With the holiday season approaching, many downtown Phoenicians may feel the urge to help their community by going to an area populated by the homeless and handing out items like clothing, food or water.
While this act of giving is well-intentioned, it may not actually be helping those experiencing homelessness.
Phoenix has seen an increase in unsheltered homeless individuals over the past years, and the problem is only getting worse as downtown’s rent prices continue to rise. While wanting to help those who are homeless in downtown is a good thing, there are better ways of giving.
In order to promote alternative ways of providing aid, Phoenix has supported the “Healthy Giving Campaign,” which aims to change people’s ways of giving to the homeless.
What is “Healthy Giving”?
Amy Schwabenlender is the executive director at the Human Services Campus in Phoenix, a collaboration of organizations working together to help those vulnerable to homelessness. She explained how many eager individuals see the large concentration of homeless people outside the shelter and assume they need food.
Schwabenlender said the good samaritans “come down and hand things out with great intentions. (But) every morning when I drive here, I can take some guesses at what was handed out the night before. There are empty plastic bottles, food wrappers, leftover food.”
“The city of Phoenix has their streets crew come down Madison Avenue every Wednesday just to clean up because there is so much trash,” she said.
The idea behind the “Healthy Giving Campaign” is to build awareness around the issues caused when people give out supplies in this way. The trash created by the handouts clogs the streets, contributes to pollution and creates a public health hazard.
The campaign also aims to promote donations that last beyond the holiday season.
“People’s generosity, especially around the holidays, is extraordinary,” Father Tom Doyle, the executive director of Andre House of Arizona, a nonprofit helping the homeless, explained. “(But) there are 365 other days a year where people experience poverty and homelessness and really need extraordinary kinds of help.”
He said while it may be tempting to give during the holidays, donating at other times of the year helps to offset the influx of food and supplies during Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Often, food given directly to the homeless will simply be discarded in the street. The influx during the holidays can be overwhelming since homeless people generally have no way of saving or storing food without access to refrigeration.
As a result, much of it spoils and is thrown away in the street. Clothes pose a similar problem. Many homeless people don’t have access to washers and dryers, so the clothes given to them will become dirty in a few days and then be discarded in the street.
Additionally, many who come to give supplies to the homeless don’t consider that they will likely run out. If someone parks outside a homeless shelter and hands out 100 water bottles, but there are 200 people who need water, those who didn’t get the benefit of a handout could become frustrated.
So what is the best way to give?
There are many organizations around downtown Phoenix designed to help the homeless. In addition to providing shelter and three meals a day, they aid those experiencing homelessness with housing, finding jobs, physical and mental health care, recovering lost government documents such as IDs, and providing addresses to receive mail.
Organizations like the Human Services Campus and Andre House are built to accommodate the homeless and have systems for ensuring that food services are clean and that they don’t cause trash to be thrown in the street.
By volunteering in a soup kitchen or homeless shelter, you can help feed and provide services to the homeless in a direct and meaningful way that won’t be a detriment to downtown. Those wanting to help can also donate to local organizations fighting homelessness, not just during the holidays, but year-round.
Don’t try to compete with the organizations helping your community. Instead, join them this holiday season and make the most of your giving.
Contact the columnist at mbwillis@asu.edu.
