I am asking because I know people from both sides:
- People who discourage it: usually talk about how the beggars might spend their money on, how they might be lying, How donating to them will encourage them to keep begging and how they should be looking for a job instead (My commentary: finding a job is impossible for them this days, matter of fact there is literally hundreds, if not thousands of articles online talking about how hard and impossible it had become).
- People who encourage it: to be honest here, they usually talk only about religious reasons.
(Note: I know that the overview about both sides are highly unbalanced, but I preferred to keep it limited to my personal experiences rather than expanding it from myself, as I intentionally not looking for theories and objective logic, rather I am looking at people reasons and opinions as this is highly subjective matter.)
Anyone got any thoughts about this?
As someone who’s been homeless, I deride the term beggar. Still, It depends, If I have something on me I can part with. A joint, a cigarette sure. Got a fairly annoying allergy that means I often wind up with some food stuff I can’t eat. If I have bills they can have cash. Change is kinda worthless here. If someone looks hungry, I’ll give them something. But there’s so many now in the area, you can’t help everyone.
I give them a fiver and ask them if they need anything else. Saying ‘they might buy something wrong’ is a slippery slope to ‘people shouldn’t get benefits because they might buy beer.’ And I have heard right wing politicians literally say the latter.
I want them to get that fucking beer man. Being homeless sucks. A beer makes it suck less.
“Don’t give that guy money, he’ll just use it to buy drugs”
I’m just going to use it to buy chocolate, fuck does it matter if it’s his addict or mine? At least I still have a house to eat my chocolate in.
People don’t typically eat enough chocolate to die. Where as many “beggars” use the $ to buy drugs which certainly can/does result in ODs.
And you’re going to make the decision based on that and someone who would have gotten food or saved for medicine, or only needed that $5 to get a room night doesn’t get there. I’m not here to police that, all I know is I have, they don’t, and if I have something to give I should.
Not giving someone $5 ultimately won’t do anything to change that. The government needs to implement radical harm reduction policies.
Wrong. Any amount of cash can help someone buy a “fix”. That fix could be fatal. If you don’t believe it, you’re ignorant.
I agree. Some people buying something bad for them doesn’t mean they’re unworthy of the chance to buy food or something else objectively helpful for life.
I had a lady come up to me in the grocery store with her child and ask very quietly in very broken spanish/english to help her buy food for her and her daughter - who looked to be about 2. My first reaction that I acted on was to say sorry and walk away. Then it hit how cold and callous that was. Even if she was a scammer, that is not an easy way to make money. So I found her gave her $20 and walked away. A few minutes later I saw her with a cart and some food with a smile on her face.
My opinion is that if I have a bit of money that I can do without there is someone that could do with it I’ll let them have it. The money may go to a scammer from time to time and I know in the past it has, but if I can help one genuinely needy person I do what I can, not going to let the shit bags (both scammers and politicians) keep me from trying to help
Occasionally I will say “how much more to get some product” followed immediately by “how much ya got”. If they show change in their palm or otherwise engage honestly, I’ll usually top them up. Have your beer dude, if your life is so crummy this is what you need to feel OK go ahead. Never ever ever ever ever ever ever give to somebody that claims they are hungry because that is a bald-faced lie.
But generally the way I give is to check on the addicts in the bus shelter during extreme winter nights, bring them hot/cold water, supplies to plug wind holes and otherwise keep it warmer, plus whatever I salvage in my travels. In summer I maintain the community “ice water” zone which is just at the stump of a tree, but now that all the people in the hood know it’s there, it’s raided continually. I honestly can’t keep up as I just have a tiny freezer but it’s replenished as often as reasonable for me. The community chips in now as well… they’ve started to bring lidded takeout cups and plastic bottles and leave them there so I don’t have to constantly scout containers.
I prefer donating to food banks etc. That’s a good tradeoff between helping people eat and not feeding addiction or encouraging begging. I want a world where anybody struggling just goes to the next food bank and shelter and won’t freeze, won’t go hungry and find assistance to improve his situation. The cost for these things is so little and it helps so much.
I been on the bottom rung. So I know that kind of living. And because of that I help when I’m able to.
Honestly for me, it’s very hard to trust people who haven’t fallen on hard times. People that have never been in trouble, always feels like they look down on you, and don’t understand the system that keeps people down.
Ive spent a night or two in jail, I’ve been broke as fuck, I’ve had to go without. Until you’ve experienced it, it’s hard to fully understand.
And it’s impossible to explain to people who haven’t lived it.
If they ask and I have it, sure. People will say “I don’t want my money going towards drugs and alcohol” to which I say “who cares?” once you hand it over it’s not yours anymore, let them do with it what they want. Their lives are already shit as is so what do I care if my $2 coin is going to go buy them a beer…oh no a single beer, they’ll get wasted!
Others will say “but you’re just encouraging it” my guy I live in a city of millions not everyone is handing out twonies to homeless people, it’s not going to cause a massive increase in drug use or alcoholism.
I’ve been couch surfing homeless before and that was rough enough. People begging for money have it way tougher. Just because there might possibly be someone who has a house and a car behind for money doesn’t mean it’s a scam, they might also be desperate for money despite having those things.
Begging for money isn’t very lucrative.
If you have the cash and want to help, go ahead and toss that starfish, but if you don’t want to don’t pretend you’re taking the high road.
I won’t help every time, but if someone asks and I’m feeling generous, I usually stop and talk for a few mins and hand them $10-20, no strings attached. I’m not the ethics police and if they buy insulin or liquor doesn’t matter to me as much as them getting the impression that they aren’t invisible and people want to see them prosper. It’s too easy to see myself in their situation for me to be an asshole about it. Most of us are only an accident or bad decision away from homelessness and poverty.
What someone buys with the money I give them is none of my business. These people are suffering, of course buying drugs and alcohol is a possibility. People get drunk at the bar for less.
Some people talk like giving these folks money keeps them in their situation. As if the threat of death and nobody caring if they disappear will magically spring them up with motivation to find a job. Nope. But I agree that our current system of leaving it to the generosity of strangers isn’t effective. We need more housing-first programs, with access to therapy.
My thinking is that as long as I’m given the choice, I’d rather be scammed out of $20 than fail to help someone who legitimately needs it.
I try to give a bit of money, reasons like they are going to spend it on *bad thing* aren’t for me to judge or evaluate and people don’t become rich from begging on the streets. There is also a bit of a hope that someone will give me a bit of money if situation will reverse once.
A lot of them have drug or alcohol problems. I don’t want to fund their self destructive behaviour. I’m more than happy to give money to homeless shelters, food banks and other related charities.
Policy wise, this has always been my hill to die on. Giving the homeless money directly is my exclusive form of charity. Because I don’t want some capitalist on some bragging rights philanthropy board getting part of my donation as part of their six figure board salary. They’ve done enough.
A large homeless population is a symbol of a failed society’s crimes against itself.
If a society doesn’t exist to take care of its people from the worst off upward at all times, it is without a benevolent point and it’s existence is without worth.
The homeless in the US are the US’s greatest domestic victims, left to die horribly of exposure and
policecapital defense force brutality for the crime of failing to become model exploitation vessels for our robber Barron’s insatiable greed disease.Most of them should have conditionless basic housing, the worst off should be inpatient mental health wards of our society, as they are us whether we hate them or not. But we aren’t willing to pay for that. Even though mass homelessness is not inevitable with good policy and funding.
Worse still, many non wealthy Americans hate them for lowering their… 🤮… Property values. This all goes back go us being a society in name only. We’re more a bunch of exploited, deluded peasants at each other’s throats for robber Baron scraps as they use their media and their captured government for blaming their greatest victims, those people under your local freeways and tent cities, for their avarice fueled malice.
Communism may starve human nature, but capitalism indulges and gluts humanity’s worst, most vile impulses exclusively. It breeds sociopathy as a desirable choice.
And considering the depths our homeless have been brought to by the society that betrayed them, I genuinely do not care if they spend it on food or shelter or alcohol or drugs or whatever will give them even a moment of solace/escape/peace from what we have done to them.
Where I live, there are a lot of people who hold signs on the side of the road and the end of off ramps. I’m a funeral director, and I’ve had to cremate homeless people who got hit doing that. It makes me very anxious to see someone running across traffic to grab a dollar from someone three lanes over.
So that in particular bothers me pretty bad
