Posted on 12/23/2017 2:19:33 PM PST by nickcarraway
Who are you to judge what they do with that cash?
Don’t just buy them a sandwich from Pret. They’re not four. They have the right to spend their money as they choose – and it is their money, once given. Don’t just give to people performing, singing, or accompanied by a cute dog. Buskers deserve a wage too, of course. But homeless people are not your dancing monkey and they shouldn’t have to perform to earn your pity.
Don’t second-guess whether people are “really” homeless. Those who think begging is a shortcut to easy money should try humiliating themselves daily in front of thousands of total strangers who won’t even look at them or acknowledge their existence. It is gruelling, soul-destroying work. If people are desperate enough to beg, they need it.
Don’t just give to people who ask you directly, but to the guy with his head in his hands and a Styrofoam cup on the ground in front of him. Give to the woman who’s blind drunk. Give to the guy with meth-rotted teeth. Give to the spice addict who can’t look you in the eye.
Many street beggars are addicts, yes. Do addicts not deserve food? Wouldn’t you want to drink if you were in their position? Don’t you get drunk every weekend to cope with work stress anyway? Who are you to tell them what to do with their bodies?
As the founder of User Voice, a charity led and staffed by former homeless addicts, says: “If your money funds the final hit, accept that the person would rather be dead. If your act of kindness makes him wake up the next morning and decide to change his life, that’s nice but not your business either.”
Of course, it is true that your drinking habit and theirs are fundamentally different. Addiction is rooted in material circumstance – alcohol is the obvious example, but think how many skiing accidents end in courses of opiates far stronger than anything you’d find on the street without any long-term compulsion developing. It can only be tackled by raising people out of poverty, and a brute-force severing of cash flow is not going to starve people into seeking help from authorities they know will not, or cannot, help them.
Yet this abject morality, which says we must push people to rock bottom before we are able to help them, is seized on by austerity governments always greedy to do less. In fact, studies show begging emerges in the “middle-late stages” of homelessness, once people have already exhausted other options. The rock bottom has already been reached.
Eighty per cent of homeless people in the UK experienced no support or advice the last time they were moved on by police or council workers. When the government claims that most people begging on the street are refusing better help, what they mean is the help on offer is not adequate.
Homeless people need free, state-provided housing and fully-funded psychological care. What they get is £538m annual cuts to mental health services and austerity measures driving them into arrears with private landlords and on to the street.
The average life expectancy of a homeless man in London is 47. For women, it is 43. This is lower than the general life expectancy of any nation on the planet. These lives will be improved by systemic, not loose, change.
In the absence of an adequate government response, charitable giving and hostels remain lifesavers to many thousands of people. But big homelessness charities are already receiving millions yearly, while those deemed impossible to help die outside. When I speak to rough sleepers, it is local communities, squatters and grassroots organisations like the London-wide Streets Kitchen which they credit with keeping them alive.
“There is no need to beg on the streets in 2017,” leading London homelessness charity Thames Reach claims. “Hostel rent is covered through Housing Benefit [and] it is an urban myth that if you have no address, you cannot claim benefits.”
The charity, which is primarily funded by the government, makes no mention of the many gatekeeping barriers vulnerable people must cross to secure benefits and a stable hostel place.
Most damningly, they do not mention the fact that the foreign nationals who make up over half of London’s rough-sleeping population cannot claim benefits to access the hostel network at all. Rather, Thames Reach and other top charities shop homeless foreigners to the Home Office to be deported.
It is those same government-funded charities that push the narrative that “kindness kills” as they tout for your donations. Do not believe them. Apathy and austerity kill. Your kindness saves lives.
who are you to tell me how and when to donate my money
Don’t count on that.
with internet access
me too ??
If someone ever came at me like that and put it to me, I wouldn’t just ignore them and walk on, I would give them a full ration, and not of food, either.
Pssst, they aren’t all actually homeless. Some get dropped off and picked up in a nice car.
The “out of gas” scam works particularly well during rush hour (posing with a gas can). It’s great because instead of 1 or 2 dollars, you stand a chance at getting 5-10 dollars a throw.
I was kind of interested in that comment as well. Could you expand on it, nickcarraway?
Are you a homeless vet?
Youth in Asia
I give all my contributions - real food, including boxed food and canned goods - to the local church. That church does an outstanding job of feeding homeless people and those down on their luck. I direct all street people begging for dollars to that church for food.
The other superior private organization feeding people is the Salvation Army. If you see a grocery store having a firesale on dented cans and boxes, the Salvation Army will happily take that food.
There’s been a guy sitting on an island on a heavily traveled road here for a month. He holds up a sign marked “Broke, stranded, help”. He somehow can afford smokes to help pass the time tho’.
No, I don't. I have never been drunk ever! And, until I give anyone some money, it is mine to with as I please. It is not anyone's business if I choose to buy a sandwich with my money. Having bought said sandwich, I can then choose to eat it, throw it away, give it to someone, or whatever.
Who is this holier-than-thou person to tell me what to do with my private property?
The author is delusional.
They will debase themselves through begging.
They receive givernment bene’s and in some parts of California they can pull in 6 figures on top of that...
If a homeless FReeper exists, we should help him! How can we help you? For instance, do you have a PayPal acct?
I don’t give them money. I just tell them obunghole took all my extra money and go ask him for it.
Every single beggar...
Always has money for a black magic marker.
“I do not care what happens to the homeless in the UK!!”
And rightfully so. A good socialist country would be paying these comrades a salary so they wouldn’t have to beg.
Saw an episode of Drugs Inc. The perp brings his dog to a famous Vegas corner to beg for a few bucks. He then buys meth.
I’m out.
Paypal I can handle.
Most of the charitable donating goes through them.
I can do something via Paypal.
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