Thread by @asymmetricinfo

True story: fifteen years ago, I'm coming home from work on one of the coldest days I can remember in NYC. 0 degrees, bitter wind chill, the kind of damp wind that country people call a "lazy wind" because it's too lazy to go around, and instead cuts straight through you.

https://twitter.com/avflox/status/1153558475877703680

I had a nice, thick winter coat, but I started shaking as I walked up the subway steps and that wind hit. There was a woman walking next to me wearing a fur coat. We both get out and I walked toward the corner store. There's a homeless guy standing on the corner.

He has no coat. He's wearing a damn hoodie. I think there were other sweatshirts underneath, but still--it's a hoodie. Not even a fleece hoodie. Just a spring-weight cotton sweatshirt. He looks at both of us and says "Can you help me?"

Fur coat lady sails straight past him.

I dug out my wallet and gave him everything I had, which I think wasn't much--maybe $20. Even then, I rarely carried much cash. He thanks me profusely, and I didn't know what to say, so I just said "Stay warm, okay?" and went into our corner bodega.

Fur coat lady is there, checking out. She looks at me and says "You know he's just going to spend it on drugs, right?"

I said "Lady, if I were out there in that cold tonight wearing a sweatshirt, I would personally need some serious effing drugs."

It's true that most of New York's streeted homeless have problems with either mental health, substance abuse, or both. And that many refuse shelter rather than stop using.

There are times to worry about when you're enabling self-destructive behavior. A deadly cold night is not one of those times. And even if you don't think you're helping the homeless with gestures like that--it damages your soul to walk past that kind of suffering and ignore it.

No real point to that story. I just think about it a lot.