GIFT

Rent or Food?

I just got off the phone with a friendgirl and she is having the toughest time financially. My husband and I helped buy her children Christmas gifts because her and her husband couldn’t afford to. (Really, we couldn’t either,but we did). She told me this morning that their rent is due (not past due). She don’t even have the full amout for the rent and the only thing they have in the refrigerator is butter, bread and a jar of mayo. I’m going to give her $100; not a lot but it will help. Before she hung up she asked me, what do you do when you have to make a decision to either pay your rent or feed your children. That question kind of stuck with me and I just want to know what you think.

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Ignoring all the implications of her having said this to you (i.e. she wants you to keep giving her money) I will answer strictly from a cold, detached, and logical perspective.

When you choose not to pay your rent, you are essentially giving up on having a place to live. Unless you have some reasonable expectation that more money is coming later in the month and you can pay your rent late, failing to pay your rent is inviting eviction. Okay, so your kids were hungry. Now they’ll be hungry and homeless. Have things gotten better or worse?

Also, strictly from the cold and heartless point of view, when you fail to pay your rent you are imposing your poverty on someone else and you are stealing services. Why not just steal the food too? As much as we all like to make fun of our landlords and cheat them out of money when we can, the fact is that they provide a service and deserve to be paid for it, just like the grocer, just like the cable company, just like everyone else that we owe money to. The landlords are depending on that rent coming in so that they can pay the mortgage on your building and probably some or all of the utilities on the place in which you live. When your rent doesn’t come in, the landlord can’t pay the other bills. The landlords worked hard to get where they are and to own what they own. It’s not right to fail to pay them. People pay the grocery store when they hand over the food. Why do people not feel the same conviction about paying the rent when the landlord has provided the most basic of all services, a place to live?

There are social service agencies all over the place who will give you food or give you the means to buy food. There are food banks. There are church “back door” programs. There is AFDC (Aid for Families with Dependent Children). Lots and lots of ways to get food. You only have one home, and not paying the rent promises to lose it for you.

Now, on the other hand, all of that probably means nothing to people when their kids are hungry and asking for food. The choice that most people will make at that point is to use their rent money to buy food to feed the kids. I don’t think it’s the right choice for all of the reasons I’ve outlined above. But I’ve never been in that situation and hope and pray that I never will be.
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