Okay, I’m Awake Now. What Just Happened?

“He’s buying your groceries,” she said.

Dumbfounded, I started to protest, but he just held up his hand, as if to say, ‘No.’

I didn’t know what to do or what to say. I certainly don’t need any help paying for my food. I felt embarrassed, and grateful that I didn’t have a cart piled high with groceries. Finally, I managed to squeak out a “thank you,” and the man smiled.

When the checker finished scanning my items, the man handed her his credit card, which she ran through and handed back to him. Then, without looking back, he walked away. My jaw dropped.

The checker handed the receipt to me and I accepted it, out of habit. Then, I wondered aloud if I should run after the man and give it to him. The teenager bagging my groceries laughed and said, “Oh, don’t worry about it. He comes in here all the time and does that.”

When I pulled into my driveway, I saw my husband working in the yard. I told him what had happened, and he scolded me. “You really shouldn’t go into town dressed like that,” he said. “You look like a charity case.”

I went inside, put the groceries away, and cleaned myself up, all the while thinking about what I should or shouldn’t have done in that situation, and what I should do now.

Why did he do that? I wondered. Did he really believe I needed financial help? Is my husband right that I should dress better when I go to town? Or is it something deeper than that?

I stared at the grocery receipt I’d pulled from my pocket. I can’t just take his money like that. Somehow, I’ll have to pay it forward. But I don’t think I want to do that by paying for a random person’s groceries.

Over the following few weeks, I thought about this long and hard. I first decided that I would double the amount of cash to pay forward. Then I considered the who and the where. It would be easy to just add the money to my regular church donation on Sunday but that sounded boring and, besides, it would remove an opportunity for creativity. So, I researched a half-dozen local charities, all worthy causes.

I ended up selecting the issue of shelter insecurity. The problem is extensive locally, nationally, and worldwide. In America, the problem is not just due to substance abuse and mental health issues as some reports would have us believe. The exorbitant cost of housing has exacerbated the crisis.

When I was growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, most families lived adequately, even well, on the income provided by one wage earner. Today in many communities, it takes the combined income from multiple workers (some with more than one job) to provide the same or lesser housing—if that housing is even available. I’ve met people right here in Clay County who live in tents or campers, or with family or friends because they can’t find affordable housing, even though they are employed full-time.

U.S. Census data in 2017 revealed that median home prices rose 121% and median rent costs increased 72% since 1960, adjusted for inflation. During the same time period, median household income only increased by 29%. With recent high inflation, that gap has only grown wider.

Economists generally advise that a household should pay no more than 30% of their income for housing yet today, according to Habitat for Humanity, nearly 17 million families in America pay half or more of their income for a place to live. That means that nearly one in seven families does not have the stability that comes from safe, decent, and affordable housing.

This creates impossible choices for low- and even for middle-income families: Housing vs. food, medicine, childcare, clothing, health insurance, and car payments. Often there just isn’t enough to go around, so something must give. And that’s why we see gainfully employed people facing shelter insecurity.

Some large cities are beginning to address the crises of their enormous homeless populations, with their correspondingly huge mental health and substance abuse issues, but it promises to be a long, uphill battle. The situation in most rural areas and smaller communities is proportionally smaller, as are available resources to help. There are no easy answers. We need both policy changes and on-the-ground efforts to even make a dent in the situation.

Organizations such as Habitat for Humanity and many local, smaller groups are tackling the crisis, one family at a time. It’s no longer acceptable to ignore it or to think that it is somebody else’s problem. If there isn’t a local effort to address it where each of us lives, let’s think about getting one started.

I am guilty of being oblivious for too long to the extent of this catastrophe. It took a simple haircut and the kindness of a stranger to wake me up. How about you?

Photo by Nathan Lemon on Unsplash