How do you know if someone is being honest?

I get this question a lot.  It's often phrased like "How do you know someone really has need?" or "What type of information do you check?"

The simple and short answer is that we don't know if someone is being honest with us or not.  We extend them grace and acceptance, just like God extends to us, and we treat everyone who comes in the same.

Everyone who comes to us has need.  On the surface, everyone is coming for food and other types of material assistance. But we all need grace.  So if someone is coming to us without a sincere need for food, they still have a sincere need for grace and love and we try to demonstrate that.   A couple bags of food is a small price to pay for this opportunity.

Some pantries do an extensive amount of paperwork in an effort to keep people honest.  There is one large local pantry that requires a variety of paperwork (including birth certificates for everyone in your household), a signed referral from a church or other agency, and a waiting period while they check and verify all of your information.  I sign these referrals sometimes, which always generates a phone call to make sure I am a real person who really signed the form and verify the person is in need of assistance.
 I get it.  I really do.  They serve a lot more people than we do.  This is their approach at being fair.

We do check a photo ID and ask for a current piece of mail to verify the address given to us.  We check this about once a year on everyone, and reserve the right to do so more if we think something is going on.  We are lenient about giving folks a few visits to produce this documentation. We are lenient with those who are homeless in terms of verifying an address.   We have a 2 sided form that everyone fills out, which includes a pledge of honesty guests sign.
We have everyone fill out a brand new form about once a year. We go over their form with them every time they come in to make sure their information is correct.

Why don't we do more?

* It requires a large amount of volunteer time and effort to go more in depth with verifying info.  That time could be better spent in more productive relationship building with people.

* If someone is really committed to lying to get some free food, they will work the system no matter how complex.  If this happens, they obviously have some form of real need that should be addressed.

* If the system is too complex, vulnerable people will have barriers to getting assistance they truly need.  Someone who is elderly, illiterate, undereducated, chronically ill, managing a house full of kids, working multiple jobs to make ends meet, non-English speaking, etc. is going to have a hard time completing a pile of paperwork in a timely fashion and may get into a more deeply critical situation.

* It is far better for a person's spirit to assume they are being honest until you have reason to believe otherwise.  Believing the best about someone, especially someone who is going through a hard time, is a great gift.

* It is important to remember it's just "us" and not "us / them."
When I visited this large pantry, it was pretty clear that the staff and volunteers were superior.  This doesn't mean that there weren't some very nice people there.  But it was obvious from the way the application and check in process was run that they wanted to firmly establish the agency's dominance over it's clients.  It made me a little uncomfortable.  People were getting fed, but there was a subtle human cost.
My partner Laura does paperwork, files reports, keeps spreadsheets, etc. It is important to be business like and in control in some respects. We don't ignore this aspect.
However, a big part of how we know someone's level of need is that we try to get to know them.  We have conversations.  We hear their stories.  We laugh together and cry together and pray together. This takes time.                                                                                                                                
 My theory is that the "us-ness" of the way we run things is going to be very hard to stomach for those who might wish to be blatantly dishonest.   Either this approach is going to change their heart, or they are going to go elsewhere for assistance.  It happens, but those people are the minority.

* We've done this awhile.  We aren't naive. People lie.  Chances are, we can figure out pretty quickly when someone is being dishonest with us.  Even with our simple paperwork, Laura has a great mind for picking up when something is "off."
It is almost never because they don't have a true need for food and support.  It is usually centered around who lives in a household, because sometimes people will try to claim to be more households than they are to get more food.  (ie - Multiple adults living under the same roof may try to make up an address.)
A friend once told me that if she were desperate to feed her family, she was sure she would falsify information if it meant she could get more food.  It's dishonest but understandable.  We hope if someone is that desperate they will figure out that they can talk to us and we can see how to dig deeper with them to help improve their situation.  That's why we no longer distribute food based on family size.  We don't want to set up a situation where someone might be tempted into dishonesty out of desperation.
If we have a sense someone is trying to pull one over on us, we generally give them a grace-filled chance to correct it.  Asking someone to clarify something because we are confused or think we may have made a mistake on their paperwork is a good way to create a safe space for honesty.


Matthew 10:16 says we should be as shrewd as snakes and innocent as doves.  That's where we try to land so that we can openly love on our neighbors while still being good stewards of our resources.

What makes us different?

Grace.

Our response to the grace God extends to us every day is to do the same for others.