#9 Street Coin #1.

Several people have suggested that I hand out gift cards to my friends on the street instead of cash. So I decided to buy ten $10 gift cards from the Food Co-op.^⁠1 I thought of getting $5 cards but you can’t even get a bag of chips and salsa for $5.

First, I checked with Max to see if he thought the idea was stupid. Max works at the Co-op, is probably in his 30s, has a man bun that defies gravity, and calls me “brother.”

Anyone who calls you “brother” when you’re 70 is a relationship worth cultivating.

I told Max what I was thinking of doing and that I wondered whether people would just sell the $10 Co-op gift cards for $8 cash so they could buy what they really wanted. Max said, of course they will.

He added that they will also come in and buy something and then try to return it for cash. Or buy something they think they can sell for more on the street.

In other words, there are all kinds of ways to use a $10 gift card from the Co-op to buy something other than tofu. Hell, I wouldn’t buy tofu if someone gave me a $10 Co-op gift card.

With all those caveats, I asked Max if he still thought it was a good idea. He said, sure it is. We do what we can do. He added that he went to high school with some of the people he sees on the street.

So much for the accusation that most of them are out-of-towners who come here to take advantage of our allegedly-excessive soft-hearted liberalism.

Is caring about people too “woke”?

So, I got my ten $10 gift cards and carried them around for a couple of days. For some reason I felt a little strange handing them out. Like maybe I was one of those soft-hearted liberals. (Is caring about people too “woke”?)

Then I had to go to Staples and there was a guy standing at the entrance to the shopping plaza. There are often people standing at shopping plaza entrances these days. In the city, they offer to do your windshield. Here they just stand with their cardboard signs and, if you give them a few bucks, they say God Bless. Which seems like a fair trade.

It does feel a bit like entrapment when you’re stopped waiting for the light and they are standing right there, but that’s our problem not theirs.

After I parked, I went over and asked the guy if he ever goes downtown to the Co-op, and he said yeah so I gave him a gift card. Which indeed got me an appreciative nod and a God Bless. But first I asked his name (which I can’t remember) and why he was out there. It was a pretty “run-of-the-mill” homeless story, if there is such a thing. Drive drunk. Lose license. Lose job. Lose girlfriend. Lose housing.

The fact that this story is all-too-common doesn’t make it any less harsh for those living it.

Somewhat ennobled by that “success,” I handed out gift cards to Isaiah, Melissa, two travelers who were hanging out by the Co-op, and a few other people. [There are several more stories in there for another time…]

I didn’t bother giving one to Melvin. He wouldn’t shop at the Co-op if you paid him. Especially if you paid him with a gift card.

Yesterday, I gave one to Patty. She’s one of those people who seems so down and out I have to make a real conscious effort not to walk on the other side of the street when I see her. But, someone had just given me some $5s “for my friends” so I walked right over to her and asked if she’d like $5 cash or a $10 gift card to the Co-Op. (Talk about entrapment…) She immediately answered she’d prefer the $5. So I’m thinking to myself, great, it is all about drugs, when she said, “‘Cause they have those amazing chocolate croissants across the street.” She thanked me for the $5, looked both ways, crossed the street, and went in the bakery.^⁠2

¹ With money, in part, from subscriptions paid for after these essays.

² I make her story sound sort of sweet as I did when I wrote about Stevie and the cupcake a couple of weeks ago. Actually, from what I gather, opioids can stimulate insulin release which means the urgency of people who use opioids to get cupcakes and chocolate croissants in the morning is probably due to severe hypoglycemia. Like I’ve said: It’s complicated. Very complicated.

Note: All names are pseudonyms except Melvin and Max.

Correction!

I have a confession to make. I’ve been writing a documentary about Henry David Thoreau and been shocked how often he is either mis-quoted or quoted out of context. So, for that script I now rigorously check every quotation I use against his journal, essays, or books. It appears I’m not always that rigorous in “my own” writing. A few weeks ago, I ran a “quote” from him as a headline that said: “If you give money abandon yourself with it.”

I guess it was wishful thinking. The full quote is, “If you give money, spend yourself with it, and do not merely abandon it to them.” The misquote is actually my approach to the issue. Henry’s take is pretty much the opposite. 

Thoreau was a penny pincher who even pinched most of the pennies he gave away. However, he thought deeply about philanthropy in all forms. If you’re looking for an articulate and well-reasoned statement of why, like him, you should care what happens to the money you give (instead of abandoning it), the full passage is towards the end of "Economy," the first chapter of Walden. Sorry, Henry.