do you ever give homeless people money?

[fine_leaf_tobacco]

I was exiting a walgreens a few weeks ago behind a suburban house wife looking woman. She stopped abruptly and screamed NO WAY then quickly ran to her suv....as I was making my way out, there was a shabby looking old man outside. He almost turned away but I caught his eye. He asked me for a quater or any change. I felt so bad for this guy...the woman ahead of me acted like he asked to sleep with her or something. I gave him a 20 dollar bill so he wouldn't have to beg all night. I don't know what he was gonna do with it... my opinion? If he needed it, he needed it.

 

[ThePharmacist4925]

I buy homeless people food fairly often, they always seem to appreciate it. If one has a particularly creative sign I might give them a dollar or two, but I need to be thoroughly impressed with the sign. I did give a homeless guy $5 once and told him to have a drink for me since I don't do that anymore.

 

[socko]

I've read that here, beggars (those who appear to be homeless) are often members of gangs. Think Hell's Angels but with child abuse/slavery. It seems like there is a child-beggar (who should be in school) on every street corner in the touristy areas. A leader (like Fagin from Charles Dickens) controls a large number of them and assigns them to an area to work. It's always the same ones each day which I have seen for myself. I've watched them work - the child beggars working alone and women with or without a real baby (sometiems it's a fake baby, or if it's a real child (supposedly they rent babies by the day for this purpose) that appears to me to be unnaturally sleepy - possibly drugged or fed cough syrup).

Every thing about them is carefully engineered to arouse sympathy. In other words, they are highly skilled professional beggars who earn more than some of us. I know dozens of them by sight and have watched them out of curiosity as I have gone about my day. It is interesting to watch them in action. They always wear the same dirty, ragged clothes. They always have bo. They hold out a paper cup that only has a coins in it. People (usually tourists who don't realize they are being scammed) are always stopping to give them money. And food (even to the fat beggars, and many are very fat). EVERY time they get donation, they pocket the donation (whether it's money or food) and keep holding out the nearly empty cup. Some are very aggressive and follow, push, and grab people (I assume as a ruse to distract them so they can pick pocket them, but I haven't actually seen them stick their hand in somebody's pocket. However, 1000s of people report being pickpocketed here each year).

Not only that, but when they are on a break from their begging, I have watched them brazenly steal things from shops.

The best ones get a donation of at least a euro every minute or two by my own observations. Assuming they do this all day, some must bring in 1000 euros a day. Supposedly, the ring leaders of these gangs collect most of the donations at the end of the day, and they are very well off and own luxury property and cars.

Think about that next time you give money to a beggar in any place other than India or South America.

 

[realtalkloc]

I was exiting a walgreens a few weeks ago behind a suburban house wife looking woman. She stopped abruptly and screamed NO WAY then quickly ran to her suv....as I was making my way out, there was a shabby looking old man outside. He almost turned away but I caught his eye. He asked me for a quater or any change. I felt so bad for this guy...the woman ahead of me acted like he asked to sleep with her or something. I gave him a 20 dollar bill so he wouldn't have to beg all night. I don't know what he was gonna do with it... my opinion? If he needed it, he needed it.

this was really nice of you.

 

[thujone]

I've read that here, beggars (those who appear to be homeless) are often members of gangs. Think Hell's Angels but with child abuse/slavery. It seems like there is a child-beggar (who should be in school) on every street corner in the touristy areas. A leader (like Fagin from Charles Dickens) controls a large number of them and assigns them to an area to work. It's always the same ones each day which I have seen for myself. I've watched them work - the child beggars working alone and women with or without a real baby (sometiems it's a fake baby, or if it's a real child (supposedly they rent babies by the day for this purpose) that appears to me to be unnaturally sleepy - possibly drugged or fed cough syrup).

Every thing about them is carefully engineered to arouse sympathy. In other words, they are highly skilled professional beggars who earn more than some of us. I know dozens of them by sight and have watched them out of curiosity as I have gone about my day. It is interesting to watch them in action. They always wear the same dirty, ragged clothes. They always have bo. They hold out a paper cup that only has a coins in it. People (usually tourists who don't realize they are being scammed) are always stopping to give them money. And food (even to the fat beggars, and many are very fat). EVERY time they get donation, they pocket the donation (whether it's money or food) and keep holding out the nearly empty cup. Some are very aggressive and follow, push, and grab people (I assume as a ruse to distract them so they can pick pocket them, but I haven't actually seen them stick their hand in somebody's pocket. However, 1000s of people report being pickpocketed here each year).

Not only that, but when they are on a break from their begging, I have watched them brazenly steal things from shops.

The best ones get a donation of at least a euro every minute or two by my own observations. Assuming they do this all day, some must bring in 1000 euros a day. Supposedly, the ring leaders of these gangs collect most of the donations at the end of the day, and they are very well off and own luxury property and cars.

Think about that next time you give money to a beggar in any place other than India or South America.

i haven't spent long enough in paris to even notice panhandlers but that describes to a T the stereotypical gypsy of central and eastern europe. most are essentially amoral and not necessarily out to cause harm, they seem destined to survive on the fringe of society whether it's picking pockets or collecting discarded trash to recycle for income. there was a good doco exposing the gypsy culture as organized crime with money from operations across europe flowing back to kingpins in romania. it must be difficult for those who try and escape the stigma and live with some dignity under the roma title, how can you convince anyone to trust you when society believes everything you say and do is an attempt at manipulation?

 

[atreyaferret]

Depends. I usually keep a care package of sorts in my trunk and will hand out those. They contain essentials; can opener, bottled water, tuna, toothbrush, deodorant, bread, can of pet food (I've run into a few that actually have a dog), etc. If I don't have one then I will give them whatever I have; a few bucks, blanket in my car, that kind of thing. I try to make a point of talking to them. A couple have been brought to tears just from talking with them.
One day I was leaving a restaurant downtown and there was this pregnant woman. Had seen her around a few times. I had extra food so I offered it to her, completely unopened and it was obvious that I had just left the restaurant...and she denied it. She was actually mad. So, in that case, I didn't give her any money but I did put a container of food at her feet and said, "At least feed your baby."

 

[socko]

i haven't spent long enough in paris to even notice panhandlers but that describes to a T the stereotypical gypsy of central and eastern europe. most are essentially amoral and not necessarily out to cause harm, they seem destined to survive on the fringe of society whether it's picking pockets or collecting discarded trash to recycle for income. there was a good doco exposing the gypsy culture as organized crime with money from operations across europe flowing back to kingpins in romania. it must be difficult for those who try and escape the stigma and live with some dignity under the roma title, how can you convince anyone to trust you when society believes everything you say and do is an attempt at manipulation?

Most probably are Roma/gipsies. I didn't say so because it's really hard for me to pick up on ethnicity sometimes, and I don't like to keep making generalizations.

 

[CfZrx]

Even in my dream last night i was giving change. but i was cheap in my dream too

 

[ovenbakedskittles]

i use to never give them money... or any type of small charitable donation to an organization... i was always awkward about those types of situations...

but now i dont hesitate to give money to people or things like that... they dont ask for much... and it would really mean a lot to them...

regaurding the types of people that use that money for something bad like alcohol or drugs or something...

to me its like...

they gonna use that money for whatever they want... if they wanna use someone elses money to buy booze or get ther next fix, thats on them... i dont give a damn getting screwed over for what? a dollar? maybe two?? last time someone asked me for money it was only a quarter!

i give them money anyways because you never know... they might use it for something good... not all of them are alkies and druggies you know

 

[Kl519]

Ugh, a lot of them tend to ask me for money. I hate it when they ask me instead of, for example, the dude in a tux that came out of his BMW, and we were both walking to the door at the same time. I hate these wtf moments. This happens at 7 11 and gas stations a lot...go figure. But yeah, I always give some unless I'm completely broke and I only have a card on me.

This reminds me of a time I was behind a Mercedes Coupe, and a bum moved a box in the middle of the road out of his way, and the guy gave him a $100 bill! Bum straight up took off his hat and praised the lord, and I was smh because I bet he put the box there in the first place. So much for karma.

Weird thing is that when a bum would wash my windows asking for change, I don't give it a lot of times. I didn't ask for them to wash it with their infested raggedy piece of cloth. That's just annoying to me, because sometimes they end up streaking it and making it worse than it was, or the damn windshield didn't need wiping in the first place.

I'm mean.

 

[tantric]

when i lived in the city and walked to work, yes, everyday i'd take my change and give it to the first person i saw - pretty easy as the soup kitchen was across from my house. when my ferret got cancer and i had to save every penny, i ate there too. back when me and my bf did the urban ranger thing in the ATL, when we needed to burn one we'd go hang with the homeless guys and smoke a guy out in return for showing us a safe place. once when my truck was broken into and my bag stolen, which contained an unlabelled bottle of BZP i went around and talked to people, handing out my phone number. next day i got a call and traded a pint of vodka for my bag, with the bottle (understand that i was worried someone might hurt themselves, liquid BZP was wicked shit that would burn through your skin and into your bloodstream). oh, and there was the time we went to burn one with this guy and he turned out to be the lord god jehovah in disguise (as a crackhead, how apropos). fucking terrifying - we started to argue about doing good and whether it meant anything if it wasn't good done in god's name. he started...expanding, or something, and the light changed so he was backlit. i sucker punched him and me and my bf ran like the sodomites we were....

 

[Max Power]

when i lived in the city and walked to work, yes, everyday i'd take my change and give it to the first person i saw - pretty easy as the soup kitchen was across from my house. when my ferret got cancer and i had to save every penny, i ate there too. back when me and my bf did the urban ranger thing in the ATL, when we needed to burn one we'd go hang with the homeless guys and smoke a guy out in return for showing us a safe place. once when my truck was broken into and my bag stolen, which contained an unlabelled bottle of BZP i went around and talked to people, handing out my phone number. next day i got a call and traded a pint of vodka for my bag, with the bottle (understand that i was worried someone might hurt themselves, liquid BZP was wicked shit that would burn through your skin and into your bloodstream). oh, and there was the time we went to burn one with this guy and he turned out to be the lord god jehovah in disguise (as a crackhead, how apropos). fucking terrifying - we started to argue about doing good and whether it meant anything if it wasn't good done in god's name. he started...expanding, or something, and the light changed so he was backlit. i sucker punched him and me and my bf ran like the sodomites we were....

One of the better posts I've read in some time.

OP should be disgusted in themselves.

(I realize that's not grammatically correct.)

 

[DOB]

I have more respect for rats than these dirty retarded homeless zombies who pretend to be cute like hurt puppy but they really just want alcohol,cigaretes and drugs for free

 

[tantric]

One of the better posts I've read in some time.

OP should be disgusted in themselves.

(I realize that's not grammatically correct.)

thanks, it's partly a religious thing. for a buddhist, when you give dollar to a bum, you thank him - you gave him $1, he offered you a chance to be a better person, so he's the one who deserves the thanks.

 

[Someone Who Is Me]

I always give homeless people money. I mean let's be honest, I'm just gonna spend it on drugs and alcohol...

 

[hydroazuanacaine]

OP should be disgusted in themselves.

that's harsh. i have sympathy and do not believe they deserve their situation. and i'm not confident in my stance. so if someone has a dollar to give, why should they give a percent of it to a begging individual instead of all of it to the nonprofit human services sector? or if that's not the way to look at it, what is?

 

[LuGoJ]

I had this woman freak out on me after I gave her $1.





She is a known hustler that you can encounter on pretty much any subway line in NYC. She says she has two kids and lives in a shelter, then will say her husband died in various ways. I've been seeing her since 2003. She typically asks guys for money and if they refuse or call her out she starts flipping out on them and accuses them of beating their wife. I still see her once in a while but I know not to give her anything now. She gets the tourists sometimes which is pretty entertaining on a boring day lol.

This is part of the reason I could never live in another city.

 

[tantric]

that's harsh (and very considerate). i have sympathy and do not believe they deserve their situation. and i'm not confident in my stance. so if someone has a dollar to give, why should they give a percent of it to a begging individual instead of all of it to the nonprofit human services sector? or if that's not the way to look at it, what is?

why? cause there's a hole in the bucket....

 

[CosmicG]

Never anymore. In fact I have been known to be quite rude sometimes about the hassling, because many of them can be pushy and pathetically manipulative. Not to mention after a year straight of dealing with that shit, you stop giving a fuck.

 

[just4today]

Yes. Almost always. I'm a sucker. Especially if it is a guy with a dog, a couple or someone who appears to be a vet. Yes, I know that in the majority of the cases the money is going to drugs, but I give if they look simply down on their luck. For some reason, I refuse to give to female panhandlers - they make me mad. I am sure it has something to do with me being a hard working women...just have less empathy for female beggers.