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You may have heard there is a football game being played on Sunday.
The Green Bay Packers and Pittsburgh Steelers will play Super Bowl XLV in Arlington, TX this Sunday. This game is simply the biggest sporting and television event of the year. Tickets sell for thousands of dollars a seat, and only the richest/luckiest 100,000 people in the world get to attend.
Speaking of lucky people, a homeless couple in Wisconsin won an all-expenses paid trip to Dallas for the Super Bowl! (video embedded below)
Good for them! If someone is gonna get something for nothing, it’s nice to see it go to someone who could truly use a break. However, it raises an obvious question. The least expensive ticket on Stubhub is selling for $2,600, so we can assume they could sell their pair of tickets for at least $5,000.
Should this couple go to the game or sell the tickets?
The great thing about the package is that they could sell the tickets and still enjoy an all-expenses paid vacation to Dallas. Even without game tickets, they’ll still be put up in a nice hotel when they can spend the whole weekend, as Ouida says, “spooning”. $5,000 is probably enough money to pay for a year long lease at an apartment and buy some nice clothes. Having a permanent address and being clean and presentable are two of the hardest things for homeless job seekers. This money could be the first step in getting them off the streets forever.
On the other hand, this is truly a once in a lifetime experience. They could sell the tickets, turn their lives around, become productive taxpaying members of society, and still probably never have the chance to go to any Super Bowl, much less one with their favorite team. This will almost certainly be the greatest weekend of their lives, and it would be a shame to throw it away for a few dollars.
Call me crazy, but I think they should keep the tickets and go to the game.
Sure, I’d like for them to sell the tickets and use that money to get their lives on track and stop burdening taxpayers and charities for basic necessities. But who am I to tell them what to do with their tickets?
I have a feeling that the social services are so “good” where they live that their standard of living probably wouldn’t improve much if they did get their own apartment. They’ve declined a free pass out of poverty in exchange for a single weekend experience. It doesn’t seem like they are in any hurry to get out of poverty.
Here’s where it gets controversial. I think the social services and charities are doing a disservice to the impoverished people of that city by providing them with such a high standard of living. They have trained the poor to suck on the teet of government assistance forever.
My eighth grade choir teacher once posed the question, “Why settle for mediocrity when you can strive for extraordinary?” My friend Kevin responded comically, “Because it’s easier.” After the laughter died down, Mr. Buske sighed, “That was supposed to be rhetorical.”
We laughed because his response was so ridiculous. We were bright-eyed, bushy-tailed eighth graders, ready to take on the world! “Easier” wasn’t in our vocabulary.
Now apply that same question to someone who has been living in a homeless shelter for ten years. “Because it’s easier,” to them is not only devoid of humor; it’s their life. A life that was thrust upon them by a nanny state that stripped them of their independence by taking away their ability to provide for themselves.
We shouldn’t be giving the poor what they need; we should be providing them the opportunity to earn it for themselves. I’ll get off my soapbox and leave you with quotes from two American presidents.
“A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have.” – Gerald Ford
“The worst thing you can do for those you love is the things they could and should do themselves.” – Abraham Lincoln
Don’t forget to enter my $25 Amazon Giveaway before Feb 6th, 2011!
Kevin McKee is an entrepreneur, IT guru, and personal finance leader. In addition to his writing, Kevin is the head of IT at Buildingstars, Co-Founder of Padmission, and organizer of Laravel STL. He is also the creator of www.contributetoopensource.com. When he’s not working, Kevin enjoys podcasting about movies and spending time with his wife and four children.
I wouldn’t go to the super bowl even if I wasn’t homeless and had won the tickets. Football is a waste of time IMO.
But on your comments around giving people the opportunity to get what they need, rather than just giving them what they need, I completely agree. Our country has become a nanny state, and too many people are getting on board. There may be a lot of forces moving against individuals in the country, whether corporate or government, but that’s no reason to roll over, take the treat, and have your belly scratched. Bite that hand and take the damn treat for yourself I say! 🙂
“Football is a waste of time IMO.” -This is blasphemy. I think you should move to Europe.
With that being said, I agree with the rest of your points.
$5,000 is enough money to rent a place for 6 months or so; but who is going to rent to a homeless couple with no income?
This is a homeless couple. I doubt they’d be looking for a $800/mo apartment. There are plenty of places that can be rented for $300-$500 a month that are way better than a homeless shelter. Plus, they could pay the entire year of rent up front. What landlord wouldn’t take a year’s worth of rent on day one?
They need to sell the tickets and get some cash. Sign a 6 months lease and get a permanent address so they can get a job. Most employers do not hire smelly people with no addresses.
The $5,000 is also a once in a life time experience for them. It’s a chance to get cleaned up and live a better life. That’s way better than a day at the Superbowl.
Even if they did sell the tickets, do you really think they’d spend the money on improving their lives, or would they piss it away? Until they have a desire to live a better life, they aren’t going to magically become responsible financial citizens.
I would tell them to sell the tickets. With their new found riches, of say $5,000, what will stop them from spending it on say something other than bettering their lives? You or I would take the money and pay off debts, invest it or just plain use it wisely. Someone that does not have anything now and may not want anything could just blow the money they get from selling the tickets. I would sell the tickets as it is a lot cheaper to watch the Super Bowl at home with friends and family. Besides you don’t see the best part of the game, the commercials!
You can take the money; I personally would go to the game! I love football and have always wanted to go to the Super Bowl.
I’m with you Kevin, they should keep the tickets.
Generally people are homeless because of two things: mental illness or addiction. Giving them $5000 will do nothing towards addressing the underlying issues of why they’re homeless.
Oh, and living only on the assistance of social services is a pretty crappy existence. Yes, necessities are provided for, but that’s about it. If it’s such a good life, why don’t smarter people do it?
It’s not a good life; it’s an easy life. It’s a lazy life. It’s a dependent life. These people feel like their life wont get much better if they try, so they don’t try at all.
Kevin, you’re absolutely right in the fact that selling the tickets will most likely not raise the outward appearance of quality of life much because the government assistance they’re getting may be just as good.
HOWEVER, a person with pride and the will to make themselves better and be a productive member of society would sell the tickets in a heartbeat would sell the tickets in a heartbeat and use the money as a springboard. Yes, that year lease on an inexpensive apartment may not be much (if any) better than the shelter, but it would be their own. They would feel better about themselves, get a job, and eventually (hopefully) move up the ladder, move out of that apartment into sometihng that IS better than government assistance and their quality of living would eventually be much better.
However, a person who just wants to sponge off of taxpayers and not do anything will just take the tickets, go on the trip, and enjoy the game. When they get back, they’ll just remain in the system as they were.
What should they do with the tickets? I believe they should see the tickets as not just what the money can buy, but the potential that it means – the springboard to something better that it could be. They **should** sell the tickets. Absolutely.
The real question, though, is what WILL they do with the tickets. What they do will say alot about their frame of mind, their spirit, and their motivation.
BTW, I absolutely LOVE football. After the SB is over, I will be anxiously awaiting the draft to see what my beloved Vikings to at the QB position. After that I will dream constantly about training camp opening. I would then facinate about pre-season games. Finally, on the day of the first game of the 2011-2012 season I will be so giddy with joy that people will honestly think I’m on crack.
And if I were homeless I would sell those tickets faster than Ed Hochuli can flex his bicep.
Besides, did you know that neither team in this year’s SB field a Cheerleading squad?
If I was homeless due solely to money, I’d sell the tickets. If I was homeless due to some illness or addiction, I’d go to the game since the money is the least of my problems.