What is Poverty? William Stringfellow Answers...

William Stringfellow - lawyer, activist, lecturer and Episcopal lay theologian - moved to an apartment on 100th Street in Harlem in 1956 and set about the work of representing the residents of that depressed area of New York City. As he documented in his autobiography, My People is the Enemy, he made this move out of a sense of Christian duty to those among his fellow man who were suffering most, despite the numerous other opportunities he could have pursued in private practice or as part of a large firm.

During his time in Harlem, he was exposed to the severe poverty in which his friends, neighbors and clients were living, and which many today often choose to ignore - whether by averting their eyes and thus not seeing, or by contributing money and calling it a day, rather than rolling up their sleeves and jumping right in. Forty-four years have passed, but the circumstances which Stringfellow witnessed first-hand are as present today as ever.

And what is poverty? I think Stringfellow's summary answers that question beautifully - not in terms of the imagery, but in his writing style. As you read, I want you to ponder the poverty in your own neighborhood, town or city, and reflect on what you have done lately to help. What you see here isn't confined just to Harlem, or Mobile, or Washington, D.C. - it's anyplace where we really take the time to look and see.

"Poverty is a widow on welfare whose landlord cuts the heat, knowing that the winter will end before a complaint is processed. Poverty is a drug addict who steals from his own family or pawns the jacket off his back to get another 'fix.' Poverty is being evicted from a housing project because the project manager determines that the family is 'undesirable.' Poverty is a Puerto Rican shopkeeper whose store is stoned when he tries to relocate south of the 96th Street boundary of East Harlem. Poverty is an adolescent with a tested I.Q. of 130 who cannot read or write the English language well enough to get other than the most menial jobs. Poverty is the pay-off to a building inspector not to report violations of the building code. Poverty is a young couple who marry because that is the only way to get out of the tenements and into a project, and whose marriage fails, and who have neither the grounds for a divorce in New York nor the price for a divorce in another jurisdiction. Poverty is being awakened in the middle of the night by a welfare investigator who demands to search your apartment to be sure you are not cheating the taxpayers. Poverty is the incapacity to complain against the landlord because you can't afford to take a day off from your job or from minding the family to go to court. Poverty is a kid who wants to be adopted to escape from the slums but whom no one wants. Poverty is a boy whose father has thrown him out, a boy who needs a place to stay. Poverty is living in darkness after the electric current has been turned off as a fire hazard, and waiting for six or seven days until someone is sent to repair the obsolete wiring.

"Poverty is the enormous burden of waiting - waiting for hours for a doctor to examine a sick child at the hospital clinic, waiting for an interview with a social worker, waiting at the employment office, waiting in line for what the government ironically calls 'surplus' food, wiating for everything, everywhere you go.

"Poverty is the vulnerability to death in its crudest forms. Poverty is the relentless daily attrition of contending with the most primitive concerns of human existence: food and cleanliness and clothes and heat and housing and rest and play and work."

Are We Priests, Levites or Samaritans: A Parable in Modern Times

Even at my age, I am still surprised by how one line in a political statement could lead to a debate that evolves in my mind into a theological reflection.

During his introduction of Jack Lew as the next director of the Office of Management and Budget, President Obama made the comment (and I am paraphrasing) that members of both parties are in agreement that we do not want to endure another financial crisis the same as the one that we just went through. Naturally, that jumped out at me – with his choice of words (or those of his speechwriter, I should say), we were in essence being told that the financial crisis was over.

But is it? Unemployment is still at 9.5%. Millions of Americans are still out of work, with a significant number of that group losing their unemployment benefits due to the 99-week maximum having been reached. A report I read today said that for every one job opening in this country there are five potential applicants. And the Senate, locked in its ongoing struggle over extending benefits while trying to find a way to pay for them without increasing our national debt, has not taken any action.

Does that seem like the end of the financial crisis? The banks and lending institutions may be in better shape, and the stock market may be on the rebound, but that means nothing to the 50-year-old husband and father who has been out of work for two years and cannot find a job, or the single parent whose company downsized and left them uncertain about how they will support their children.

A friend of mine – someone I respect a great deal – questioned whether 99 weeks isn’t long enough. If it isn’t, he wondered, how many years are enough?

Immediately, my mind turned to the traveler on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho – the subject of Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10. And I began to wonder: are we a nation of priests, a nation of Levites, or a nation of Samaritans?

I understand very well how much money the government spends each year in supporting unemployed men and women throughout the United States – those who are looking for work, those who have given up, and those who never intended to look to begin with. I understand the need for fiscal restraint and the importance of getting our national books back in balance.

More than that, though, I understand what in mind is a moral obligation to be the friend of those who need help – the Samaritan to the man who was beaten and robbed. If Congress does not extend the benefits, how will we react in the face of situation which will become even worse? Community organizations, relief agencies, and churches can only do so much.

Assuming benefits are not extended, millions more families may become homeless. The roll of those seeking help with increase dramatically. The suffering experienced by so many in this country – the stress, the depression, the uncertainty, the hopelessness – will be compounded more than we can imagine.

What will we do?

Will we be a nation of priests, who come upon the scene and move to the other side of the road to avoid what we find? Will we be a nation of Levites who react in the exact same manner?

Or will we be a nation of Samaritans who stop, offer aid, bandage their wounds, take them to safety, and see things through to the end?

Confronted by Poverty

There's the man who walks up and down the median in front of my office every day with an empty McDonald's cup that he extends to every driver who passes by.

There's the man who stands in the median in front of the Bureau of Printing and Engraving selling copies of the Washington Post, obviously in need of the money that brings him.

There's the lady who sits in the front-door overhang of the office building a block away from mine, with a shopping cart containing everything she owns.

And there's the often-drunk man who approached me in McDonald's recently, asking if I could find him a job and telling me that he used to have a job at the World Bank.

I see these people often -- not all in the same day, every day, but often enough to know that they're there. And I'm torn about not helping them. A. and I give as much as we can -- to our church, to one of the D.C.-area kitchens, to a little girl we're supporting in Honduras. But what about these folks I see every day, the ones I turn my head to avoid as I pass by; what do I do?

Admittedly, I hold a great degree of cynicism about what these folks would do if I gave them money. I suppose it's a lingering feeling from when I lived in south Alabama, and was approached one evening in downtown Mobile by a man who said he and his friend had just gotten off work at the state docks, that his truck wouldn't start, and that he needed a few bucks to get home. Without thought, I gave him some money; after all, I could see the man's truck and his friend just on the other side of the square. The very next night, the same man approached me with the same story. It wasn't until I asked him if he was still having problems getting home from the day before that he realized who I was -- and I realized I had been duped.

There are the stories I've heard from friends of mine who have been approached by people asking for money, and who instead off to buy them a meal -- only to find the man or woman who has approached them gets mad and starts yelling at them, saying that they hadn't asked for a meal.

What am I supposed to do? How can I possibly figure out the difference between those legitimately battling poverty and those just looking to hustle a few bucks from passersby?

All of this got me to thinking about povery in general, and I remembered this (somewhat lengthy) passage that I read in William Stringfellow's My People is the Enemy:

Poverty was my very first client in Harlem - a father whose child died from being attacked by a rat. Poverty is a widow on welfare whose landlord cuts the heat, knowing that the winter will end before a complaint is processed. Poverty is a drug addict who steals from his own family or pawns the jacket off his back to get another "fix." Poverty is being evicted from a housing project because the project manager determines that the family is "undesirable." Poverty is a Puerto Rican shopkeeper whose store is stoned when he tries to relocate south of the 96th Street boundary of East Harlem. Poverty is an adolescent with a tested I.Q. of 130 who cannot read or write the English language well enough to get other than the most menial jobs. Poverty is the pay-off to a building inspector not to report violations of the building code. Poverty is a young couple who marry because that is the only way to get out of the tenements and into a project, and whose marriage fails, and who have neither the grounds for a divorce in New York nor the price for a divorce in another jurisdiction. Poverty is being awakened in the midle of the night by a welfare investigator who demands to search your apartment to be sure you are not cheating the taxpayers. Poverty is the incapacity to complain against the landlord because you can't afford to take a day off from your job or from minding the family to go to court. Poverty is a kid who wants to be adopted to escape from the slums but whom no one wants. Poverty is a boy whose father has thrown him out, a boy who needs a place to stay. Poverty is living in darkness after the electric current has been turned off as a fire hazard, and waiting for six or seven days until someone is sent to repair the obsolete wiring.

Poverty is the enormous burden of waiting - waiting for hours for a doctor to examine a sick child at the hospital clinic, waiting for an interview with a social worker, waiting at the employment office, waiting in line for what the government ironically calls "surplus" food, waiting for everything, everywhere you go.

Poverty is vulnerability to death in its crudest forms. Poverty is the relentless daily attrition of contending with the most primitive concerns of human existence: food and cleanliness and clothes and heat and housing and rest and play and work.

It's a beautiful passage, and a difficult passage; Stringfellow has so eloquently put a face to the different types of poverty that so many people are battling. But having a face put on the problem -- and seeing the faces every day -- what should we do? Do we give money to everyone every time they ask, not knowing or concerning ourselves about which is the mother trying to feed her children and which is the person looking to buy a six-pack of beer? Do we give money to no one, instead sending assistance directly to the shelters and food banks and churches?

What do you do?