On Giving to the Poor

Excuse me. Hello! Excuse me!” I was walking with friends on a New Haven street. We turned to see a man and a woman striding toward us. Both were tall and bone-thin. When they reached us, the woman took a deep breath. They were homeless, she said; they needed money to buy food and pay for their beds at the New Haven homeless shelter, which charged three dollars a night. They didn’t want to beg, so they had bought a roll of paper towels and a bottle of glass cleaner....

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