Don't be Salty at the Homeless

This week, we discussed homelessness and poverty by reading "On Dumpster Diving". Eigner was very blunt by simply stating, "I live from the refuse of others". The topic of giving money to the homeless came up and it reminded me of something I witnessed in Pakistan. Every instance we were on the road, be it in the congested city or the traffic lights or even on the highways there would be a homeless person. They actually walk right up to your car window, knock until you roll it down, and plead for money. This might sound tedious and a little extra but I didn't even feel attacked by it. The poverty in Pakistan is really, really bad. Shockingly, the Edhi Foundation, Pakistan's largest charity doesn't have a specific means to address homelessness just because it's too big of a problem. And sadly, my relatives who live there have gotten used to it, hence numb to it. 

They'll will go out of their way to de-emphasize this problem, saying there's a "network of bosses" who employ their impoverished lackeys to take the innocent upper classes' money. When I was in a bazaar (open market) my cousin literally debated a little boy who was eagerly trying to sell her a color book. Don't get me wrong, I love my family, but sometimes they don't recognize the privilege they're born into. In reality, their theory might actually be plausible (https://tribune.com.pk/story/540841/begging-becomes-business-in-pakistan/) , but that doesn't mean people in this form of organized crime aren't in a bad situation. People will go out of their way to talk and cry about a problem, but won't do anything to solve it. The same thing is with homelessness; we don't think it's our job to fix it, but one day the problem could possibly reach us.