“Without”

“Please”

today i sat across from a truly desperate woman. she came into my office at the homeless shelter and set down three documents: an eviction notice (she owed $15 dollars for a late rent payment), a letter requesting financial support from a friend she had already borrowed $2,000 from, and the resume i’d helped her edit just a couple of weeks ago that did get her the job–but it turned out to be only part-time work and wasn’t going to get her a paycheck in time to pay rent.

she kept asking me, “what do i do?”

and i did not know.

she had exhausted all available resources and despite all her efforts she was about to lose everything.

and i could not do anything for her.

anyone who knows me knows i’m pretty bad with money. but i’ve never had to know true desperation like hers, because any time i get an email from bank of america that my balance has fallen below $25, i’ve got the middle-class privilege of friends and family to loan me funds, or the ability to pick up work to support myself.

ATTENTION: homelessness and poverty is a systemic problem we can most certainly “afford” to ignore (that’s not a typo) because it is built into our socioeconomic structure of racial capitalism. but what if we start to let ourselves be uncomfortably questioned by the very existence of poverty among us, in our own cities and neighborhoods?

the last thing i’m hoping for now is that you will feel some type of way and donate some money to relieve a bit of the burden of guilt. instead, let’s press in to educating ourselves about the roots of systemic poverty, rather than too easily dismissing the epidemic as individuals making poor choices.

i’m asking you to sit with this woman and hear her cry of desperation, weep with her, let the trails on her tear-stricken cheeks carve out the impetus in us to hope of a different world