Ava Geiser
Within the hour it took a man to rob my house, I lost thousands of dollars in merchandise. And yet, I lost commodities that thousands of people never had access to in their entire lives. One hour of suffering for me pales in comparison to a lifetime for them, and at such a simple realization, my perception changed.
I have gone throughout life not caring about an issue until it impacted me, and I hate that it took something terrible for me to understand it. Throughout my transition from anger to compassion, I’ve learned to channel my emotion into empathetic actions, taking this newfound charity and using it to help rebuild my neighborhood. But it took much longer than I care to admit.
Initially, when I woke up the next morning to a text from my roommate telling me that our house had been broken into last night, I felt anger course through my body. I called everyone I could, complaining, yelling, upset that this had all gone down without me knowing. I hated that there was nothing I could do to stop it. Primarily, this anger channeled into the Amazon driver who left our door unlocked, but I couldn’t help but scream into my pillow about how evil and unfair the world is—how terrible some people can be. I remember thinking, that if I found that man who thought himself high enough to justify breaking and entering, I would chase him down and confront him.
But if a snake bit me, would I chase it down and try to convince it that I didn’t deserve to be bitten? No. There is simply no point in trying to change those around me…but there is a deeper theme in changing myself, my reactions.
Stemming from my childhood into my early adult life, I always found compassion and empathy easy; something that moves in where anger should be. And yet, the day following this robbery, my wrath pursued, and from it, I felt a strange disconnect from the world around me. This is not how my mother raised me, and though easy to admit she would react the same, I refused to let my emotions move in place of my brain, reacting out of spite and revenge, rather than understanding. Anytime I would return home angered by a stranger’s actions, or perhaps that of a friend, she would never tell me they were just jealous and move on. No—she would grab me by the shoulder and look me in the eyes, then tell me ‘Well, have you ever put yourself in their shoes?’ And, as it turns out, I never did.
After dealing with the police and our neighbor’s account, footage from a different angle that our camera never got, the hopelessness seeped deeper and deeper. Eventually, through bargaining with gods I didn’t believe in and hoping for life to turn around, I admitted defeat, comforted by my helplessness. And that afternoon, as my mother’s voice rang an obnoxious alarm in my ear, I pulled out my computer and went down a rabbit hole of why. Why steal? Why go to these lengths? What made you do this?
The answer wasn’t straightforward; people commit wrongdoings for a plethora of reasons, robberies even more so. But with the faltering communities around me, the lack of care the government puts in to protecting the livelihoods of its own citizens, I arrived at my answer—or rather, I arrived at the solution.
One of the most common ways for impoverished and homeless people to get what they need to simply survive is burglary. Moral or not, the people stuck in these positions don’t have much of a choice, and simply providing for them through shelters of food banks, we can stop the overall rise of crime. Safetouch, a trade publication focused on educating people about criminals, “Burglars have different motivations for their crimes, but the primary one is the need for money.” Whether it be theft from a doorstep, or overall breaking and entering to make ends meet, communities are not doing enough to prevent these crimes, putting the blame on those who are struggling rather than digging down to the root of the problem. Although securing door locks and keeping merchandise inside can help safeguard your belongings, when times of need arise for homeless people, they do all they can to simply get a glimpse of a better life, and locking your doors, just as I had done, simply isn’t enough. Now, I would never say to purposefully leave merchandise outside, as there are people throughout Philadelphia who rob without proper means, but for the most part, these robberies take place through desperation.
Understanding the communities around me with deeper consideration, I am able to relay it to the people of my city about how the safety of communities directly affects Philadelphia residents. For the people who have struggled their entire lives, it is crucial that Philadelphia, all of its neighborhoods, districts, and towns, rise together to combat the upsurge of poverty and provide the best environment to help homelessness. In the communities throughout Philadelphia’s counties, not nearly enough is being done to help those in need; instead, the government is making anti-homeless architecture, raising property values, gentrifying primarily poorer areas, and providing less and less available resources for those in need. Not only does the government play into these ideas, but even the everyday citizens of Philadelphia are not doing nearly as much as they can to help support local communities in lowering poverty.
In order to combat the main issue of burglary, communities can start by properly providing for those in need. Food banks, something I pride myself in volunteering for as often as possible, are just one of the ways to help ensure that homeless people garner enough nutrients to survive. And yet, survival is not the only aspect in need of an upgrade—thriving in a world that works against you is much more difficult, especially in the modern age. Many homeless people have a lack of access to technology, which is a huge benefit in understanding the world and being able to carve your own path for your stability and future. Public libraries with free internet access are one of the few services provided to those without it, but by expanding the horizons in which homeless people are able to access technology, they will be able to thrive a little easier in a world that is already difficult for them to survive in. WHYY brought up on an episode of their publication that he primary way Philadelphia is able to help these people is by “Administering the money in the form of competitive grants to nonprofits throughout the city, for things including permanent housing, rental assistance, and social services.” In a large city such as Philadelphia, technology is the gateway to securing jobs and controlling finances, and without proper accessibility to the masses, the suffering that falls beneath gets lost in a sea of greed.
More often than not, when robberies happen, perpetrators take money and technology, leaving behind the menial trinkets and merchandise that may provide others with happiness, but not with survival. As Safetouch continued further, “According to statistics on burglaries, 79 percent of burglars look for cash during their burglary, 68 percent look for jewelry, 58 percent look for illegal drugs, and 56 percent look for electronics.” Clothing, technology, money, and food are the most common items stolen in break-ins, but instead of looking deeper into the idea of why, people often turn to rage and revenge, failing to understand the levels that run below their simple understandings. Practicing compassion in times like this can not only help control urges and mental defeat, but can also provide people with a new outlook, as it did to me.
Instead of reacting how I expected, I turned to the reason, channeling compassion into the good I could do for my community instead of feeding the anger with endless reports and hatred. A neighborhood filled with hatred leads to more dysfunction, spiraling out of the human empathy that holds together our very communities, and ultimately leads to greed and overindulgence. But the one thing that communities hold over the 1% is our ability to love and care for each other, along with providing one another with the support we need in times of economic instability and distrust.