Imagine you live in a cosmopolitan city, you’re on your way to your local coffee shop, walking down the street in your trendy new Steve Madden wedges, when all of a sudden…. BAM! There’s a person smack in the middle of the sidewalk. You scoot around him, don’t make eye contact, keep going along your merry way, even though he sort of just harshed your mellow. You pretend this bump in the road never happened. Now who was that person in the midst of the sidewalk? Why, it was your resident homeless man, with a sign reading “PLEASE HELP.” A sign that you just ignored. The point of this is not to condemn you or make you feel bad for not giving your spare change to this man (trust me, I’m guilty too), but to answer the fundamental question of “What makes it so hard for us to help him?”  

Homeless people have a bad reputation. Society often portrays them as “annoying crazy people” who don’t have the decency to get a job like the rest of us. This biased view, like much of what the media and society tells us, only represents a small percentage of the homeless population. According to National Coalition for the Homeless, only 16 percent of the 610,042 homeless people are mentally ill. From a factual standpoint, people can become homeless for a number of reasons other than mental illness, including, lack of affordable housing, poverty, unemployment, lack of healthcare, domestic violence, addiction, or all of the above. When we look at a homeless person, we probably see what society has told us to see- a jobless, drunken bum; when in reality we are assuming something about person we know nothing about. Instead, we think of them as less than us and lazy, not helpless and in need. For this reason we don’t help them because we feel it’s not our obligation or our duty. On the other hand, I don’t know many people who wouldn’t stop in their tracks to help a limping puppy. Yeah, that’s right, we’d all choose a puppy over a human.

People reject the homeless because they don’t take the second to make a personal connection, such as eye-contact. People reject the homeless because how can you feel empathy for someone you pretend not to see as you walk by. According to Peter Singer, “One of the most well-known motivations behind helping others is a personal connection, which triggers empathy.” From Singer’s statement, it’s obvious why it’s so easy to turn a blind-eye to someone in need. When people have no connection to a homeless person they encounter on the street, empathy isn’t triggered, and what often occurs is a lack of initiative or desire to help. The apparent lack of empathy for homeless people is just one example of how society does not want to help those around them. Developing a sense of empathy is the key to wanting to help others, especially the homeless. The good news is that empathy is a skill that can be learned. According to Psychology Today writer, David F. Swink, mirror neurons, or empathy triggers in our brain “kick in strongest when we observe a person’s emotions…[when] we see facial expressions, eye expressions, body position, and gestures.” If more of us were observant, looked them in the eyes, and felt empathy rather than resentment, then maybe we would help the homeless.

  In fact, helping others actually has health benefits. According to Leanne Beattie, a Health and Fitness writer, volunteering results in “increased self-esteem, with volunteers reporting both greater personal empowerment and better health...doing things for others may stimulate a release of endorphins, which has been linked to improved nervous and immune system functions.” As Beattie points out, helping those around you, can positively affect you as well. The paradox is that helping others actually helps yourself, and more specifically your health. The biggest reason some people don’t want to help the homeless is because they don’t think they should take responsibility for the position of these homeless people. But really, as we have learned from Beattie, helping others impacts everyone positively. If everyone were to have empathy and help those around them, the world would be a happier place for everyone. Helping others affects you in ways you may not initially think of when passing up an opportunity to assist your fellow man. Perhaps the citizens of Minnesota are experiencing these health benefits that Beattie describes, as homelessness has actually started to decrease there. In an article by Maja Beckstrom, she states that “In the 2015 snapshot, volunteers counted 9,312 homeless adults, youths, and children [in Minnesota], down 9 percent from 2012.” This quote from Beckstrom’s article provides a hopeful outlook on the homeless situation, at least in some areas.

So are Minnesotans more empathetic than the rest of us? That’s not something I can answer, but I can tell you this- I’d like to think that if I were lying homeless in the street, my fellow humans would chose to lift me up over a puppy. Okay, wait, they should choose me and the puppy because who doesn’t love puppies? The point is, I choose to believe in the inherent empathy inside us all, I choose to believe that it’s possible to help a stranger facing adversity. I’m telling you this because I choose to believe in humanity, and don’t you? So the next time you see your resident homeless person, instead of glancing away and side-stepping around, simply look him in the eyes, and take that first step towards empathy. Because at the end of the day, we’d all choose the puppy, so be different, choose the homeless man. I know it’s hard, those limping puppies always get you.