Every day on campus I’m approached by panhandlers looking for spare change — a quarter here, a dollar there. Most of the time I stick my hands in my pockets and do a quick search, but I usually don’t come up with anything besides pocket lint.
I say, “Sorry I don’t have any,” and walk on by. Then I feel guilty for the next block. What if they really needed medicine? Or food?
As recently as December, Oregon was leading the nation with an unemployment rate of 7.2 percent; the national average was 5.7 percent for the same month, according to the United States Department of Labor. High unemployment rates lead to a drop in consumer purchasing, including purchasing of food.
Not long ago, I decided that I would give change to everyone who asked. I carried around a couple of dollars in change in my pockets and doled out dimes and nickels whenever approached. Then one day when I was walking to the grocery store to buy rice and beans for the week, an older man who very much looked like he had been sleeping in a gutter asked me for change. As I repositioned my bag to reach in my pocket, he made the comment that a buddy of his had just “scored some really dank green buds.” I suddenly didn’t have any money.
I don’t have anything against pot, but I’m not going to give anybody part of my food money to go buy a sack; and to think, I thought he was hungry.
After that, I had a harder time giving away change. I switched to food, because I thought it was more direct and a better use of resources.
According to the Oregon Food Bank, in 2003 the number of people who relied on emergency food banks to put food on the table increased for the seventh straight year. The OFB provided an estimated 780,000 people in Oregon and Southwest Washington with emergency food boxes between July 2002 and June 2003.
Oregon soup kitchens and emergency shelters also provided 4.4 million emergency meals to people in need.
I gave away probably 15 peanut butter sandwiches over the course of a month. I just carried an extra one with me in my lunch, but then I had a woman ask me for change and when I offered her a sandwich she just sneered and said, “I don’t want your leftovers.”
According to the Oregon Center for Public Policy, Oregon’s high hunger rate stems from four main conditions. Housing costs have soared while wages have remained static, the gap between rich and poor families grew four times faster in Oregon than elsewhere in the nation during the last decade, there are fewer family-wage industrial jobs and more low-wage service jobs in Oregon than ever before and seasonal employment is on the rise.
I can’t do anything about any of these problems, and I’ve already tried giving away change and sandwiches. I want to do something, but I’m running out of ideas.