Why Help Others?

The problem of homelessness is highly visible in Paris, with many homeless people sleeping at metro stations, next to the big tourist attractions and in closed storefronts. You cannot determine what they’re going through or what their life is like, except that it must be very difficult for them. Those who are refugees come here with no choice, often in life or death situations, and with little to no financial support.

There is a lot of confusion of what exactly is best for homeless people to receive. AUP senior Brice Godart says, “It depends. If a homeless person is drunk, I give them food. Otherwise, I give them money.” Godart describes a family ritual wherein, “each family member leaves a little bit of food to the side of their plates, packs it up when we are finished eating and we put it outside of our house with plastic forks and plates for homeless people.”

Giving them food guarantees a level of nourishment, as opposed to giving money. However, if they are gifted food, but they already have food and no place to stay in the dead of winter, then the extra food wouldn’t be as handy as a hostel or at least a warm coat they could’ve bought had they been given money.

“I don’t like to give money because of where I’m from. In Mexico, parents send their kids out to beg and get money from strangers which can be very dangerous for the children. If I see a homeless person I frequently see, around my house or school, I always buy them a sandwich at a grocery store. But here I never give them money,” says AUP senior Fernanda Sapiña. Sapiña justifies her empathetic act with a motto: “Be kind always because you never know why people are in that situation.”

Many of the homeless people I spoke to did not speak English or French, but we communicated with a mix of very basic French and improvised sign language. When asked whether food or money was more helpful for them, a Syrian couple on rue Cler responded saying that they take what they can get, and that anything helps even a little bit. Jimmy, a 22-year-old from Paris, often takes line 6 back and forth asking kindly for money, and says he is in this situation because he was forced to move out of his home due to familial issues. The number of people who give has diminished, and the homeless population in Paris are finding it more difficult to get through their daily lives.

When asked why they give money or food to homeless people, many people willhighlight the importance of being kind to others and giving to those that are less fortunate. What about those who only give in order to feel good about themselves? The reverse mindset of a good Samaritan, if you will, involves giving to those less fortunate, simply to fulfill one’s daily “my good deed is done” action, resulting in a realization of, “I am a good person.”

Those who feel that their generosity is based solely on altruistic values, or on the basis of empathy, participate also in a sort of injustice that could be, philosophically speaking, just as bad as those who are charitable for the sake of feeling good about themselves.

False generosity, a term coined by the Brazilian philosopher Paulo Freire, is when individuals who are part of the oppressing group donate resources with the intentions of helping the oppressed group, but the resources actually don’t help the oppressed group at all. The concept of false generosity implies that to be truly generous, one should fight for reform in politics to obtain government aid for those who struggle living without a home.

Freire addresses the problem with false generosity in Pedagogy of the Oppressed, where he proposes a pedagogy with a new relationship between teacher, student and society. An unjust social order, where there is death, despair and poverty, breeds false generosities. Those who are the oppressors in an unjust social order, must continue to do injustice in order to keep those that are oppressed, oppressed. The oppressors then extend their “helping hands” to those being oppressed and exploited in a social order, making them appear empathetic and generous. True generosity, for Freire, “consists precisely in fighting to destroy the causes which nourish false charity. False charity constrains the fearful and subdued, the ‘rejects of life,’ to extend their trembling hands.”

France and the EU in general have seen an increasing number of refugees that have, in the past few years, been coming to France and other European countries to seek asylum. Because of the prominence of the Syrian crisis in the news, people tend to be more giving to Syrian refugees. As a result, many refugees from other countries and other homeless people pretend to be Syrian in hopes of receiving more charity. Godart talks to homeless people in Arabic, “to make sure they are not lying.”

There is perhaps a lesson to be learned from the aid sector in terms of policy change. In 2016, Greece saw a huge influx of Syrian migrants as the crisis in Syria worsened, leadingto many members of the EU and the UN having to scramble to provide aid. Cash transfer programs became a huge hit in the aid sector, allowing those seeking asylum access to a sum of money to help them live their daily lives. Although the cash transfer programs are quite new, they provide people with a feeling of control over their lives based on the idea that individuals know best what their own needs are.

These programs are an example of those who not only give money to help those in need, but also form socio-political actions in order to help these people develop efficient ways of participating in a society that they are on the edges of. When you see a homeless person on the street and decide to give them food or money, ask yourself which one would be most beneficial to them, what your intentions are in being charitable, and lastly, is there something more you can be doing to help these people.

BY MARIELLE “GOOSE” DALVET

ILLUSTRATION BY MAYALEN PROTTE