Ed Versus The Homeless (ED! #08)

As I write this, it's 9:28pm on a Sunday night. I'm sitting alone in a train carriage, typing on a laptop. About half an hour ago I passed a homeless young girl in the street.

She must have been about my age, mid-twenties. Sitting on the floor outside the Abbey National, with nothing but a duvet to call her home.

I picked up all this from the briefest of glimpses of her.

There was no eye contact, but I knew she was there. And she said to me: "Do you have any spare change?".

Did I reply? No. Did I look at her? No.

Did I palm her off with some bogus excuse like "sorry, haven't got any"? No.

Cut to the chase - did I give her any money? No. I walked straight on by, and I don't think I'm EVER going to stop regretting it.

You see homeless people all the time in London. It's a fact of life. And on a certain mercenary level, they're kind of easy to ignore. You hear them ask for money, you walk on by, you forget them. You forget them as quickly as you were even aware that they were there.

You may even walk on the inch-wide bit of pavement on the side of the road, dodging the litter bins and lamp posts, just so you can put the maximum possible distance between yourselves and the shop fronts and doorways where they are.

So that they won't ask you for money. Or so you can pretend that you were just too far away to hear them.

You're not mean.. Hey, I'm not mean.. I gave to Comic Relief with the rest of them. But somehow, inherently, you just don't want to be in that position where you're near someone who so desperately needs some help, any help.. YOUR help.. that you would have to feel bad about not giving up your cash when asked.

Asked by someone on the front line - someone right there who needs that money right now. Someone you could give a quid to right at the point of sale, instead of ringing up from the comfort of your own home on a Friday night, in your warm home, in front of a colour TV, and giving someone your credit card number so you can do your bit and give a fiver or something.

Or maybe making a donation on the internet, so you don't even have to speak to a real person at all.

I've got a defence, sure I have. I was in a hurry. I would have given her something if I hadn't been in a hurry. Homeless people ask for money all the time, surely they won't take it personally when they don't get something from everyone they ask.

This girl must have asked hundreds of people for cash and got sod all. She won't remember me. I'm just another face. Not even that. Just another body, another pair of legs and a briefcase walking past her eyeline.

Or maybe it was her first night on the streets. Maybe I was the first person she'd asked. No, couldn't be. What are the odds. Stupid to even consider it.

Excuses like that are so bogus it surprises me I can even write them. That kind of thinking is a guilt reaction. A notion that people invent in their own minds to make them feel better about being so cruel. A way that normally decent people can rationalise being so indecent.

I regretted what I did within a second of having done it. Did I stop and go back? I thought of it, I honestly did. But I didn't, so it doesn't count. Good intentions count for nothing.

What does what I did tonight say to that homeless girl? That I'm a decent guy really and would love to stop and help but I was just too busy? That I have money but I really do need it all much more than she could ever do? No, I don't think it does. I don't think that's true at all.

What does it say? It says "I'm mean", "I'm heartless", "I couldn't give a damn", "I can't do anything for you". I need to add another one. I'm sorry.

I hope I never forget what I did tonight. I hope I remember it just before I walk past another homeless person. To give me time to get my hand in my pocket and grab some coins so I can at least hand them over while walking by, so I don't have to slow down or stop or in any way waste the precious seconds of the selfish lifestyle I'm living.

At least I could do something.

But good intentions count for nothing. Right now that girl is probably still there. She'll still be sleeping in the illuminated doorway of the Abbey National, cold, lonely, and probably, quite rightly, thinking what a terrible world we live in when one member of the human race can treat another so badly.

While tonight I'll be in a warm bed, fed and watered and without a care in the world except my own guilty conscience.

It's easy to say it's "not my problem", but it IS my problem. It's everybody's problem. As someone who has a reasonably good life in comparison to a homeless person, it's my duty and everyone else's duty to remember that we're better than that. We're better than that selfish attitude.. but only if we put things right.

Money is like a food chain. Almost all money that anyone has has usually come from other people - in many cases people who needed it more than you did anyway.

Now and again, does it hurt to give it back?

I'll never see this girl again, that much I'm sure of, but it doesn't make what I did any less excusable.

This girl could be anybody - you might walk past her, or someone like her tomorrow.

If you do, give them something for me. And tell them Ed says sorry.

Ed's Note: Since this was written, the Abbey National has installed sloping ramps in front of its windows so that the homeless cannot sleep there any more.