Julius Nyerere once said (paraphrase), “Just because a man is poor does not mean he will not exploit his fellow man; he just lacks the means to do so…” We might add that just because someone seeks to provide charity to other human beings does not mean they recognize their humanity.
There have been countless stories written by authors about growing up in poverty. In addition to speaking to life in the margins, many spoke of how their parents were treated by those in authority when assistance was sought. Who does not know of the welfare worker who looks in disdain toward a single mother who sits before her seeking financial assistance? Who can remember tales of a father who is tossed the leftovers from his employer so he might “take home something nice” for his own table?
There have always been breadlines, but why must there be? Poverty is a man-made sociopolitical economic condition. Those deemed “poor” are often ignored, blamed, or stripped of their self-respect and dignity in order to receive the help they need.
People seeking to put food on their tables are often made to stand in similar long lines, rain, sleet, heat, or snow when a caring worker might allow them shelter from the elements or seating inside. At a national Rainbow/PUSH Convention at a downtown hotel, a homeless man sauntered into a grand ballroom and took an empty seat at a table where the tickets were upwards of $150. As volunteers rushed into a meeting Rev. Jackson was having with staffers, one explained the reason for their interruption.
“Reverend, there’s a homeless man sitting at one of the tables,” a woman exexclaimed. “Should we get security to get him out of there? People are about to start coming in!”
Rev. Jackson, who had been reviewing his notes, glanced over his glasses and looked at the woman. After a sigh, he stated, “Leave him alone…”
“But…,” the woman started to protest. “He smells.”
“Leave him alone,” Rev. Jackson said firmly this time. “The man is hungry. Feed him. He smells because he has no place to bathe. Leave – him – alone.”
The civil and human rights champion had defended the poor many times before this incident. Having entered the ministry in his early 20s, having lived in poverty in South Carolina, and having worked for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., it is no wonder he took that position. Rev. Jackson did not take to the stage that fine night, as people in black-tie attire sat at tables to brag about what he had done or encourage TV cameras to shine bright lights upon that person. And no one else bothered the homeless man, who sat alone, ate his deluxe meal and enjoyed a free concert by Anita Baker, the guest performer on that night.
Years later, I would emulate my former boss. I had put together a listening tour for a high-profile client. The room was filled with movers and shakers. As I stood monitoring the event, someone tapped me on the shoulder to inform me that a “homeless man was standing by the food.” I turned to see a clearly disheveled, dirty person milling about but bothering no one. He looked toward me as I approached.
After asking the man for his name, I addressed him as “Mr. So and So” from then on. I asked if he was hungry and he replied in the affirmative. I explained that I would have to fix him something to eat because I couldn’t allow him to get it himself (due to obvious sanitary reasons). He understood and watched as I retrieved and then prepared several to-go containers for him. Before doing so, I asked “Mr. So and So” if he wanted this or that; I didn’t know if the man had dietary restrictions or not. I put everything in a bag, loaded it up with a few bottled beverages and told him to “please share if there’s somebody else out there who might also be hungry.”
The man’s eyes widened. He smiled as I handed him two large shopping bags full of food. Yes, I had given him more than he asked for, but if he was hungry, I figured he needed to eat a man’s portion. After thanking me profusely, the fellow started to leave, but he turned and looked at me. “Thank you for asking me my name,” he said softly. And thank you for asking me what I wanted.”
I do not know why, but just as it happened then, it does now with this retelling–tears welled into my eyes. I had not considered that this homeless person had been so stripped of his identity that he had become accustomed to people who had not even asked him his name.
No one is suggesting that the above anecdotal stories indicate that the poor should be hidden away and all charity should be done behind closed doors. What is being suggested instead is that care is given to the person in need and that safeguards and internal checks are to ensure these “acts of kindness” do not exploit or sensationalize someone’s hardship.
Fostering a sense of community and shared responsibility (a principle in Kwanzaa) is important and noteworthy. But shouldn’t we honor the inherent worth of every human being?
The great theologian Dr. Howard Thurman spoke of the disinherited. He called out the contradiction of the “church” and people of faith who have this double standard or competing thought when it comes to dealing with the poor. On the one hand, biblical scriptures are often used to suggest poverty as a virtue because “blessed are the poor.” On the other hand, he noted, he has heard people of “faith” suggest that people in poverty are in such a condition because they are “lazy, have low drive, low aim, done something wrong” and therefore are suffering “God’s divine judgement.”
Poor people are often stereotyped as full of disease, vice, addiction, and mental illness and the perpetrators of most crimes. Voluntary poverty, such as that taken by a Catholic priest or nun, is seen as noble and God-centered. Involuntary poverty is the fault of the one begging for work, for food, or for shelter.
An old public relations trick for businesses and nightclubs is to put a red carpet outside the venue’s door and form a line of patrons. People walking or driving past the scene would see the line and assume that whatever is going on in that place must be exciting, new, and worthy of waiting in line.
The same marketing trick is used by churches, organizations and advocacy groups. Long lines indicate need, which can aid in funding, donations, and volunteerism. The poor, infirmed and marginalized are often treated as props for those who seek to be rewarded and awarded for their acts of kindness and concern. But what of the individual, stripped of their identity and dignity? Have the poor ever been asked if they mind being photographed, put on the news and on local, national and sometimes global display?
Do you think many of them are proud to be featured in pranks and skits on social media, where “good Samaritans” roll up on them in cars and give them quizzes or choices to surprise them with food or money?
Somebody should take a poll. There are plenty of people to ask.
What About The Migrants
According to the Illinois Department of Human Services, in August 2024, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) provided food for 1.5 million Illinois households (nearly 2 million people). During this reporting period, more than 328,000 households received emergency food assistance, nearly 2,000 households needed emergency shelter, and 1,613 households sought the state’s homeless prevention services. In Chicago, more than 4,500 people seek city shelters at night, while many others opt to take their chances on the streets.
As of 2024, the federal poverty level (FPL) in the United States is $15,060 for a household of one person, $20,400 for a family of two, $25,555 for a household of three, and $31,200 for a family of four.
In 2023, about 11.9 percent of Illinois’ population lived below the poverty line. That means of roughly 13 million residents, some 1. 4 million of them struggle to make ends meet and/or must rely on public assistance, charity or underground economies to survive. This accounts for persons or families whose collective income in the preceding 12 months was below the national poverty level in the United States.
Food and housing insecurity is real—even for families with at least one working adult or teenager. The site of distressed individuals holding cardboard signs and tapping metal cups against a city sidewalk to attract donations is not uncommon. But the recent surge of undocumented immigrants and asylum seekers has added to the already distressing numbers.
“I’m hungry. Please help me and my children. I’m from Venezuela,” read the words of a cardboard sign neatly printed in black marker and held by a dark-browned skin woman standing in the intersection at 95th Street and Western. Two children played tag with each other on the sidewalk near a liquor store. A few people gave what they had before the light turned green.
“I thought they got all of this money,” my passenger said, only half-jokingly. I spent the next 15 minutes trying to break it all down. To no avail, a housing voucher, a hot cot, and three meals in some city shelter was “too much” when “there’s Black people out here begging and nobody cares,” my passenger said, and then added that “they are out here taking over buildings.” Taking over? What buildings? The person didn’t know–they’d heard about it on Instagram.
According to the government of Texas, their Gov. Greg Abbott has bused “over 12,500 migrants to Washington D.C. since April 2022; 37,100 to New York City; 30,800 to Chicago; 3,400 to Philadelphia; 15,700 to Denver; and 1,500 to Los Angeles, all of which promoted “sanctuary city” status. …Operation Lone Star continues to fill the dangerous gaps created by the Biden Administrations refusal to secure the border,” the state said in an official press statement which touted how many undocumented people Texas purposely shipped into the country’s interior.
A “sanctuary city” is a municipality that limits or denies cooperation with the federal government in enforcing immigration law. The effort started as a campaign by religious congregations that offered shelter and protection to refugees feeling political persecution and violence in Central America. In 1985, Mayor Harold Washington issued an emergency executive order prohibiting city employees from enforcing federal immigration laws in response to President Ronald Reagan’s backdoor attempt to federalize local government workers.
The conservative president, who had waged a relentless war against the Black Panthers when he was governor of California, wanted local government employees across the country to question a person’s legal status and/or nationality whenever they sought city services, a move which Washington felt overstepped his authority and would violate people’s human rights.
Chicago’s sanctuary status was not law, however. In 2006, Mayor Richard Daley and the Chicago City Council officially designated the city with its sanctuary status and reinforced protections. In 2016, Mayor Rahm Emanuel strengthened the city’s status after the newly elected President, Donald Trump signed an executive order to withhold federal aid. “You are safe in Chicago. You are secure in Chicago, and you are supported in Chicago,” the mayor said in November of that year. By ordinance, Chicago police and public agencies, including CHA, CPS, and the Chicago Park District, were prohibited from contacting immigration authorities on individuals suspected of being undocumented.
By early 2023, the steady wave of arrivals from Texas sent shockwaves through the city as people saw their local police district lobbies, fieldhouses, closed schools, and transportation hubs filled with poor men, women, and children, primarily from Venezuela and Haiti. A majority of migrants were placed in predominantly Black neighborhoods–most of which had a systemic problem with housing shortages, crime, homelessness, and a lack of mental health resources. When city officials, including previous Mayor Lori Lightfoot and current Mayor Brandon Johnson, sought to stabilize and offer aid to the new residents, understanding that they did not choose the Windy City, someone making a political point chose it for them.
Despite the politics, that did not stop a number of vocal Black residents from denouncing the influx of migrants into their neighborhoods. One elderly Black woman even called them “roaches” while being interviewed on a podcast. She took issue at seeing them entering or standing in front of the Ramada Inn at Lake Shore Drive from her apartment window. Other African American citizens flooded the chamber of City Hall to decry all of the “resources given to those migrants” instead of to people who “were born here.”
A second grader at Powell Elementary School in South Shore had a different take when asked about the new students in her classroom. “One is from Colombia, and two are from Venezuela; they look brown like me, and they are nice and don’t speak English,” she said. “Now we’re learning Spanish (at school) and they’re learning English.”
While children can adapt and have to learn how to segregate from others, adults are not so kind. Very little outcry rang across Chicago as men, women, children and infants sat in tents on sidewalks in front of police stations or slept on makeshift palettes in other public places. Perhaps it was “okay” to see “those people” in that condition because, after all, they were “poor” and from “migrants,” and as long as they weren’t taking “resources away from” us Americans, it was fine.
Since August 2022, the city of Chicago has spent over $541 million on its migrant mission, of which $150 million came from city funds, including $95 million from leftover COVID-19 relief money. The rest came from state and federal grants and other allocations.
In addition to emergency housing provided by participating landlords, the money was spent on health care, education, and other essential services billed by U.S. service providers and local businesses. Some migrant families received up to $9,000 in rental assistance over a six-month period (or $1,500 a month for six months). The money paid directly to housing providers covered moving costs and a starter kit to furnish the living space.
By contrast, $30.3 billion was made available to Americans for affordable housing and housing assistance in 2023. Most of those dollars went to public housing authorities, which provide homes and supportive services for 2.3 million low-income families. The Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) had a budget of $1.3 billion and provided for 65,000 households.
Despite ongoing investments in city services, public health, education, recreation, workforce development and entrepreneurial programs to aid Blacks within the city, many continue to believe “the migrants” have taken resources from them or have replaced African Americans and U.S.-born Latinos (some who are called “Dreamers”) as a special economic class.
The fear-based rhetoric involving poor migrants and the nation’s poor serves as stark contradictions in a society that claims to be rooted in democracy, fairness, and Judeo-Christian moral ethics. Treating the poor, the immigrant, the incarcerated, the newly released, the elders, the infirmed, the frail, and the children with compassion and dignity is a fundamental moral obligation of any just society.
Yes, the poor may always be with us, but that is a decision made by man.
Special Crusader upcoming series “Stories from the Trenches.”