Don't Patronize the Homeless

To the editors:

Tahlia T. Tuck's suggestion that Harvard students cope with the homeless by "simply smiling and speaking to them" is perhaps one of the most patronizing suggestions to appear on the Crimson's editorial page (Opinion, Apr. 8). Tuck argues so passionately that we ought to treat homeless people with "human decency," yet she herself simultaneously patronizes the homeless by suggesting that they are somehow foreign beings who just happen to pervade our student landscape.

Furthermore, Tuck seems to confuse beggars with homeless people; beggars are not necessarily homeless, and vice versa. In fact, if Tuck had conversations with some of the panhandlers that I have talked to, she would learn that many of them live quite comfortably. To be sure, these sorts of beggars are probably not the norm, but Tuck's inane generalizations still smack of guilt-wracked hooey. Tuck needs to give Harvard students more credit; the majority of us are already concerned about the problem of homelessness, but are averse to treating homeless people like they are animals in a petting zoo. ADAM R. KOVACEVICH '99   April 7, 1998