Dear Roger: Feeding Strays

My homeless boy was back in his spot yesterday, huddled on the sidewalk looking exhausted and starved. I asked him how he was doing as people walked by and looked at me like I was crazy for talking to a homeless kid while I had two of my kids with me. He grinned up at me and said,"hey! Its the 100 Monkeys lady! Its good to see you again. Thank you again for those donuts, they were great." I asked him if he was hungry again, and he said,"Yes, ma'am." looking ashamed. I nodded at him and told him I would be back. He smiled and put his head back down and huddled back up.
My eldest son, who was with me, was shocked that I knew the kid. He was even more shocked that I had obviously fed him and communicated with him beyond a simple nod. I told him that the boy was someones baby, hes young, hes not asking for money or anything and he looked like he needed help. When I was walking along that day with my ear buds in listening to my music, the Mechanical Peoples "Faith in the Will" and such, it just reminded me that I had been down before and hundreds of thousands of people had walked past my bruises and never truly asked if I was okay. They had never taken a moment to see what they could do and then acted, until one person did and it changed everything. It was that first rung on the ladder. When I had asked him if he was okay, he didn't sound convincing with his ,"Yes" that was why I asked if he was hungry. If I had had extra cash, I would have taken him to a restaurant and bough him a hot meal.
Yesterday my son loaded up a hand basket with bread, peanut butter, jelly in a squeeze bottle, chips, cookies, and some fruit in a snack pack. He looked at me like he expected me to object, and I just added another box of donuts. We walked back to where he was and I thought the boy was going to cry. His eyes lit up and he must have thanked me a dozen times and then he stood up. Hes very, very tall, and heartrendingly thin. He asked, "May I hug you?" I told him I dont typically hug people, but I made and exception and I hugged the boy.
Yeah, call me a sucker. I don't care. Hes a kid, hes on the streets and hes skinny and pretty and alone and this is a bad place to be those things. Meeting him upset my son quite a bit and I think he realized a few things, including how damn lucky he is. We walked down to another store and my son bought him a coke and asked me to take it back to him. I said I would but I told my son, "You do realize he is probably a drug addict?" My son said, "I don't care. Hes not that much older than me! His situation is not that different than mine!" And there we had it, my son realized that,'There but for the grace of God go I" moment. I've had a few of them. My son took my daughter and went home and I went back to take the boy his coke. He was gone from his spot but a store clerk was there. I asked her about him and she told me he was legitimately homeless, often very hungry, and didn't go to the shelters too much because he was scared of them because of a bad experience. That crunched my heart. I saw him walking back up the sidewalk and he sat down on a bench a little further down, so I walked up to him and handed him the coke. He said,"Ma'am, this is too much. You don't have to keep doing this." I asked him, "Did you have something to drink with your food?" he said, "No ma'am" so I said, "Well then." He thanked me again and I told him not to worry about it.
I told him that I wasn't going to pry into in business because that is not my business, but I wanted to know if he was safe and if he needed anything else.
He told me his name finally and that he had been on the streets over a year after leaving Spokane due to abuse and problems at home, he had come here to live with his grandmother, things had been good with her until she died, then the house had been sold and he was told he couldn't come home.
I don't know if its true or not. I know hes very young, Most of the homeless around this area are hardcore older drunks and heroin addicts, and most are mentally ill. He seems sane and able to carry on a polite conversation and he has impeccable manners. He knows im not rich. He fussed at me for spending my limited resources feeding him, but he is a kid and hes hungry, how could I not? He told me that hundreds of people had walked past him for days and days and never spoken to him, and he wondered why I had? I told him that I had been reminded that paying it forward is what keeps the love going.
We don't have a lot, but ill be watching out for my stray while hes around and making sure he got some food in his belly. He was open to hearing about some resources to help him get off the street, and maybe that will work, maybe not. To him Im "Jen, the 100 Monkeys lady" and hes my Lost Boy.
Id like to find his parents and find out,'Why? What is so bad about what he is to make you subject him to huddling on the sidewalk in a strange city so far way?'