…was his name. He approached me as I came to the corner outside my apartment. In a somewhat gentle way, with a rather long sentence he asked for money. I was on a mission, but I felt the need to stop. I asked him why he was there, and how this was working out for him.? He looked rather well-dressed, I said, to be panhandling. I asked him where he was from and what his last job had been, and were the churches any help? Where was his mother and did he have any family? Of course I took a breath in between and a question only followed if what he said lead up to it. We spoke for about 20 minutes. In the end, I had no answers. None. I didn’t know how he should solve his problem. Half way through I gave him some money. I didn’t stipulate how he should spend it, as later he told me people who give him money stipulate it’s use. He told how hard it is to live on minimum wage – and since I have seen the Spurlock TV series and know what life costs, he had my agreement. He felt life was unfair and the stories he had to tell about life in the shelters, or life on the street/ the subway molestations while sleeping, were only too believable. His gout and his diabetes were not surprising based on what I could imagine his diet on minimum wage is. He said he went first to community college, got an associate degree then went on to get a Bachelors. He was qualified to do anything in criminal justice or security… but the ‘catch 22’ is that if you don’t have a fixed address you have a hard time getting hired. I could believe that too. He said in the shelter they kept pressing him, that he must have an addiction. Kept telling them he didn’t, until finally he said “Yes, I’m addicted to poverty. I can’t get rid of it.” I am always taken aback from my social expectations when one is well spoken and I don’t anticipate it. That was the case. He mentioned how humiliating it was to have to beg – his term. How people treated him and the unkind things they said to him, without provocation. How much he would like employment but he was discouraged. How the churches judged him. I met him definitely on a bad day. He said he was 39. He looked at least 50. And I had nothing to say that was helpful. And I knew the feeling of being discouraged, and hopeless. When I came back after completing my errand he was gone.