More likely traded for booze.
Easy come easy go.
A profound irony I suppose.
for later
I like to help, but I am VERY cautious. I’ll help at soup kitchens, where they eat the food right there and you know it is helping. I helped one guy regularly for several months, where I would get buy-one-get-one-free sandwiches from a major chain (I had a hundred coupons) and give the guy one of the two sandwiches - and he would start eating it as soon as I handed it to him. Give a homeless person anything that can be re-sold? Not in my opinion a good idea.
http://www.newsday.com/news/new-york/homeless-man-shoeless-again-in-nyc-despite-boots-1.4286136
According to this story the “homeless” man (homeless by choice as his siblings have said their homes are open to him) is demanding his “piece of the pie”
“He says he’s grateful for the gift, but he wants “a piece of the pie” because the photo was posted online “without permission.”
Gotta love the Democrat base.
For years at the terminus of Market and California streets in San Francisco by the Hyatt, you could witness an African-American panhandler begging in a gold and red 49er’s varsity style jacket. It was not a temporary gig for this scam artist as I found out when I noticed that he “commuted” to work from Oakland on the BART mass transit.
Years ago a family member ran a coffee franchise, gave a bum some muffins when he was begging for money for food. The guy threw them out as soon as he left - he went back and caught him at it.
Know quite a few homeless. Unfortunately, most are homeless because they don’t want to live by anyone’s rules. Drugs, alcohol, simple selfishness. But there are ones who really have just fallen on horrid times, and there are always the mentally ill, who simply can’t function in society.
The officer should have saved himself some $ by getting the bum a pair of old shoes and socks from a Goodwill store.
I’ve dealt with drug addicts and drunks enough to know that “They’re hidden” means “I sold them”.
The shoeless man is likely chemically dependent, mentally ill or both and his actions in no way diminish the selfless act of kindness done by that police officer.
The problem with homelessness is that it's not a simple problem. I suspect this guy is mentally ill. The article says his brother would welcome him into the home, but he's chosen the lifestyle. While I only looked at him shuffling down the sidewalk for a few minutes, I'd guess his ability to choose is severely limited.
He MIGHT be telling the truth about them being a temptation to muggers. A more sensible gift, maybe, would be a $7 pair of Wal-Mart slippers, and even that might make his fellow bums envious.
This reflects that a very high percentage of our homeless are in that position due to mental illness, rather than lack of economic opportunity.
If you have unused fare left on a metro ticket (or multiple tickets), you can go to a ticket machine and have the fare consolidated onto a single ticket, or if you have partial fare, you can add money to it. For example if your ride is going to cost $1.00 and you have two tickets with $0.50 left on them, you can either add $0.50 to one, or have the two combined into a single ticket. You can not, however, redeem them for change.
One evening as my girlfriend and I were returning to the car after a day in the city some female approached us begging for fare. I offered her our two tickets which still had a good bit of fare left on them, and most likely would have got her anywhere she needed to go.
She not only declined them, but got angry that we hadn't offered cash. It made a lasting impression on a 19 or 20 year old...
The 10% who are homeless, are so by choice.
They choose addiction over food, shelter and clothing.
Anyone who honestly needs temporary assistance has plenty of public and private options.
However, since those options prohibit the possession or use of narcotics, most homeless - more accurately described as bums - do not avail themselves of those options.
The only people who deserve the heartfelt concern of the charitable are the children of these vile addicts who are used as props and cash bait by their contemptible parents.
“They are worth a lot of money. I could lose my life.”
Thats as believable as jumping to the conclusion that he sold them for booze.
A victim of hyperthermic feet syndrome!
The shoe-shoeless situation of this homeless guy is a great metaphor for Johnson’s-et-al War on Poverty.
I see a lot of posts here assuming this guy sold his shoes for booze. While I agree the homeless are not the saints that the Libs portray them to be, and that there are grifters out there, I think posters are jumping to the wrong conclusions. Not every homeless person is out looking to sell everything for booze and drugs. Unless they are mentally ill, most are not going to wander around shoeless in the cold to get booze. This man likely either had them stolen or is mentally ill and left them somewhere. Situations like this point out the frustrating, heartbreaking problem of homelessness. Once you separate out the grifters and people who are going to use what you give them to buy booze or drugs, you have a very vulnerable population who simply cannot put together what it takes to live a basic life — like shelter and clothing. You have men like this literally walking around with no shoes. The answer is not not more money but on the other hand, these people are not all con artists and drunks.
I just tell them I already gave to them, I pay taxes.