Oxford has a little bit of a homeless problem. I don't know if they consider it a "problem" or not, since there is a shelter nearby, but whenever you get asked for change a near-consistent three times a night, I consider it a problem. During the day they're usually asking if you want a copy of "The Big Issue," which, from what I understand, is a tabloid magazine that the homeless are encouraged to hawk on the street so they feel like they're "contributing to society." Of course, once the sun starts setting they'll circumvent the whole big issue thing and point-blank ask you if you've got any change.
My thing about the homeless is that I really don't like the "just walk by them and don't say anything" deal. I know I seem pretty cynical, but every cynic is a wounded romantic as they say, and the homeless is a weird soft spot I have. It used to be (say, from ages six to ten) that whenever I saw a homeless person I would spend the next ten minutes either crying or trying very hard not to cry. It's still hard for me to ignore them, and I still end up spending what would probably amount to a poundand a half a week on the occassional attack of conscience.
I know you're not supposed to give money to panhandlers. It's not even an issue really: even people who run the shelters say not to give money out to homeless people on the street. But it's hard for me, and it's especially hard when there's so fucking many of them. Even New York has somewhat curbed its homeless problem (how they did it I don't know, and maybe I don't really want to) to the point where, if you walk a good distance in the daytime, you may not get asked for change once. Sure, you might see the occassional guy with a shopping cart filled with cans, but the point is he's not bothering you (sorry for the levity at the expense of people who are truly suffering). Here, they're very aggressive. Sometimes threateningly so. One time an American (of all the people) touched my shoulder as I was walking and asked, in an oddly articulate but still very unctuous and creepy way, "I'm very sorry young sir, but would you mind lending me a pound?" He had this shit-eating grin on his face, and was very well-dressed for someone asking for change. It looked like he might have been some lawyer who got fired from his job and was kicked out of his house, and he'd burned so many bridges that he just had no where to go and nothing to protect him from the cold except this really nice pea-coat he'd gotten from the Gap.
I write all this because I saw today what was the apex of sadness. There was a homeless man walking with a few copies of the Big Issue in his hand, and only a few feet behind him, following him dutifully, was a German shephard in a torn-up little doggie sweater. I noticed almost immediately that the dog had only three legs, and that one of the sweater sleeves was entirely empty. How do you just walk by something like that?
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