Fear makes strangers of people who should be friends.
— Shirley MacLaine

It was just before five in the morning when I parked my car on a deserted side street in downtown Austin. Encircled by the protective glow of a streetlight, I nervously surveyed the route leading to the Methodist soup kitchen a block away. In the distance, dim figures were emerging from the shadows and gliding toward the church. Some joined small groups that were huddled together against the predawn cold; others stood alone, protecting their anonymity and their possessions. In the faint morning light, all were faceless, nameless apparitions without gender, race, identity. These were the homeless, and I was about to meet them on their own turf. What, I wondered, have I gotten myself into?

Just four months earlier I had taken a job with the Texas Homeless Education Office (THEO) as part-time writer. During that time, I had learned much about the plight of the homeless—particularly the children, whose educational goals are threatened by their transient circumstances. However, my actual contact with homeless individuals consisted of stepping around a cardboard-covered “derelict” sleeping in some doorway or making myself feel better by giving a dollar to a rag-tag stranger in mismatched tennis shoes. My “knowledge” of the homeless came primarily from online research, newsletter articles, and interviews with teachers and administrators about their work with homeless students. When Tim Stahlke, Program Coordinator at THEO, mentioned that the Texas Homeless Network and other local agencies would be conducting a survey of Austin’s homeless population, I quickly volunteered. Quite frankly, I had little desire to interact with the homeless; my primary motivation was meeting others like myself who worked with homeless issues, not necessarily the homeless themselves. I felt that my participation might benefit me professionally, that it would open the way to networking, to being part of a professional tribe, to gathering article topics—maybe even to some freelance work.

Weeks later as I sat through the first planning meeting—putting names with faces, memorizing who worked for which agency, asking questions, and trying not to appear horribly naïve—the actual survey remained an abstraction. Having never been a part of such an endeavor, I was too absorbed in the process to worry about where it was leading. Or perhaps I was just in denial; no one likes to admit his or her fears.

By the final meeting before the survey, however, I could no longer deny the inevitable; in less than 48 hours I would face the homeless. By this time I’d managed to stop actually worrying about it, but only because worry had given way to dread. Hoping that this morning’s one-hour, one-and-only training session would fuel my courage and provide a sense of camaraderie with the other volunteers, I stepped into the meeting hall. For the first time I saw the small army of forces who, in the predawn hours of 26 February 2004 and armed with only a bag of socks and a clipboard, would canvass Austin in search of information. It was a diverse group, composed of bubbling sorority girls, Austin’s Downtown Rangers, staff from homeless agencies and shelters, civic-minded business people, and a few retirees. During the introductions, a gaunt fellow with a grizzled beard stated that he himself had been homeless and now worked as an advocate for those still on the street. I envied him, for his kinship with the homeless community gave him a measure of self-assurance and identity that I lacked. Why wasn’t I assigned to his team? I muttered.

At the center of the gathering, one of the organizers was explaining the procedure for administering the surveys: how to approach someone, when to offer socks in exchange for their participation, how to pose difficult questions, what to do if the individual became agitated or threatening. Agitated or threatening! I was entertaining worse-case scenarios in my mind when an elderly gentleman standing to my left whispered that maybe he should bring a gun. I turned to see if he was kidding, but the look of desperation in his eyes told me otherwise. Admittedly, it terrified me to think that I could be assaulted by some delusional homeless creature whose dementia caused him to believe that I was a blood-sucking alien vampire. But carrying a gun as an antidote for fear was equally irrational; anyone that paranoid had no business on the street. Although we’d never met, I offered my companion some unsolicited advice. “Why not just bring along a pocketful of silver coins?” I suggested, half kidding. “If you get in a jam, toss down some change to create a diversion and hustle off in the opposite direction.”

He looked at me thoughtfully for a few seconds, apparently weighing the protective power of coins versus handguns. “Thanks for the tip,” he said with a wry smile, “but I think I’ll bring a wad of dollar bills, just to feel safe.” As he wandered off to get a cup of coffee, I recalled how safety ranks second on Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs, right behind physiological needs like food, drink, comfort, shelter, warmth, sleep—basically, everything that homeless people struggle for every day. The realization put my own concerns in a whole new perspective.

Now, as I sat in my car, I knew it was time to put my insight to the test. After securing my valuables in the glove compartment, I got out and locked the car doors. In one hand I held my bag of surveys and crew socks; in the other, a handful of quarters, which I slipped into my pocket. Just to feel safe, I told myself. As I approached the entrance to the soup kitchen, the doors opened and the considerable crowd poured inside, drawing me with them. I stood off to the side as the homeless diners fell into their familiar routine of forming lines, securing tables, calling out to one another. I had yet to find any of my team members and so felt alone, marginalized, and terribly self-conscious with my shopping bag and leather jacket. Realizing that no one was going to approach me, I screwed up my courage and walked up to the most “normal-looking” person in line: a tall, closely-shaven fellow dressed in clean sweats and scuffed Adidas. “Good morning!” I intoned with a forced grin, “Would you like to trade some information for a pair of socks?” Once I had his attention, I ran through the introductory speech that I had memorized and began administering the survey. To my surprise, he seemed genuinely interested and gave up his personal history without flinching or growing impatient. Yes, he had been in prison. No, he didn’t have a job. Yes, he had tested positive for hepatitis C. I sensed that I was more uncomfortable recording his responses than he was giving them. As we approached the serving line, I began to lose his attention to the smell of bacon, yet he remained polite and seemed genuinely pleased with the socks that I gave him for his trouble. As I walked off, I realized that I couldn’t have asked for a smoother first encounter.

That morning I met several members of Austin’s homeless community. I was joked with, called “sir” on numerous occasions, told I looked like Dustin Hoffman, asked about community college programs, and generally made to feel at ease. It wasn’t a deliberate effort, nor was it duplicitous. It was simply the courtesy that one human extends to another. And—to my surprise—not only did I feel safe, I felt a certain kinship with those I interviewed, people whose circumstances had left them without homes, separated from their families, unable to find work, and yet determined to make better lives for themselves. Fate could just as easily visit such hardships on me, I thought. Could I remain as optimistic as these people?

Later that day I visited another soup kitchen, interviewing more of Austin’s homeless citizens. I met a young couple who were stranded in town with neither money nor friends. Bright and friendly, they took their predicament in stride. “After all,” the 20-something woman said with a smile, “we have our health.” I waited for a sarcastic laugh, but it never came. Later I saw them give their socks to a bearded homeless man wearing a dress and fishnet stockings.

I then approached an older woman of mixed ethnicity who was standing apart from the crowd lined up for the evening meal. By now I had refined my introduction, adlibbing according to circumstance and subject. The woman’s face wrinkled pleasantly when I approached, and she unhesitatingly agreed to answer my questions. Perhaps because she had lived so long, her story was richer and more touching than any I had heard that day. She was 72 and had lost her husband 18 months before. Unable to keep up with the mortgage payments, she had lost her house and was living in the garage of a friend, surrounded by all her household items. I was embarrassed to ask her some of the survey questions, but it was necessary to be thorough. Never had hepatitis. Never had an STD. But had been in jail. “I was eighteen,” she explained with a mixture of melancholy and embarrassment, “and I shoplifted a dress. Went to jail for 30 days and never plan to go back.” After we’d finished the survey, she refused the socks I held out to her. “Give ‘em to someboby who needs ‘em, hon,” she insisted with another crinkly smile.

An hour later I was out of socks and most of the crowd had gone inside to eat. I was standing against a wall counting my surveys when a tyke of about four walked up and smiled at me. “Hey little guy!” I offered, noticing that his mother was waiting nearby to take him inside for dinner. He was the only child I had seen all day, and he was clearly looking for some entertainment. I tore a sheet of paper from a pad I had brought and gave him a pencil to draw with. Dashing off to the safety of his mother’s side, he pointed in my direction and grinned. He seemed so happy and secure that I was reminded of my own fear just a few hours before when I stepped from my car. I approached the mother and asked if I could give the boy something else. “I don’t really need it anymore,” I explained as I handed the little fellow my pocketful of silver. His face beamed with the wide-eyed delight of an innocent. I walked to my car under a bright and peaceful Austin sky, marveling at the power of change.