Charity for the poor and needy

There's an attitude about people in poverty that is becoming more and more prevalent lately. It is the attitude that poor people are lazy bums who don't work because it's easier to just live off of government welfare or charity than to support themselves. It's the attitude that they are in that position because of their own carelessness, lack of self-discipline, and poor money management.

I don't think this opinion is held by a lot of the people, but the idea is spreading and becoming more prevalent, and I find it very disturbing. While I do believe in the importance of hard work, I also believe in the importance of having charity for the poor and needy, as well as the importance of being careful with our judgment and recognizing that we do not know what God knows about a person. The scriptures make it very clear that Christ loves the poor and the needy and that we cannot be saved if we do not love and help them.

Ruby K. Payne wrote a book called A Framework for Understanding Poverty that I would highly recommend to those who wish to understand poverty. I read it a couple of years ago as part of an education class, and it changed my view of what poverty is. One of the main ideas is that poverty is not so much a lack of money, but rather a lack of resources. Here are the resources she is referring to (quoting from page 16 of the book):

1. Financial--Having the money to purchase goods and services.
2. Emotional--Being able to choose and control emotional responses, particularly to negative situations, without engaging in self-destructive behavior. This is an internal resource and shows itself through stamina, perseverance, and choices.
3. Mental--Having the mental abilities and acquired skills (reading, writing, computing) to deal with daily life.
4. Spiritual--Believing in divine purpose and guidance.
5. Physical--having physical health and mobility.
6. Support Systems--Having friends, family, and backup resources available to access in times of need. These are external resources.
7. Relationships/Role Models--Having frequent access to adult(s) who are appropriate, who are nurturing to the child, and who do not engage in self-destructive behavior.
8. Knowledge of Hidden Rules--Knowing the unspoken cues and habits of a group. (i.e. The culture of the lower class is different from the middle class and the upper class, and if a person wants to move from the lower class to the middle class they have to learn to act like other people in the middle class.)

Most of the people in poverty are not just doing without money, but are also doing without some of those other resources. A person who has those other resources but doesn't have much money has a good chance of getting out of poverty if he works hard, but people who are doing without those resources have a much more difficult time getting out of poverty and staying out of poverty. If you can't read or do simple math, your job opportunities are very limited. If you lose your job and your house and you don't have any family or friends to help you out until you can support yourself again, there aren't a lot of places you can turn. A person with emotional and mental handicaps and no support system would have a very hard time finding and keeping a decent job to support himself.

Many of these problems are not immediately apparent if you don't know the person very well. I used to see the homeless people sitting by the stop lights with signs asking for money and food and think, "That person looks perfectly capable of getting a job--why doesn't she use this time to go apply instead of just sitting on a dirty bucket begging for money?" Then my sister pointed out to me that a good portion of homeless people are schizophrenic. Things like that can make it really hard to have a successful job interview, and even after a successful job interview it could be hard to do well in a job.

There is a lot in the culture of the lower class that makes it difficult for them to dig themselves out of it. Payne said that one of the things is a tendency to think in the present without planning for the future. As an example, if I had an extra $100 at the end of the month, for me it would be perfectly natural to just leave it in the bank to save for some time in the future when I need it. But a person who hasn't been taught to think that way might use the money to go get drunk or buy a new TV, and then get mad a couple months later when the car needs a new radiator and there's no money to pay for it. For some people, the concept of saving money has never occurred to them--let alone the concept of saving up and working hard to go to college in order to be able to get a good job. For a person who doesn't think much beyond the present, the idea of going to school or saving up or working hard in order to get a promotion or a pay raise doesn't occur to them. So to overcome poverty, it's not just that the person has to work hard, the person has to overcome years of habits and learn new behaviors and thought processes that will make him more successful. The person has to learn to think differently. That's an even more difficult hurdle to jump than the financial struggles.

There are a couple of implications from all this. One is that if we want to help the poor and the needy, we need to recognize that it's not enough to just throw them money and food. Yes, that helps, but if we want to help them come out of poverty permanently, they need help to overcome habits and thought processes that are keeping them down. They may also need help to deal with mental, emotional, and physical challenges that are holding them down. And, importantly, they need loyal and understanding long-term friends to support, encourage, and guide them. Without those other resources, they can't become self-reliant. The church has some great welfare programs that help people in these ways.

Another implication is that we need to be very careful about being judgmental of the poor and the needy. We do not know what they are going through. Many of the poor and the needy are in that position because they have challenges that are preventing them from getting out of it, through no fault of their own. God understands, and He knows which ones have righteous desires, even if we can't tell. And for that reason, we must treat the poor and the needy like children of God, like brothers and sisters, because that's who they are.