Our local station, at wane.com, had a slam piece on the poor this week (I was just on their website, and there is nothing up for me to reference).  They were running promo ads all last week…and I was dreading what was to come, but I held out hope that the promos were just to draw people in, but the story would present both sides of the issue without judgment.

Ha.

Adam Widener, the reporter, is probably patting himself on the back for the “outstanding” piece of *cough* reporting he did.

Okay, I’ll start from the beginning segment:

Widener doesn’t present himself as a reporter, rather, he walks up with hot cocoa and a fast food bag to these folks who are standing on street corners  holding up signs: at shopping malls:   “Disabled, need money” or something like “unemployed” or other messages.  He gets information out of them without telling them he’s a reporter and there is a concealed camera taping the whole conversation.

Next, he asks them about how much they make in a day, why they’re begging for money, etc.  He also follows them to their homes without their knowledge or consent.

One man claims to be disabled and walks with something of a limp.  He stands out in the rain begging for money from strangers.  Widener follows him as he walks home:  three miles and he walks without a limp as he’s going to his home.  Widener finally identifies himself and asks about the disability and about how many beggers are scamming.  The guy is probably the worst example of those folks–he probably isn’t disabled, and then he characterizes the others as being fakes, with only 5% of people begging being legitimate.   He is the poster child for the repub party, who *love* to point to people like him as a reason not to give to anyone.

Which is what Widener does in his *cough* reporting…even though the other folks he interviews have legitimate reasons for begging:  one guy is unemployed and trying to hold onto his house; another is also unemployed (probably 60 years old) and also in need of money.  He does interview a man who works in a convenience store that one of them frequents and the man says in a sarcastic tone, “He always has wads of cash…I’m going to quit my job and start begging on the corner.” (Widener states during the piece that the most they make is $50 a day…this is while standing for at least three hours and sometimes eight hours in the cold and rain.)

Widener goes to the local Christian Rescue Mission, to one of the coordinators, who—even though she did not meet these people—was quick to judge them and say that beggers use the money for drugs or alcohol.  And to drive the point home, Widener interviews a man staying at the Mission who used to beg and use the money for drugs and also automatically assumes these folks are using the money for things other than food or shelter or other basic needs. Widener repeats many times that these folks are using the money for cigarettes.

The Mission coordinator stated that people should not give money to these folks for the above reasons.

It never ceases to amaze me how people who claim to be rescuing people in Jesus’ name are mean, judgmental and punitive.–which goes against what Jesus taught.

It also never ceases to amaze me how shortsighted folks are—the poor need cash for toilet paper, shampoo, bath soap, dish detergent, trash bags, laundry soap, and even money for the laundry because, and I know this is hard for repubs to believe, but these items are not covered on food stamps.  And even if it did, people still wouldn’t be able to afford them and pay for food on the amount given per month.  (For me, I wash most of my clothes in a bucket in the bathtub to save money–it’s economical and I’ve gotten it down to a science where I do a pretty darn good job.)

But our friend Widener isn’t done yet….

Next he goes to the FW police and talks with the public relations director, who informs him that unless a property owner calls her, the police generally do nothing about it.

Widener can’t get over that.

He goes to a city councilman, Tom Didier, who bless his heart, actually shows compassion and says that there was a law on the books that made begging illegal, but they dissolved the law in 2010.

Widener brought up that another town (forget which one he said) had made it so that a person would have to register in order to beg.

Widener was aghast that Didier laughed when this was told to him.

This story is evil in that it actually twists things around so someone feels self-righteous about not helping the poor–they’re “helping” this person by not contributing to their drug or alcohol problem.

Even alcoholics and druggies need to be warm and safe and dry with food on the table.

This story fell soooo far short of the depth that this story requires.  Why did these people beg?  What circumstances in their life brought them to this place?  Were they working in a job that didn’t pay enough so they could have something to fall back on when hard times hit?  Did they have health issues that contributed to job loss?  How can we help, besides the immediate cash?