When The Homeless Refuse Your Apple Pie

I want to start an open, honest, respectfulconversation on a topic I feel doesn’t get much attention—especially in the wayI seek to bring it to light.

The homeless are everywhere we go—from thestreets of the cities we live in, to the inner workings of systems and placeswe don’t even know exist.

When I was in school in Toronto I wouldwalk from Union Station to school. The evenings are when I would seethe most individuals homeless or begging on the street for change. As astudent, the chance of having cash on me was very, very rare. On the otherhand, the chance of having a freshly baked good to offer was basically 110%.

This is commonly how a situation would playout:

I would walk down the street and an individualwould ask for some change.My response would be ‘no, sorry, but I havesome bread/cookies/buns/pie if you want!”

Fill in the blank time! I want you to fillin the individual’s response to my offer of baked goodies. What do you thinkthey would say?

I think, as a very generalized answer inhopes of finding a common response of what most would expect, we would assumethe individual we are offering our goods to would gladly accept. I mean,freshly baked anything is delicious, right? Most of my friends feel that way.When I bring goodies to my husbands coffee shop, and offer his staff andfriends I see some form of deliciousness, the usual response is how excitedthey are to have something sweet and freshly baked to enjoy. When I go to afriends place for any sort of gathering with handcrafted and freshly bakedtreats in hand, people are generally excited and eat at least one of whatever I showedup with.

Now let’s go back to the original scenario—50% of the time someone accepts my offer, and the other 50% is all rejects.

I’ll be honest, at first it would shock mepeople would say no.

In my head I’m thinking ‘aren’t you hungry?I’m offering you delicious, freshly baked food that you can eat. I wouldn’t sayno and I have a fridge full at home.’

How ridiculous of me to think that—howinconsiderate, how dehumanizing.

There are a few specific times where Ioffered food to people and their no response has stuck with me…

- I offered a man an apple on my walk homefrom work one day since it was all I had. He said no because he was allergic toapples.

- At 2:30 in the morning while biking towork a lady yelled at me, asking if I had food for her. I offered the woman acouple slices of bread (which I was going to toast at work) and a banana. Shetook the bread but not the banana because it was cold and she doesn’t like coldbananas.

- I was walking home from the bus stopafter school and had some fougasse (think baguette-type bread but shaped like aladder or a leaf and filled with rosemary, thyme and olives). I offered it to agentleman. After describing what it was, he tore off a piece to taste it. Hesaid it was too dry and went on his way without the fougasse.

The one response that stuck with me themost was on my last day of the semester…

-I was walking to Union Station in blizzardconditions and a lady was asking for change. I offered her all I had—a box ofvarious choux paste products; cream puffs, paris-brest and eclairs. She said nobut explained it was because she would rather eat a nutritious meal then eatthe sweets I was offering.

I can easily remember the moment I realizedthat, by assuming a homeless individual should be grateful and accept what Ihave to offer, I was completely dehumanizing them and turning them into thesehollow vessels capable of nothing more than to say ‘please’, ‘yes’, and‘thank-you’. I removed from them the very things that make them who theyare—their choices, their preferences, and their taste buds.

None of these individuals weredisrespectful to me. Yet, in my wandering thoughts I was being disrespectful tothem. An act, which started as a way to help someone, turned into a selfishthought process of ungratefulness and a definite lack of viewing someone as Godsees them—an absolutely amazing person, whose passions and interests were givento them to make a difference in the world. Each person is someone who iscreated to do amazing things, and as someone whose palette preference attributeto the awesome person they are. The same way I don’t like green peppers (theytaint everything they end up on!), the gentleman didn’t like the bread. How Icould live without eating rice and beans, the lady could certainly live without eating coldbananas. It’s all the same, yet, as soon as someone is asking for food, we typicallyexpect them to take whatever we have available.

I can’t say I know what I would do if I wason the opposite end of the situation. If I was the one asking for change andinstead, an individual offers me a slice of pizza covered in green peppers andolives. I dislike olives and green peppers more than any other foods. Would Iaccept it and power through because I’m hungry? Would I gratefully say ‘nothanks’ in hopes of gathering enough change to buy something I actually want toeat, or hope someone else offers me something more appetizing?

I don’t know what I would do. But one thingI do know is removing an individual’s personal preference makes someone feelworthless, meaningless and unimportant. No one wants to feel that way—not you-the individual reading this, not me- the person writing this, and not the individualasking for change or food on the street you pass as you are going about yourday.

Next time someone refuses what you have tooffer, I challenge you to ask them what they would prefer—maybe you can get itfor them, or maybe you can make a note of it for next time you see them(especially if it is someone you see often enough on your daily commute). Onegentleman sitting at Union Station prefers black tea to coffee. It’s a smallfact, but imagine handing him a hot coffee on a cold winter night… now imaginehanding him a hot black tea instead. While the thought of handing him the cupof tea brings a smile to my face, imagine what it can do for him—not only willthe beverage warm him up, he will feel like a real person whose likes anddislikes were thought of—He has value. He is important. He is human.