Homeless man scared me

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Steelhart

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Today I was taking my girlfriend into a restaurant and on the way to the door a man walks past us with a look of complete desperation and was somewhat shaking and acting like he was trying to speak but couldn’t form the words. He had this look of despair and freaking out on him and he started to cry and shout at the same time, can I help him with some… stuttered change or something. We were alone on the sidewalk and he really frightened us so I said sorry and went inside.
I was genuinely worried about the guy and told the staff what happened and some workers went outside and we were ushered to our seats.
The staff shortly came by and said it had been a homeless man and he said he would leave if they didn’t call the police.

I feel utter guilt. I see his face right now and I hurt like I feel his agony and I’m up at 3:30am -upset and don’t know what to think. Why is this haunting me? I wanted to help the man but it just wasn’t safe as where we were and him acting like he did.

Any advise. Please.😦
 
As hard as it may be, I think you did the right thing in getting yourselves away from the situation. Unfortunately, many of our nations homeless are mentally ill & off medication. There was a big push in the 70’s to close mental hospitals (for humane reasons ;)) and treat people as outpatients. It didnt work out that way & many ended up on the streets. Not all homeless are mentally ill & not all mentally ill are violent, but some are. As much as we want to help, there really wasnt anything you could do for him. He wasnt being coherent & you couldnt ascertain what he wanted. Sometimes the local police have more of a relationship with some homeless & could do a better job understanding him.
The only reason I am answering this is to tell you not to doubt that you did the right thing in thinking of your safety. I had a friend who was brutally murdered in 1997, by a homeless schizophrenic she was trying to help. She thought he was harmless & let him use her address. He met a woman who convinced him to go off his meds. She then convinced him my friend was stealing from him & they confronted her. Since she had not stolen & he was incoherent off his meds & she was cornered, she couldnt get through to him.She fought hard but she was no match for a mentally ill man off his meds & she was stabbed to death, in her home.
She wanted to help him because she saw him as a child of God, and he is, we all are. However, to me, her case shows that sometimes we have to leave things up to the experts. I wish I could say this was my only negative experience with the mentally ill & homeless but it is not. As much as I desire to help, safety is a major issue for one on one contact. I hope you get peace for yourself with regards to this.
 
Steelhart said:
I wanted to help the man but it just wasn’t safe as where we were and him acting like he did.
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In case this helps:


  1. *]Put yourself in his position.
    *]Now think about this: would you bother people on their way into a restaurant to beg for change, or would you go someplace where you KNOW you will get the help you need?

    Be reasonable, now. Do you really think he was in some kind of dire emergency that prevented him from doing exactly that? Are you going to come up with a contrived excuse as to why he was there and not taking care of himself?

    Compassion has nothing to do with it. I’ve had all sorts of people come up to me asking me to do for them what I have been accustomed to do for myself, and what I expect other people to do for themselves - usually to give them money. In fact, one day some guy came up to me asking for money so he could eat. I offered to get him food (it was downtown and there were places to get food literally all around us) and he said no. What do you make of that? Would *you *play that game with innocent people on the street?

    Anyhow, this whole homeless person asking for money issue has been debated forever, and the same examples and arguments and what-ifs always keep coming up over and over again. But I’ve noticed a pattern with people who give. (1) “Nice” people, usually the young, inexperienced, and naive, give money, and (2) when they do, it’s always out of guilt, and (3) the guilt is always labeled “compassion”. I know this through asking my own friends and acquaintances. Plus on top of that, I have also discussed this with people who actually used to be homeless beggars, conversations that a lot of people never have the opportunity to have. In general, they say they asked for handouts because it was easier than working, and they admitted that even though they could have worked, they just didn’t want to.

    I have come to the conclusion that it doesn’t matter whether you give money or not. But if guilt is your motivating factor - and if it is, you *know *it is - then I recommend always refusing.
 
If you could have you should have asked him to join you for something to eat or at least have given him some change, it doesn’t matter if he really needed anything or not, it was enough that he asked and you had something to give.

Jesus saith to him: If thou wilt be perfect, go sell what thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come follow me. Matthew 19:21

But when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, and the blind; Luke 14:13

For I was hungry, and you gave me to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave me to drink; I was a stranger, and you took me in:

Naked, and you covered me: sick, and you visited me: I was in prison, and you came to me. Then shall the just answer him, saying: Lord, when did we see thee hungry, and fed thee; thirsty, and gave thee drink? And when did we see thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and covered thee? Or when did we see thee sick or in prison, and came to thee? And the king answering, shall say to them: Amen I say to you, as long as you did it to one of these my least brethren, you did it to me. Matthew 25:35-40
 
Steelhart said:
Today I was taking my girlfriend into a restaurant and on the way to the door a man walks past us with a look of complete desperation and was somewhat shaking and acting like he was trying to speak but couldn’t form the words. He had this look of despair and freaking out on him and he started to cry and shout at the same time, can I help him with some… stuttered change or something. We were alone on the sidewalk and he really frightened us so I said sorry and went inside.
I was genuinely worried about the guy and told the staff what happened and some workers went outside and we were ushered to our seats.
The staff shortly came by and said it had been a homeless man and he said he would leave if they didn’t call the police.

I feel utter guilt. I see his face right now and I hurt like I feel his agony and I’m up at 3:30am -upset and don’t know what to think. Why is this haunting me? I wanted to help the man but it just wasn’t safe as where we were and him acting like he did.

Any advise. Please.😦
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Bless your heart. That brought tears.It is what it is and praying for him is all you can do. Lift him up to the Lord and all the desperate souls of the world. Perhaps you missed an opportunity to be charitable to him in offering him money or asking him what you can do for him; but being scared like you were you did the only thing you could in protection of yourself and your friend.
 
It is important not to stereotype how or why a person became homeless. Yes, under President Reagan, the mental hospitals were closed and no alternatives provided. In today’s reality, the average homeless person is 9 years old. Many families are one paycheck away from homelessness.
This incident was a confrontation of an uncomfortable truth. “There but for fortune go you or I.”
In the lives of the saints, you will read of those called to embrace Christ disguised as a leper. Can you love as Christ loved?
I do not advocate giving money. If the person does have an addiction, you do not want to enable the addiction. On the other hand, you can learn about community programs, ways of providing the “hand up” that will help the less fortunate overcome their circumstances.
Ask God what He would have you learn from the incident and how He would have you provide “for the least of my brothers.”
 
DebChris said:
It is important not to stereotype how or why a person became homeless. Yes, under President Reagan, the mental hospitals were closed and no alternatives provided.
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No. The media likes to focus upon homelessness whenever there’s a Republican President and ignore the problem whenever there’s a Democratic President, but the problem of homelessness predates Reagan’s presidency.

As governor of California, Gov. Reagan closed the antiquated mental hospitals in his State, but the Democratic legislature didn’t fund the needed half-way houses and clinics.

.
 
I lived in CA during the late 1970s when homelessness was rare.
Today it is a growing problem. Not everybody who is homeless is mentally ill nor does he/she necessarily have a substance abuse problem.
Giving money to the individual is not necessarily the most loving thing to do. There are programs, such as Urban Ministry and the Interfaith Hospitality Network, in place that empower the individual to overcome the circumstances of his/her life.
Malachi House, which helps former addicts, runs a Car Wash and Delancey Street moves household goods.
St. Vincent de Paul and Stephen Ministries provide household goods for families struggling to get back on their feet during economic hard times.
 
If you feel guilty that you didn’t help him, I suggest praying for him now. Prayer is also an act of charity 🙂 God bless.
 
The title of your thread contains an important word for me.
“Scared” You were scared, and under the circumstances had a perfect right to be. We don’t always function well, when we are frightened.
I would pray for this man, and I will pray that your soft heart gets some peace about this.
 
Prague said:
The title of your thread contains an important word for me.
“Scared” You were scared, and under the circumstances had a perfect right to be. We don’t always function well, when we are frightened.
I would pray for this man, and I will pray that your soft heart gets some peace about this.
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Perfect love casts out fear. That being said, one of your roles is protecting those you are with. You do want to listen to your instinct, to your “street smarts.” Until the time came, Jesus slipped away from those situations in which his life was in danger. This is a case in which you perceived danger, real or imagined.
I agree with Prague. Fear can paralyze, as can guilt. As most of us have stated, place the man and the situation you faced in prayer. Ask the Holy Spirit to guide your prayer and for guidance should you face a similar situation in the future.
Be at peace.
 
I don’t think it is an unreasonable reaction to be scared when a strange, incoherent man approaches you unexpectedly. And when one is frightened, the basic instinct is self-preservation, that is how we are made. It sometimes is hard to get beyond that fear; also there is such a thing as prudence.

A similar thing happened to me one Sat. afternoon while I was working in the church library. The library is in a building attached to the church, and open to the vestibule. I was alone there between the 4 and 6 PM Masses, and no one was immediately around. A rather dirty, disheveled man came into the library, and started to talk incoherently to me. I could not understand a word he said, and he was blocking the door. I was very polite to him, and tried to talk to him, but I sure was scared–I had never seen him before, and I didn’t know what he wanted. I know it wasn’t a book.
He wasn’t leaving, and all I could think of was how to get out of there. I did not want to scream or over-react because some people are unpredictable in their reactions to that, so I stood behind the table thinking I could throw a chair at him if he started coming after me. (At that point I would have screamed). Eventually he left, and I closed up the library as fast as I could and got out of there. I felt sorry for him, but not guilty about my reaction.

I don’t think you need to feel guilty. I think you acted with prudence. It is not the same thing as deliberately ignoring a fellow human being who needs help and whom you CAN help, but choose not to out of selfishness. It is not normal for people to approach strangers and start talking incoherently, and the normal reaction in such a situation is fear.

I reported this to the head of the library committee and decided then and there that I am not going to keep the library open until the next Mass when no one is around. When the place empties out, I leave.
 
Steelhart said:
Today I was taking my girlfriend into a restaurant and on the way to the door a man walks past us with a look of complete desperation and was somewhat shaking and acting like he was trying to speak but couldn’t form the words. He had this look of despair and freaking out on him and he started to cry and shout at the same time, can I help him with some… stuttered change or something. We were alone on the sidewalk and he really frightened us so I said sorry and went inside.
I was genuinely worried about the guy and told the staff what happened and some workers went outside and we were ushered to our seats.
The staff shortly came by and said it had been a homeless man and he said he would leave if they didn’t call the police.

I feel utter guilt. I see his face right now and I hurt like I feel his agony and I’m up at 3:30am -upset and don’t know what to think. Why is this haunting me? I wanted to help the man but it just wasn’t safe as where we were and him acting like he did.

Any advise. Please.😦
Click to expand...
You couldn’t really help this man that day…please don’t feel guilty. Some homeless on the streets in large cities are schizophrenic or have some other health issue that is not medicated. It can be unsafe to try to help some people yourself.

Pray for him, that is absolutely the best thing we can do.
 
Steelhart, don’t feel badly about your reaction. Mother Theresa said that many times the poor show us Jesus ‘in His most distressing guise.’ Handing that man money would not have helped him much, in all likliehood. The question is, what can you do now since God has shown you this man, and troubled your heart about your encounter with him?

Prayer, of course. That’s always #1. 🙂

Action: can you donate to a local charity that helps the homeless? Could you find time to volunteer to help the homeless? Could you organize people in your parish to collect needed items for a homeless shelter? There are many, many ways to help the poor and be the face of Christ to ‘the least of these.’ Take your angst and turn it into action!

Learn more about the problem of homelessness, and use what you learn to form your conscience. As others have said, homelessness is a complex problem with no easy solutions. What can you do, as an individual, and as a member of the Catholic community, to help end homelessness?

One more from Mother Theresa: a reporter, impressed by her work, once asked her, “What can I do to help you?” She said, “Go out and find one person who thinks that they are entirely alone in this world, and show them that they are not.”

Something to think about.
 
You had your girlfriend with you. Your first obligation was to insure her safety.
You did that, and that’s a good thing.

You alerted others to the situation, beyond that there isn’t much else you could have done.

I learned thru experience that when you’re dealing with other adults that they are in charge of their own lives and that they have to do for themselves, and they WILL, btw.
We can’t make a homeless person get help. Help is out there, if they choose to take advantage of it.

In my area a person can make three hundred dollars a day on the street. I know this because a friend’s son was in drug rehab and another person who was low on cash said that he was going to panhandle for few days and he shared that this was a lucrative business.

You could buy gift certs at McDonalds if you want to do something, but beyond that it’s
best to leave the situation to those who know how to handle it, namely, the police and the social workers.
 
but beyond that it’s
best to leave the situation to those who know how to handle it, namely, the police and the social workers.
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With respect, Jadestar, I disagree. As Catholics, we are called to help the poor, no matter why they are poor. Handing a homeless person money may not be the best thing to do for a lot of reasons, but helping those who are homeless/poor in general–through the works of mercy and charity–is a requirement of our faith. Again: I’m not saying you have to start handing out $5 bills, but doing something to help–prayer, support for groups who DO know what they are doing, raising funds or collecting necessities–those are ways we can all help. I would also add that understanding the situations that lead to homelessness is also a good thing to do as well.

Or at least, that’s how I see my faith in action. Perhaps others disagree? (Politely, I hope…🙂
 
Sometimes giving money directly to a homeless person is doing them a disservice (sometimes it isn’t). If they use the money to feed an addiction, you are hurting them. Giving a homeless teen (who might be a run away) will give them less reason to go back to their family or seek help and will keep them on the streets. Then there is also fraud (con artists who say they need money for whatever–usually gas and they are “just a few dollars short” etc.)

I generally offer to buy the person food if that’s what they are begging for and if it’s feasible (like there is a place nearby to buy food). But most times, I don’t even have money on myself and I just politely walk by (unless the specifically ask me and then I tell them, “I am sorry, I can’t” and walk away).

You can still help the poor by giving money to organizations that can best help. St. Vincent De Paul is a good charity. Or you can give to food banks, soup kitchens etc.

I look at it this way, the good Samaritan didn’t give the Israeli money, he gave the money to the Inn keeper to take care of him. Jesus used this as an example so therefore giving money to someone who will in turn help someone, is a good act.

As for the OP, you did the right thing. If you felt you were in danger (scared) leaving the scene is the best thing to do., If you feel guilt about it, talk to your priest or bring it up at confession and see what he recommends.
 
I’ve worked with the homeless. You can’t generalize about the homeless. Every one of them has a different story, a different history that led to their being out on the street.

As long as your intentions and your actions toward a homeless person are charitable, you are doing the right thing. For those who are mentally ill or who have substance abuse problems, you probably aren’t equipped to intervene with them. In other cases, there’s nothing wrong with giving someone some money. Sometimes it’s hard to tell what the case is. Just respond in charity and do the best you can. Often that means getting away and calling for those who are equipped to get the person to whatever help or service is the one they need. Police officers, believe it or not, tend to be very good at this. When you see the officers loading a homeless person into the back of a squad car, most of the time they are taking him or her to some place that can help, not to jail.

A very good priest I knew (he’s passed away now) used to say, “Some day a bum will walk up to you on the street and ask you for a quarter. It may be that the reason God put you on that street at that moment was to give that bum a quarter.”

When I worked downtown, I think all the panhandlers knew that I knew that story. 🙂
 
Michaeljc4 said:
With respect, Jadestar, I disagree. As Catholics, we are called to help the poor, no matter why they are poor. Handing a homeless person money may not be the best thing to do for a lot of reasons, but helping those who are homeless/poor in general–through the works of mercy and charity–is a requirement of our faith. Again: I’m not saying you have to start handing out $5 bills, but doing something to help–prayer, support for groups who DO know what they are doing, raising funds or collecting necessities–those are ways we can all help. I would also add that understanding the situations that lead to homelessness is also a good thing to do as well.

Or at least, that’s how I see my faith in action. Perhaps others disagree? (Politely, I hope…🙂
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In general I agree with you, but in this case the poster had his girlfriend with him, his first obligation was to protect her, not meet the needs of the homeless person.
 
Why don’t you all start another thread about whether or not you should give money to a homeless person; they all degenerate into not giving them money because they’ll spend it on drugs (as this one has). They want a quarter or half my sandwich they don’t want a lecture about how they are to spend your money if you give it to them; or where to go so’s you don’t have to see them, or run into them.
 
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