randomWalks

Yes, what a thought. That someone should be given free food in exchange for a short amount of work. Why, you'd think that working was good for someone's DIGNITY or something ... and where do those people get off, thinking that their property wasn't automatically someone else's for free?

Horrid.

How does that saying go? You can judge a society by how it treats its weakest members.

In the case of the U.S., we'd rather ignore the homeless than take care of them, unless we can exploit them.

Or as the guy quoted in the article said, "I got tired of not being able to make eye contact with these people."

How much is a slice of pizza worth? $2 max? So that works out to be $3 an hour in wages. That's very compassionate and dignified and not exploitative in the least.

The owner paid them $5 and a slice of pizza for 40 minutes of work. That equates to MORE than minimum wage in Oregon.

No, the owner paid them $5 and a slice of pizza for 40 minutes of holding a sign. Something a stick can do as easily as a human being does not qualify as work.

Companies often engage in charity in their communities. And one of the reasons they do so is for the publicity it will give them. The owner of Pizza Schmizza has figured out a way to get publicity from his charity instantly and continuously, rather than waiting for people to read about it in the newspaper once a year.

I just read article about working for food. I think what you are doing is the best a very clever idea. Just holding that sign and knowing that a person is working he will be able to hold his head up high for at least one day. I wish others would come up with a creative idea such as yours. If I lived in Portland I would be so happy to give business to such an honorable company who cares about people.

Thank you,

Jill

It sounds like the business is taking advantage of the situation by not only getting the free advertising which is fine, but they make it out like they are saints and the world should pat them on the back and in the mean time they are degrading the homeless.

What if that was their family member out there.

As long as they are working and they are paying them, they should not act like they are worthless people. You can't call them beggers when you offered to pay them.

God is keeping all this in account and people who do this WILL be judged for exploiting the poor and the needy.

I know Pizza Schmizza don't care about what I am saying nor for the poor and the needy they are exploiting. But God cares and these people who are exploited will be the ones who will inherit the earth and those who used them will inherit eternal damnation unless they turn from their sins.

I think the pizza place should be boycotted.

Fred Sturgeon- Nash., Tn.

Anyone that says this is a bad idea should try walking in downtown portland, you can't mkae it a block without getting asked for change. You have to make them work for what they want and finally someone is doing it. I won't give them change, I'll give em a bottle or an application. Exploiting them, I don't think so. They'd be sittin there no matter what, doing nothing. At least they're getting food for it. It doesn't matter they 'only makin $3 bucks an hour.' They get food and somewhat of a job. And we take care of them, but they'd rather sit out there then go to the rescue mission where they should be.

Of course, it's degrading and possibly illegal to do what Pizza Schmizza did, but that doesn't seem persuasive to the "you have to make them work for what they want" types like Ryan here.

The Pizza Schmizza approach does nothing to address basic issues such as poverty, inequity and the lack of public infrastructure for the homeless. Also you have the fact that the total number of sign-waving jobs and other conceivable occupations for Portland's homeless would not provide even a tiny sliver of their collective need.

The biggest problem, I think, is that homeless people don't have anything to do or anywhere to go during daytime hours, and the very sight of them offends the citizenry. This heartbreaking article about the Dallas downtown library is an example - when local daytime centers for the homeless closed, the public llibrary became the only place they could bathe, sleep and fuck.

Building more day centers would make Portland a better place; abusive $3.00-plus-pizza temp jobs won't.

This is a win win situation, but the homeless "advocates" are whining that "its not a "real solution" and its "exploitation." If they are willing and happy to do it, then they aren't being exploited. The sad part of this is, that if they are to be considered employees, they would need to be paid min. wage, which is near 7.00 / hour in Oregon. So they would end up discontinuing the "program", and everyone loses.

Charity and Exploitation aren’t so different, they both make people helpless

I’m walking down the street, the leaves blow, bustle, and fly in the breeze. They are all in bad shape, edges torn and haggard, reflecting the orange of the street lights. With my eyes I follow one whose color is swallowed by the shadow of a man’s shoe. I notice that there is only one shoe and one leg, and I follow it until the leg disappears under a tweed three button overcoat. He is a man, worn and old, just like that leaf that he stopped. He stands slumped on one leg, while braced on a set of makeshift crutches. He just stands and mumbles, with a look in his eye, like a lost child. I am, again, compelled to look at his face, overgrown with gray hair, which is gummed up around his lips from spit which has accumulated and frozen. He has many similarities with that leaf that he stopped. Both fallen away from the strong branches of society, blown around, weathered, stepped on, torn apart, and eventually lost. I can tell he doesn’t know where he fits into society, just as I don’t know where to place him. Never before have I had the urge to give a homeless man money, but for some reason how his eyes looked out grabbed me. The inner conflict starts to tear me apart, so I sit in a near by chair, and I smoke on my tobacco pipe, deliberating the correct course of action. I didn’t act in time, instead I let him hobble down the street. Too uncertain about the what had just happened to face it, I go into a coffee house and buy a four dollar coffee. Four dollars would have done that man so much better. I sit in the window feeling selfish - a hypocrite. It was the four dollars; it was the question of where giving him that money would place him, not physically, or socially, but in personal terms - me and him. I didn’t want to classify him, but the minute I looked at his eyes, and they grabbed me, I ended up doing so. Some would have called it charity, a good thing, giving the man that four dollars. Others would have told me I am not being charitable, but that I am exploiting him by fixing his momentary problem rather causing him to become dependant on me.

Charity is, itself, a societal issue. Controversy surrounding the word stems from its mere definition. What separates charity from a normal deed, and what is the differentiation between selflessness and exploitation? Is a man who has the homeless advertise in order to provide for themselves less charitable than a twelve year who spends her childhood caring for them, even when the same result is achieved? In these two cases who is seen as being exploited? There are two articles from the Seattle Times address these questions. One article by Stephanie Dunnewind with the title Homeless touched by an ‘angel’: youngster honored for volunteer work, is about a twelve year old girl who raised money in order to buy fabric to make blankets and socks for the homeless. A second, Pizzeria hires homeless to advertise, pays them with food by Andrew Kramer involves a eatery by the name of Pizza Schmizza. The pizza chain pays homeless with pizza to hold up an advertisement for forty minutes. Dunnewind shows a girl, Megan, who is working for the homeless, and Kramer’s character Jehan is shown as using the homeless; by defining what Megan does as charity and what Kramer does as exploitation, they both reinforce the ‘us’ and ‘them’ stereotype which presents homeless are people who have no control, choice, or power. Often people who support the same ideologies seem to present a similar definition of charity. There are a superfluous amount of ideologies surrounding the word charity, because charity isn’t a definable subject; charity is an idea that changes from person to person.

Dunnewind’s idea of charity seems an ideology of good over evil. Using charity as a symbol for salvation gives power to the good, and in Dunnewind’s case power is given to a twelve year old girl, by the name of Megan, who is presented as a savior. After giving her last blanket away to Margaret, a homeless woman, ‘Margaret, [tells] Megan the blanket [will] help her get through the winter. ‘You are my angel….[will] you pray for me every night?’’(1) This is the perfect set up for Megan’s response, ‘So, I do’(1). She doesn’t present Megan as a humble figure, but instead sublimates her by using religion as a theme to explain Megan’s actions, the suggestion of other worldly motive to reinforce a separation, just as Angels are untouchable, so is she. Her checking account fund is ‘what she dubs, ‘Megan’s Mission’’(3). It is mentioned that Megan even glorifies herself, ‘But she doesn’t always feel like an angel, or a hero’(1), which means at sometimes this self image does exist. The definition of charity is determined more by who is performing it than the negative conditions of the act. This is why Megan is represented in an iconic way. Megan is an ‘angel,’ and there is no way for an ‘angels‘ actions to be less than charitable.

Where as Dunnewind personifies charity with the angelic Megan, Kramer’s represents market exploitation as his devil. On the surface the righteousness of charity is a non-issue in Kramer’s essay, but when Kramer defines Jehan’s actions as exploitive instead of a charitable he changes views by challenging what Jehan’s ‘charity’ is doing.

Kramer defines charity in a way that precludes Jehan from its bounds. He portrays Jehan as the enemy, in a way that creates victims out of the homeless. In the first part of his essay Kramer draws on comments from men involved in advertisement to show how unconventional Jehan’s methods are. ‘Kipp Cheng, a spokesman for the American Association of Advertising Agencies, said he’d never heard of the tactic before’(2). However, Kramer presents these men’s views as if they are commenting on the social problem of homelessness, rather than the method of advertising that Pizza Schmizza engages in. Jehan asserts, ‘The homeless were a new advertising vehicle, and an opportunity to help’(2). To this Kramer retorts, ‘But critics of ad clutter are not impressed’(2). The critics are unable to comment on the repercussions of Jehan’s actions toward the homeless, yet Kramer presents them in a way that suggests the critics can. Kramer isolates Jehan by misrepresenting him in ways that raise doubts about his morals on more than a marketing level, which classifies him as an enemy.

Later in the article Gary Ruskin, a man who runs an advertising business, appears. Although what Jehan and Ruskin are doing is technically the same, Kramer seems to praise Ruskin’s work plan, giving viability to his efforts. By labeling on Ruskin in this way he draws separation between charity and Jehan’s exploitation. ‘Gary Ruskin, director of Portland Based Commercial Alert, a nonprofit advertising watchdog group founded by Ralph Nader’(2). Kramer represents Ruskin on a personal level, establishing him as a notable charity worker, or at least someone who is important to the homeless community. In this way Kramer gives value to what Gary Ruskin’s message. Kramer takes Ruskin’s comments out of context by establishing them as an social commentary about homelessness, ‘The adds blur the gritty reality of homelessness with a society dominated by corporate images and brand names‘(2). In actuality, Ruskin only talks about advertising, ‘‘People don’t want to get hammered with an ad ever time they turn their head, most advertising is either somewhat of a lie or deceptive, and is an assault on our attention.’’(2). It should be noted that Ruskin could make an informed analysis of Jehan’s affects on the homeless, Kramer never asks him to.

Kramer uses Ruskin to draw surface attention to the ideas of exploitation, and the definition of exploitation. ‘If they don’t get minimum wage, this is exploitation’(2). He uses Ruskin to bring this view to the forefront because he wants to use a man the reader can identify with, a man who he has established as a helper to define the standards of exploitation. I must mention that Ruskin never explicitly calls Jehan an exploiter, but he suggests it.

Charitable ‘angels’ and the exploiters are commonly considered opposites; however, both positions of power so they aren’t so far removed from each other. Kramer using Ruskin’s quotes suggests that Jehan is an unconventional exploiter, and the various religious inferences label Megan as a charitable angel. Dunnewind and Kramer give their subjects power, by using these classifications to describe them. This takes away power from the homeless they are either helping or exploiting.

Dunnewind and Kramer placing the homeless as powerless in relation to Megan and Jehan enforces a stereotype as described by Allen Carey-Webb. Webb’s essay ‘Representing the Homeless,’ explains the various ways society stereotypes the homeless. The stereotype both authors use is one that classifies the homeless as helpless by placing people in power over them. In Megan’s case, ‘homelessness draw[s] together the helpless and would-be helper into the intimate and yet distancing relationship of charity’(698). Where Megan places herself, and where Dunnewind places her is a method used to distinguish ‘us’ from ‘them,’ which is what Allen Carey-Webb labels his first stereotype. Jehan has the homeless hold a sign which reads, ‘Pizza Schmizza paid me to hold this sign instead of asking for money’(1). Kramer uses his article to answer Webb’s question, ‘By stripping him of any pleasure or even wisdom in his experience, do I deny him dignity or the fierce independence necessary to make it on the street’(699). Kramer seems to think that holding a sign does this to the homeless. By taking away their voice Jehan is turning them into the helpless figures that you see on the street. If Jehan’s actions were described as charity than the homeless would be empowered because they are helping themselves. However Kramer’s label of the pizzeria’s actions strip the homeless of their independence by stereotyping them as helpless.

The two authors also take independence and voice away from the homeless by re-enforcing the stereotype that homeless can’t be agents of improvement in their own lives. Carey-Webb refers to an author by the name of Hirsch, ‘who reconstructs the lives of two homeless women in Boston,’(701) to show ‘the ambivalent nature of charity institutions,’ in which Hirsch explains homeless need to be helped by an outside source. Dunnewind’s character is a perfect example. ‘‘Helping the street people makes her feel good about herself,’ [Megan’s] mom [says]’(2). Megan says, ‘‘I felt sorry for them….They looked so sad and freezing and miserable’’(2). Dunnewind uses Megan’s quotes to portray the homeless as puppy dogs, this is a way of saying the homeless are unable to take care of themselves, and casts Megan into the caretaker position. Pizza Schmizza isn’t cast into the caretaker position, but the idea that the homeless have no choice is an underlying message in Kramer’s essay, and this takes away the personal agency of homeless people. ‘A 20-year-old homeless man, woke up in an abandoned house and planned to spend his day Dumpster diving and asking for spare change….So a slice of hot, fresh pizza seemed like a good deal’(1). Kramer makes it seem like the homeless man had no choice, but instead was going along with what the Pizzeria told him to do. By taking away choice, the most independent thing homeless have, Kramer places the homeless where Dunnewind places them. This is a position of weakness, that instead of allowing them to make choices of their own, makes homeless dependant on the choices others make.

When any one attempts to define the position of a group of people they stereotypes that group. By using charity and exploitation as positions of power, and placing their subjects those higher positions over the homeless. The authors separate the helped from the helper. They stereotype the homeless as one of Carey-Webb‘s categories. By saying the homeless can’t help themselves Kramer and Dunnewind take away from their personal agency. By doing this Kramer and Dunnewind further separate ‘us’ from ‘them.’ This is harmful to the people they‘re apparently trying to help. The question of where we place ourselves in this issue faces us daily, just as it had faced me earlier. By not giving the homeless man I met on the street four dollars, my values were called into question. If I gave him money I’d have placed myself in a position of power over him. Giving him money would have separated me from him, helper from helped, as Dunnewind might say, charitable from helpless, and as Kramer might suggest, exploiter from exploited.

November, 2003 Ian Cole

Damn you...thats what I was going to say!

What Schmizza did was GREAT! HOW CAN ANYBODY WITH A BRAIN OBJECT TO A HOMELESS PERSON EARNING MONEY! You can't go down town Portland without being harassed by beggers at every corner. They don't get a CENT from me, money is too hard to come by! Also, many of the off ramps in Portland have beggers also. All of you "homeless advocates (such as Ian here)".. why don't YOU pay for the additional homeless shelters if that is the solution, or better yet, invite them to live in your homes? I say they should WORK for a living, like I do! And HELL, I'd hold a sign for a slice of Foo Foo Schmizza!!!!!!!