Sheila and I tend to see quite a few people asking for money, sometimes on the subway, sometimes on street corners, and sometimes outside stores. We realize that some of them are addicts of some sort. So, when we give them money we may be enabling their addiction. We also realize that we can’t help all of those asking or we’ll soon run out of money. Here’s our current solution, subject to change. I put $1 in my pocket every day. We generally give it to the first asking-for-money person we see, unless they’re menacing, which some of them are. We withhold judgement on addiction. Hopefully, our dollar can get them help when they’re ready for it, or at least help them temporarily. Addicts need food as well. That limits our budget to $365 for the year for those on the street asking for money. We’ll continue to evaluate.
Speaking of addictions, we watched one man roll up his weed, and place it neatly in his blunt? so that he would be ready as soon as he got off the train to light up. We usually smell the weed smoke once every other day while walking on the street (maybe more often? we’re getting used to it–Sheila still worries we might get high from the second-hand smoke :-). I think it’s tragic. So many more people are harmed by marijuana use than are helped by it.
Speaking of the subway, some of the old architecture in the subway looks nice:
