I saw this article in the paper this morning and it got me to thinking.

The last thing Lindsey Wilson wants is for people to stop helping victims of Hurricane Katrina.

But after her experience last week, she admits it will be hard for her to open up her door -- and her heart.

"I've lost a little faith in humanity," said Wilson, a 22-year-old Georgia State student who was victimized by a Lithonia woman claiming to be an evacuee from New Orleans.

Wilson went to the Red Cross center at Life University in Marietta last Friday hoping to help an evacuee in need of a comfortable place to stay for a while, some food to eat and some clothes to wear.

She found Beretta Jo Hogg, 36, and her 8-year-old son, who had come to the center to claim some of the money being given to people displaced by the storm.

Wilson invited Hogg and her son to stay in her apartment in Vinings.

But, Cobb County police say, Hogg's story was a hoax.

She actually had been living in Lithonia and then an apartment in Stone Mountain before being evicted two weeks ago, according to an employee at the apartment complex who identified herself as Tiffany.

Hogg was charged with the felony of theft by deception for accepting $1,300 set aside for hurricane victims from the Red Cross, police said. She remained in the Cobb County Jail on Tuesday on $2,850 bond.

Clearly, the people who have been forced from their homes by the disastrous force of Hurricane Katrina are in need of help due to circumstances beyond their control. Society at large seems to be generally agreed that it is a good and worthy thing to help these folks.

But what is Hogg's excuse? We don't know. All we know is that she had been evicted and had no place to stay and quite likely very little money (after all, if she'd had money she would have paid the rent, right?). But this poor, desparate woman with her 8-year-old-son were clearly not worthy of being helped. As she watched other people who had been battered by the vagaries of life getting help freely and generously she was on the street with her child with no where to go.

It can be argued that it was unethical and even illegal for her to take money and help which had been intended for hurricane victims when she was not herself a victim of the hurricane. But how is she less worthy of help than these other people? There are people in desparate circumstances every day. Is it unethical to take advantage of a system that systematically helps some folks while ignoring others? This system is not just the Red Cross hurricane relief efforts. This system is our country, our government, our selves.

Why is it so hard to understand that society will be better off if we help people who are desparate rather than setting up obstacles to their recovery and then throw them in jail if they don't follow the arbitrary rules that have been set up to exclude them.

Could the money, clothes, food, and shelter have helped Hogg to get back on her feet and contribute to society? I don't know. I don't know anything about her except that she was in desparate circumstances and trying to keep her small family together and alive.

Was she worthy of being helped? None of us are and all of us are. May none of you, dear readers, find yourselves in a situation where you can find no way to get food and shelter other than to try to circumvent societal expectations and arbitrary rules. God help us. There is a very real chance that no one else will.