We all want to do the right thing. But how?

I take cabs around Anchorage frequently, and over the years, I have come to know many drivers. Sometimes, we talk — about the business, local news, the weather, the future.

Many of the drivers are immigrants, so many they could form a little United Nations. Kenya, Nigeria, Somalia, Turkey, Serbia, Macedonia, Albania, China, Korea are represented.

If these drivers become comfortable with me, they ask questions about their new country. One of the most common, delivered in a tone of wonder, is "Why are there street people?"

"These people were born in this country," a driver will continue. "They grew up in this country. They went to school in this country. English is their language. Why are they living on the street?"

This is a question not as disturbing as looking into the cold winter sky and asking “Why is there something instead of nothing,” but it is disturbing. And I don’t have much an answer — for the drivers or for myself.

I have heard social scientists, activists, politicians and clergy offer explanations — lack of affordable housing, substance abuse, broken families, racial oppression, income inequality, mental illness. Mental illness certainly is common enough. The transit center and bus shelters are magnets for the mentally ill. I have seen people squatting in bus shelters for days, their home away from home.

I have asked cab drivers, “Don’t you have homeless in your country?”

"Not like this," they snort.

One driver told me about his first day in the United States after leaving Somalia. His uncle picked him up at the Minneapolis airport and drove him downtown. The two of them passed many homeless people with signs “God bless” and “Anything helps.” The startled young immigrant asked his uncle “Who are these people?” The uncle rasped, “That’s you if you don’t work.” The former greenhorn now works more than 60 hours per week.

I asked him, "Why do you work so hard?" He laughed. "To eat!"

We have a number of social service agencies for the homeless. But large numbers of the homeless don’t know about or don’t care about these agencies. They turn to private business, and I am not only talking about the obvious, stereotypical businesses, liquor stores.

Supermarkets and hotels in particular draw them. People sometimes camp right across the street from my neighborhood market. Others huddle for hours in the entrance area, some to recharge their cellphones at handy electrical outlets. They rarely ask for money, just sit on the floor or stand staring into oblivion.

I watched a blind man tapping his way into the store. He was tall, thin, elderly. I offered to help him navigate the door, a move that provoked him to recite a story of the injustices he had suffered, most recently that that morning his wallet had been lifted. He wanted bus fare to get home. I thought “OK” and gave him five bucks. But he didn’t head for the bus stop; he went into the store and started bellowing “Where’s the bathroom! Where’s the bathroom!” The supermarket staffers gaped. I presume somebody took him to the bathroom — it would be the only human thing to do.

But this kind of simple help turns the staffers into social service providers. The homeless people go to sleep in the bathroom. They take sink baths and cover the floor with water. Finished with their ablutions, they bum cigarettes from shoppers.

Street people create friction, daily friction. (Los Angeles Times columnist Robin Abcarian, writing about the estimated 59,000 homeless in Los Angeles County, noted, “Unauthorized pooping is a real problem ...”)

I don’t stay in hotels in Anchorage, but in Fairbanks, I have watched the homeless come in and stand, simply stand, until hotel security throws them out. The Fairbanks Marriott downtown had a heat exchanger that would blast hot air into the street. At 30 below, the homeless would sleep under it in ragged blankets.

The New Testament says, “The poor you will always have with you.” This seems indisputable, even if you don’t believe another word in the Bible.

One early morning last fall, I walked to the supermarket and encountered four or five street people sleeping on the grass across the street. Men, plus a woman. One of the men crawled from under a blanket, yawned and waved at me. When I reached the store, I thought “OK, I am going to do something I have never done before — a one-off.” I bought big cups of coffee and a few pastries and walked over to the camp. “Team,” I told the campers “breakfast in bed.” Muffled cheers as coffee and pastries were distributed.

The guy who had waved to me brought himself to attention, gave me a snappy salute with his right hand and shouted "Semper Fi."

Now, was this guy a former Marine? Was his dad or brother a Marine? Did he learn “Semper Fi” from the movies? I didn’t stick around to find out. But the pathos of the moment almost brought me to tears. Yes, always faithful.

The Bible also asks, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” The answer is unclear to me. If you have an obligation, is there one way to fulfill your obligation? Many ways? How about no way — impossible. Yes, I know there are those who devote themselves to the poor. They sell their worldly goods and move in with the Catholic Worker (for example) and charity becomes their life. Even these loving souls have trouble with the dimensions of this question. So what do they do? Serve soup and pray.

But the rest of us, what to do? We have too many responsibilities — too many other people to “keep.” So maybe we buy coffee and pastries, or throw a few bucks into the Salvation Army pail at Christmas in exchange for a smile from the bell-ringer. Besides, don’t we have the right to ask: “Is there no statute of limitations?” Don’t we have the right to go our own way?

Spike Lee had a wonderful, if ironic, title for one of his films: "Do The Right Thing." If only we knew the right thing.

Michael Carey is an Anchorage Daily News columnist. He can be reached at mcarey@adn.com.

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