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Please Help. I'm hungry, homeless and scared.

nezo

nezo

Bluelight Crew
Joined
Oct 2, 2000
Messages
2,690
Location
melbourne,vic,aus
Last thursday I gave some money to a 16 year old girl who I found in the doorway of one of the shops along Brunswick St. She had been robbed and beaten by some strangers whilst she slept on the banks of the Yarra resulting in a sprained wrist and ankle. It was 11:30pm and she needed 16 dollars to pay for a night accomodation at a shelter in Preston. She was crying because she hadn't enough money yet, the last tram was going to come in 30 minutes and was afraid she was going to have to sleep out on the streets again.
We had a bit of a chat and she told me that all day along Brunswick St, she'd been swore at, kicked in the ankle by an unsympathetic womean and accused of being a fake. Her tears at the time didn't look fake to me. I looked in her hat and all I saw was some change - it amounted to about 3 dollars tops.
I took a chance and helped her out - yes, maybe I was naive and been taken for a ride but I felt that I had to take her story on face value.
More and more often I see people like her as I walk down Brunswick St (I live in the area) - seemingly in desperate situations, reduced to begging in order to get by. Makes me wonder - what can be done to help these people? I can give these people loose change every day for the rest of their lives and they'll still be in the same situation as they are now. "Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day, teach him to fish and he'll eat forever" Forgive me if thats not quite word for word accuate but you know what I mean. How can we teach these people to fish? What is the long term solution to their plight? Is our welfare system not supporting these people?
What can I do to help these people long term? Perhaps I should just ignore them like everyone else? Do you?
[ 09 December 2002: Message edited by: nezo ]
 
I work in sydney's cbd and see homeless out begging for money. When i go near central station i see junkies begging for money.
apparently there was a tv show in the uk that followed the so called "homeless around for a few days. turned out these are the people u could be living next door to but would never no. they'd go home after a day of playing the homeless person shower and head to the local pub.
I no there are genuine homeless people out there. u could help by volunteering at a soup kitchen, donating to the salvation army, city missions at least u no your donation would help those who are in genuine need.
 
I live around the corner from akland street.
If anyone knows it, they will also know that its usually full of homeless / unhealthy / abused people of all ages.
While most of them dont have a sad story to tell, they beg / busk for some change. To do what with it, is not the point.
what im trying to say is, have you ever tried to offer one of these people a way of life, anything other than just giving them change?
I have, and to tell you the truth, they dont really care.
most of these people are happy living the life the way they are.
They seem to blame the government for their losses, and feel like they shouldnt have to work, or have a "typical" life style.
Try giving a begger a food voucher, and see what he does with it...
will he sell it? or use it?
try offering a place to stay, they quickly turn a blind eye, and ignore you.
just try it.
[ 09 December 2002: Message edited by: Improved_CuPiD^^ ]
 
This is a very complex subject here, and my short post will not cover all my thoughts on it.
But, being someone who put myself through school and university, with no assistance from family, I have no sympthy for anyone who can't get up off their own arse to help themselves.
With todays welfare system, anyone can get themselves an education and a good job. It just takes time and hard work.
But, some people are just shit heads. You can't avoid this fact. They couldn't get out of their own way if they tried. And these are the people you usually see begging.
Fuck them!! They deserve to be where they are.
I do have sympthy for people. But, only as long as they are willing to help themselves.
This is a very good subject for an afternoon of Pot smoking.
 
It seems to me that there are plenty of avenues made available for people in that situation to go down, if they /want/ to change the way they live.
 
I used to work as a social worker (assistant as I wasn't fully qualified) for around a year in Geelong Mall (if you know it, you know its pretty bad). I was working nights in the outreach centre, helping cook food for homeless people or 'street kids', basically, kids who aren't homeless but prefer to hang in the streets. Either because their family life is so bad, this is a better alternative than to being at home or because they just thought it was cool
Anyway, most of the time, giving coins to beggars is a waste of money in the sense that, they either need the money for drugs, (alchol is a drug too, as well as nicotine) or spend it on things 'for the minute'. i.e pinball machines etc.
Hardly any (*IF* any) would spend the money on food, transport etc as it is (maybe it is now past tense) piss easy to get food vouchers, free food, clothing, showers etc. That said there are genuine homeless people out there who wish they could have a better life and try to save $$ so they can achieve this. The catch-22 back then (still is? I'm not sure) was that they had NO real income as they couldn't get the dole because to get the dole, they needed a permament residence address and to get this, they needed the dole to be able to afford rent/bond (not everyone was able to get bond from government sources back then) etc.
It was all a bit disheartening to see/hear the stories but thats the true way most of these people are living. Fuck knows I pretty much spent 2 years living with them, not because I was homeless but I wanted to help these people and to help them, I wanted to study them. Anyway, look around to see if you can start a free food/soup service thing (or enquire about working volunteer time at one) and at least you can see instant results from being generous. Such as seeing people eat the food that is dished out instead of giving change to someone who could walk straight to a pub to get a beer.
Another story that comes to mind was my Aunty + Uncle were in Adelaide and a beggar asked them for spare change (this was about 15 years ago) and my uncle gave him a meat pie that was in its packet. My Aunty then proceeded to give him a $10 note to the protest of my uncle. End result, they saw the beggar throw the pie in the bin and walk in a pub. *TRUE STORY*
I commend anyone who spends time helping people less fortunate than they are, I know I did this for about a year each week and for about 10 years off and on. :)
 
Either way Nezo...
Your heart is in the right place!
Personally I wont give money for nothing, unless as you say they are in a real bad way. If they offer to do something for money I will give them something to do rather than just handing them the money, at least that way I know they are not just bludging off generosity.
Simple things like cleaning up the park or the street and giving them a bit of money for half an hours work. If they are willing to do that they probably do need the money, if not it is likely they are just bludgers.
Unfortunately unless they want to help themselves there is nothing anyone can do. I know the salvos here will clean someone up, give them clothes for a job interview and even send them to TAFE if they want help. There are help for those who want it. Maybe direct them to the salvos and donate the money to them rather than just handing them cash.
I don't think there is a real answer. Good on you for caring though.
***I tried to post this before and it didnt appear. Aopligies if it comes up twice***
 
http://www.salvationarmy.org.au/christmas/helping.asp
I'm going to volunteer when I get back to melbourne next week. It's a start I guess.
I could have been cynical and ignored her but my conscience wouldn't let me. Here is how I see it - I might help out 10 'beggars' and have 9 of them spend the money on drugs / pinnies / cigarettes / booze etc...but I've also helped out 1 person who truely needed it and that's what counts.
[ 09 December 2002: Message edited by: nezo ]
 
im studying social work, and have just finished an entire unit on the australian welfare system. It has its pros and its cons, however despite the claims that welfare creates dependency, i think the bigger issue is why these people are reliant on welfare for support in the first place. We need to look at the structural issues within society that cause class divisions (the gap between the rich and the poor is becoming increasingly wider in australia).
apart from this, other factors come in to play among the poor - ie. domestic issues, lack of support, substance abuse issues, violence, crime, low levels of education . . . the list goes on, and its all interrelated.
i think one solution, or at least place to start would be to divert some of the money from the welfare system and put it in to fixing up these sorts of areas where communities have little structure and support systems, stuff like better education, health facilities. I know some will claim that these sorts of resources are wasted on these people, but it goes back to the point of teaching a man how to fish as opposed to giving him a fish . . . you can keep on handing out money but unless people know how to and have the motivation to get out of their situations (often not self inflicted) then they are unlikely to.
[ 09 December 2002: Message edited by: beatGirl ]
 
I think a problem that prevents a lot of people from returning to a normal life is mental illness. Apparently studies show that a suprisingly large percentage of homeless males have mental issues but were also previously wife beaters. When their family brakes down, they lose everything and end up on the street.
It's easy for you or I to make judgement about how easy it would be to recover from losing your home. We all (well most of us anyway) have the intellegence and resources to pull ourselves out. A lot of people don't. We shouldn't make the automatic assumption that they all live on the streets by choice. I think that people like that only account for a small (but visable) percentage of homeless people.
 
If any of you Sydneysiders remember at the old Sunlime at Pitt Street, there was that old fat guy who hobbled who would show up at the close of every night and he'd bum loose change and cigarettes when people came out of the club. I got talking to him one extremely talkative morning, I asked him if he lived on the streets. He said no, he had an apartment in Potts Point, where he lived with his wife and son (who was in his 20's apparently). He said that he got the pension, but came down to sublime in the mrnings to get some extra cash, and that people were only too happy to give him miney and cigarettes in the morning - so why not!
He was then on a current affair a few months later, where he was asking for money on the street and they gave him $10. They followed him with an undercover camera to the local hotel, where he played the $10 in the pokies and also bought himself a cup of coffee.
Busted!
[ 09 December 2002: Message edited by: spoon_77 ]
 
On census night 1996 (dunno whether or not the ABS 2001 figures are out yet) there were around 105,000 people experiencing homelessness - around 20,000 of which were living in improvised shelters and sleeping 'rough'. Despite popular conceptions of homelessness (old alcoholics sleeping out on park benches), most of these numbers are made up of families and young people in who have reached absolute crisis points in their lives for whatever reasons. There's also a significant link between homelessness and mental illness, with causation running either way. The lived experience of homelessness shatters more stereotypes than it confirms – it only takes an accident, onset of mental illness or just bad luck to bridge the gap between getting by and poverty.
Precarious accommodation on the streets, in refuges or hostels and running the risk of being raped, bashed, robbed or abused is not a lifestyle choice.
No shit that many of the people you see during the day obviously have alcohol and substance abuse problems - for most people it’s a coping mechanism for their profound sense of exclusion and isolation. It’s just that the gaze is somewhat more critical when you’re drinking on the corner instead of having “an afternoon of Pot smoking” in the comfort of Russ’ backyard.
Improved_CuPiD^^:
With addiction being such a prominent feature of daytime street culture, very few of the interviewees referred to being homeless and hungry as reasons for begging.
Despite this, the majority of beggars were or had been homeless. Nine out of ten (91%) beggars were vulnerably accommodated and two in three (67%) had slept rough the previous night.
For those who did have a home they could call their own, their chaotic lifestyle made the keeping of that home a fragile hope. Long-term addiction problems were often accompanied by mental health problems and a history of relationship breakdown. (AProf. Chris Chamberlain, Centre for Applied Social Research, RMIT)
It’s a real question, whether or not to give money. You can refuse. You can go ahead and hand it over, knowing that you might jsut be wasting your time. You can donate that money or your time to charity a la Sacred Heart Mission/Salvos instead. You can walk around with a patronising, paternalistic attitude and berate them for not taking your food or offers of accommodation. Or, you can stop judging who’s ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ and ask why people beg, and what we can do to put an end to it. These people are some of the most vulnerable and excluded people in our communities and they need our help if they are to reconnect with people and employment away from the street and addiction.
Give a man a mix tape and he will dance for a night.... but give a man some decks and he will dance for generations!
Ali G
[ 09 December 2002: Message edited by: yossarian.lives ]
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Okay, I'd like to say a few things, some will be venting, some will be constructive.
I do what I can to help these people, I will at least give whatever gold coins I have in my wallet, when I see someone sitting there with a cardboard box and a scrawled message on it. I also donate money to aids charities and stuff like that when I can afford it.
As yossarian.lives pointed out so admirably, there's probably more people who have a drug addiction as a result of being homeless, than people who are homeless as a result of drug addiction.
Anyone who comes across being a self righteous son of a bitch saying that most of these people are fakes is quite likely the kind of person who believes what they watch on ACA and all that sort of pseudo-news bullshit.
Anyway, just because you managed to do it (and believe me if you're reading this I very much doubt that you're from a poverty stricken background) does not mean that everyone else can do it.
So how about chilling the fuck out. I know my taxes go to paying welfare, do you see me bitching? I pay it willingly because I know it can help people, and I would want other people to care if I was in that position.
Try at little of the famed raver 'empathy' on for size, if you're one of the unsympathetic fuckwits.
-plaz out-
 
Hi,
I use to give loose change and whatever else I had in my pocket to people who asked for it.
I always thought, if you could go up to someone and ask for some money or help, it was the least you could do to try and be helpful...
This has however changed.. After being mugged at knife point after I offered to help a young girl and boy and also chased around the city after someone saw how 'nice' my wallet looked... I am seriously scared of offering anything to anyone. Both times I have escaped in one piece and I really dont want to push my luck.
I am now donating money to the salvation army. Giving them my used clothes and also planning on being a volunteer this christmas at a shelter to offer my time - which in my opinion is far greater than the few dollars loose change we give to someone.
F
 
If, for what ever reason, the tables were turned, would you like to be handed assistance?
I guess the old adage "Do unto others..." may be applicable here :\
 
I do have sympathy for the people I see on the streets but I also think there are more productive ways to help these people out then just handing them small amounts of change. As wazza said, the small change they get goes towards objects for immediate gratification, whereas if you help them by other means (through the Salvation Army, Smith Family etc) your time and money would be used much more wisely.
plazma: After listening to you rant for a good five minutes about the lack of empathy displyed by some people on this board, I have to say that I agree with a lot of the things that have been said. Giving homeless people spare change does not essentially make any difference except perhaps to help you sleep better at night.
 
Isn't the welfare system we have supposed to help these people? The Dole? Subsidised housing? Youth Allowance etc etc? I'm not very clear on how these welfare programs work. Don't homeless people qualify for these programs? Can someone enlighten me?
 
I love reading opnions from little snotty nosed kids from the comfort of their keyboard who are doing it "hard" - you guys rock - PLUR to you all.
After working for Health and Community Services and Hope Street refuge, and having been homeless myself, let me just say this to you - baka
Much respect to you Nezo.
that is all...
 
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