The effects of poverty are prominent in Kingston. Homeless people sleep on the streets of the corporate area and downtown. Children sell chocolate bars when they should be in school. People live in abandoned buildings and squat and rejig power lines to access free electricity. People ask for money regularly. And that is just what we see as we walk and travel about Kingston.

Being a regular witness to poverty engenders many reactions among people, depending on the person, the time of day, their mood or any number of other variables, I think. People can tune it out or they can continue to feel heartbroken, angry, bewildered and confused about how to respond.

I know that for me, my reaction depends on the day and the circumstances, but it is never easy to see or to know what the “appropriate” response is. Lately, however, I have been realizing that everyday, when it comes to poverty, I see at least one thing that challenges me, prompts me to stop and question my expectations and assumptions.

In less vague, euphemistic terms, when I see the people I assume are homeless, or at the very least poor enough to need to ask for money, I assume they are unhappy. I guess I dehumanize them by detracting in my mind their capacity for a full range of emotions such as joy, dignity and happiness. Here are some recent scenes that have caused me to check myself.

A homeless man, wearing ragged clothing, surrounded by a several plastic bags of odds and ends, sitting on a wall on Hope Road, early in the morning, polishing his shoes.

A young man, in a merino tank top, backwards cap, ragged shorts and no shoes, sweating as he wipes people’s car windshields at the intersection of Hope and Trafalgar Roads for the equivalent of several dollars per wipe, breathing in exhaust fumes and listening to people reject his advances all day, dancing on the median to music only he can hear.

An elderly man who literally sits in a cardboard box all day, arms and legs dangling out the sides, wearing pants and a long-sleeve shirt, smiling and greeting passersby, not asking for any money, while his peers beside him ask for “a twenty dollar fi buy some food.”

I have seen these three scenes repeatedly, and they have caused me to think, a lot, and for that I am grateful.