Ask MeCha: is there anything you can do to actually HELP a homeless person? →[More:] Besides giving him money or even buying him a meal, how do you go about helping someone you see living on the street?

There's a guy who's shown up on my walk to work. He's Mexican, and unlike a lot of Atlanta's homeless, he doesn't appear to have a clue how to "be homeless." (For one thing, he's staked out a terrible patch of walkway over a railroad track where nobody has ever tried to live before, probably because it's deafening when the trains go under.) I know he speaks some English but I don't know how much. I find myself worrying about him because he seems very timid, very skinny, and as I said, possibly clueless about living on the street.

What can I do? I can give him a few bucks, but it seems like that just gives him enough money to stay on the street another day. I don't think he's tough enough to live where he's living, and it weighs on me to see him every day lately, and then worry about his survival skills.

I'm posting this before going to bed so I won't be responding right away, but I'd appreciate any feedback y'all might have. As I said, I worry about this guy.