I work (what a priviledge it seems like now!).

If I donated all that money to Project Bread, a MA-based hunger relief organization, I could

• supply an emergency food program with more than 6,000 pounds of food
• allow a community health center to provide immediate food assistance to 20 hungry families
• permit a food pantry to give a week’s supply of groceries to 10 families in need
• ensure that 20 families receive a hot, nutritious dinner at a weekly supper program

according to their website.

That would be amazing.

But, I would still have to walk past those eight people every day and say no to their faces. That's probably one of the most difficult things I have to do.

So what to do? For me, everything in moderation. Although I feel like a big jerk about it, I only give to people who ask when it's convenient to me, when I'm in a good mood, and when I have a dollar bill (vs. a twenty dollar bill) on me.

And a few times I year, I give bigger donations to Project Bread and Oxfam America and then feel great about myself for like a day.

Then, I have to say "sorry, no" the next morning, and I'm back at the beginning.