You may think that asking for help is easy for homeless people. You see them out there flying signs and asking for money, accepting water and food. But believe me the pain and shame and hard work of standing out and asking for things overcomes any comfort that might come from asking for real help.
What do I mean by real help?
I mean finding a caseworker. Being able to know where to turn in Nashville to ask for help with shelter, doctor visits, dental work and other things that most of us take for granted.
When I was homeless, I didn’t know where to turn. It was another person who had been homeless who helped me out, not a regular housed person. So I’m speaking to both the housed and the unhoused when I say: please research how to be of most help.
Many homeless people are arrested for the first time because they are homeless. Criminal trespassing in a car while sleeping, having one’s car impounded, and then being put in jail creates a criminal record which then follows that person around and makes it even harder to find stable housing, work, and general help.
Once a person has had above a class E felony, they cannot get food stamps. This can be corrected over time, but it requires the help of a parole officer or a social worker. This is a general rule that was meant for people who were abusing the food stamp system, but unfortunately, it falls on ex-cons as well.
Black homeless folk are especially prone to being harassed by police, questioned and given charges that they must then go to court for.
Just the effort and the presence of mind that it takes to get to someplace like the Contributor or to a social worker and ask for help can be daunting to a person who is getting by on almost no sleep and must look for water and food each day.
Although a person who you have been passing water, food and money to might not be asking you for additional help, consider whether you are willing to ask them if they would accept housing if it was offered. Make contact with one of the organizations that helps people get housed and see if you can put the two together in a meeting.
After all, inviting a homeless person into your car to take them to a place that can actually help them would be the same as in ancient times inviting a stranger into your home to break bread.