Learning to Beg: Almost helping

In her column “Learning to Beg,” Sharis Hsu ’28 recounts the stories of individuals experiencing homelessness that she met during her Alternative Spring Break trip to Georgia. Read the previous installment here.

In another life, I was an avid user of public transportation. When I lived alone in Long Island, New York at seventeen, I relied on the railroad to take me into the city; though I never told my parents, I often found myself on questionable NYC subway cars at odd hours of the morning and night. But despite — or perhaps in spite of — the fear, my love for public transportation and the people-watching that comes with it was solidified.

During our pre-ASB trip meeting, Victoria and Aanya, our trip leaders, inform us we are taking the Greyhound bus across the state of Georgia. I am overjoyed. Immediately after, I rave to my friends, my mentors and some of my professors about getting to both experience a new form of public transit, and also a core part of what I perceive as “America.”

One of my mentors frowns dubiously at me. “Sharis, that is not something worth being excited about,” he tells me. “Every Greyhound I have been on has broken down, there are going to be all sorts of suspicious passengers and the stations are always in sketchy places with plenty of homeless people.”

“But it will be an adventure,” I retort, refusing to have my joy smothered. “And the entire reason I’m going to Georgia is to learn and interact with the unhoused population.”

The topic is dropped after that.

We depart for the Greyhound station on a Tuesday morning, a fresh dose of caffeine and adrenaline pumping through my veins. On the short drive to the station, someone rattles off the Google reviews.

The station has 2.1 stars. There are “always crackheads and homeless lingering outside begging for money,” I am told. 

Squished into the backseat of the car, I choose to look out the window at the disappearing Atlanta skyline and replay my day at the Salvation Army over in my head. 

We pull into the station at 10:04 a.m. Across the street is a strip club, and in front of the station is a police car with its lights flashing. I pull my blue suitcase behind me as we walk into the station, all too aware of how out of place our group of 12 students look. 

There are two women waiting outside of the station. One of them has a deep purple jacket on, and a beanie pulled low over her head. 

“Do you have any food?” she asks us. “Anything at all?”

We walk briskly past them into the safety of the station. A police officer stands just on the inside of the glass double doors, directing us deeper inside.

I look back over my shoulder at the two women who are now staring at us through the glass. In my backpack, I have half a carton of blueberries, a fig bar, two packs of electrolytes and a granola bar. 

I came to Georgia to touch homelessness in a way I never had before, to be someone who refuses to walk past an individual experiencing homelessness and act as if they don’t exist.

But our group is plowing on, moving toward the station exit and preparing to load the massive bus that, across six hours, will take us from Atlanta down to Savannah. I push the guilt down. Instead, I lock my trusty blue suitcase before throwing it into the underbelly of the bus, eagerly praying that its aggressive blue color deters anyone from stealing it. 

“Do you want this on the bus?” I ask Victoria, holding up the Whole Foods cooler I’ve been lugging around all the way from our Airbnb. 

“What is in there?” she questions.

I unzip the bag and pull out five full sandwich bags of leftover pizza from dinner last night. 

“I packed those last night,” Aanya tells me as she returns from loading her suitcase. “We can give them out to people instead of throwing them away.”

“We should give them out now,” I tell her. 

“Now?” she questions, looking back at the bus that half our group has already climbed onto. 

“There are people outside asking for food,” I state, looking down at my watch. 

“Go then,” Victoria says. “Go quickly.”

Aanya and I are running back through the station. The terminal manager tells us not to run as we burst back out through the glass double doors. The woman in the purple jacket is still there, squatting on the floor and watching the road.

“Do you want pizza?” I ask shakily. 

She is on her feet instantly. 

Aanya holds out a bag to her.

“Is it cheese?” she questions.

“It’s margherita,” I tell her. “Basically, cheese with some herbs.”

She takes it quickly, tucks it into her bag and turns away.

Aanya and I keep on walking, scanning for anyone living on the street. A woman asks us for directions, and we attempt to point her in the right direction. Further down, we come to the driveway of a neighborhood corner store, little more than a rectangle made from some sheet metal.

There’s a tarp pitched in the driveway. 

“Be careful,” Aanya warns me as I walk towards the makeshift house.

I slow down.

We are two women, barely five feet tall, clearly not from here, approaching someone’s home.

Suddenly, I am very scared.

“Just go slowly,” Aanya says, as the two of us creep up the sidewalk.

“Hello?” I yell, spotting two people behind the makeshift tarp and scattered belongings.

Two heads turn towards us. 

“Do you want pizza?” I ask one of them, stopping 15 feet away.

“Yes –– yes, we’ll take it,” one replies immediately. They are buried beneath layers of dark jackets, a hat wrapping their head and gloves on their hands. I can barely make out a face, only a glimpse of empty eyes. I wonder when was the last time someone asked them how they were doing. I wonder if anyone comes out here to help

We give them two bags of pizza before retreating quickly and fearfully. 

Aanya and I are jogging now, determined not to miss our bus. 

In the middle of the sidewalk, there is a lump –– a big black ball of fabric with a pair of shoes next to it. It takes me a moment to understand.

It’s a person. 

My heart stands still and I can feel tingling across the back of my arms. This must be a person pulled into the tightest ball humanly possible sleeping in the middle of the sidewalk. We tiptoe closer and place a bag of pizza next to them. 

I have a lot of thoughts, but no time to think them. We are running across the street and back into the station; I fly up the stairs of the bus two at a time plopping myself next to a man who speaks to himself incessantly. 

Is this what it means to help? To be too scared to get close? To run away as fast as possible?

I look out of the bus window at the human ball curled up on the street.

We pull out of the station.

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