The Outreach Project staff has compiled this list of answers to common questions about our neighbors without homes. Test your knowledge, then click here to find out How You Can Help.

Q: What is homelessness?
A: Homelessness can be defined many different ways but some elements remain constant in every definition. Homeless people are those who have no permanent home. They include people living on the streets as well as people who live in shelters, hospitals, mental health facilities or jails, who have nowhere to go after they are released.

Q: How do people become homeless?
A: People become homeless for many different reasons. Some are mentally ill or have histories of substance abuse; others suffer traumas, such as fires or accidents. Many of these challenges are exacerbated by a lack of affordable housing coupled with cuts in government subsidies.

Q: The Upper East Side is one of Manhattan’s wealthiest neighborhoods. How many homeless people can be found on the Upper East Side?
A: There are an estimated 2,000 homeless people in the Upper East Side.

Q: If someone asks for money, should I give it to him or her?
A: Giving money is a personal choice. Please realize that you have no control over how the money will be used, and that it may not be used in the manner you would use it. Give only if you are comfortable with giving unconditionally.

Q: Should I give food or clothes?
A: Like giving money, giving food or clothes is a personal choice. An alternative is to donate a coat to Lenox Hill Neighborhood House so an outreach worker can give it to a homeless person.

Q: Is it better to give to an agency or to a homeless individual?
A. Consider that giving food directly to a homeless individual is an immediate but temporary gift. Donating to an agency like Lenox Hill Neighborhood House may potentially become a greater, more permanent gift. When outreach workers offer a homeless person food or a warm coat, it is a first step to building trust. After consistent and persistent involvement with the outreach workers, a relationship forms. As the relationship strengthens over time, the outreach workers invite the client to meet them at a meal program or other service location and help them to continue to take larger steps toward leaving the streets and obtaining housing.

Q: Should I be scared of the homeless people I encounter?
A: Most homeless people are scared themselves. Some homeless people may look or act strangely, but often their actions are defense mechanisms designed to keep others away and maintain some amount of privacy. As one social worker explains, Everything that you and I do in our homes, they have to do in public: eating, sleeping, brushing their teeth -- everything.