Interviewing the Homeless: A Book?

Background

On the daily commute downtown, I constantly see homeless people on the light rail. Some of them are regulars who have been making the rounds for years, while others I only see once. Many of them have obvious symptoms of drug abuse or mental health problems, while others are difficult to distinguish from the other random riders. As a people-watcher I often wonder about the lives of these people. Well, I wonder about the lives of pretty much everyone, but with the homeless there's always a terrible mixture of wanting to help and simultaneously wanting to run away unburdened.

Usually I just do the running part. That's true for almost every social interaction, it's not just an aversion to kindness and generosity. As I've opened up to people to help or just talk, I've had a variety of results and stories. I've sometimes been scammed, only discovering this days or weeks later as I watch the scammer talk to some other kind, gullible soul; telling the the same fabricated sob story, or picking up their wheelchair and walking away. Sometimes I've been surprised at the kindness and generosity of a person temporarily on hard times. And I've been scared for my safety by the mentally insane and/or drug-intoxicated. One day I watched 3 law-enforcement officers subdue a man whom I presume was on PCP. He escaped two large officers after being tazed, and was finally taken down after another tazing by three officers.

My thoughts on this topic ultimately go back to the conflict of wanting to help those who really need it without fueling someone's vices. In addition, the local homeless advocacy groups discourage donating directly to the homeless, and encourage you to direct them to the local organizations for help. But most of the people asking for handouts have already been there. As a caring person, it can be challenging to decide how to respond to those who petition for help. I guess the question I really ask inside is, "What are the odds that I will help this person by giving them ... something?"

The Idea

To answer this question, I thought about writing a book by interviewing panhandlers. Offer to pay them for their time to tell their story. What is their life like? How did they get here? What are their plans or dreams? What help have they gotten, and how successful are they in their current efforts?

It's one thing to just blindly rely on the voices of those who work with these people every day in the shelters and missions. But it could provide a new outlook for the average person by demystifying the lives and stories of the local homeless. I bet that people would give more directly, and that they would donate more to the local homeless advocacy organizations.

Progress

I'm such an introvert, I don't know if I would ever have the courage to do this on my own.

Has it Been Done Before?

There is a book called, "Until They Have Faces" that compiles 110 interviews and commentary for homeless people in California. The mix is about what you expect, but the commentary is definitely biased.

I also found a collection of interviews called "Voices of Homelessness" collected and maintained by sistersoftheroad.org, a non-profit in Portland, OR. You have to register to access the information. They also published the book, "Voices from the Street: Truths about Homelessness from Sisters of the Road." I'm currently waiting for access to the database or for the book to ship.