Hopefully I'm not the only idiot who gets scammed because I was raised with Christian compassion.
Tell me your stories, I could use a good laugh.
We all have been scammed by phony homeless people at some time.
I stopped giving to people on the street because, quite frankly, most of them are not really “homeless” or “broke”
Even last Saturday, after a football game, we had a guy in a motorized scooter begging for money as people were walking around campus after the game
I just ignored him
Then, this couple started whining to me “oh you are heartless, you did not give anything”
I replied “the man is riding a motorized scooter....he either has great government benefits, or, has a lot more money than you and me”.
No reply from them after that
Giving through an honest charity or through a religious entity is usually a much better way of helping the less fortunate. They have the experience, and, the economy of scale to make that donation go further. Putting money in a Salvation Army pot is much better than giving it to Otis the Drunk
Bump
Little old lady in San Fran when I was 20 on active duty: “please son, I haven’t eaten well in days...” Five dollars later, I hear her mumble as she walks off, “mad dog, here I come...”
When I was overseas stationed in Turkey, it’s illegal to “proselytize”. There were several old lady beggars and for a few months, I looked in their baskets.They’d have a few hundred lira (exchange rate at the time about 2,000 lira to the dollar.) I watched closely enough for awhile to see that the average donation they got was the exchange equivalent of a few pennies.
This is what I started doing. Every time I left base and went into town, I’d stuff an envelope with 20,000 lira ( about ten bucks) and put a cross on the envelope (not to proselytize but to explain my motivation). I made sure a different old lady got the envelope each time.
For these ladies, begging was their income and it wasn’t nearly as profitable as here. For one night, they were heroes at home.
After a few months of this, on every major street in town (Sinop), I was a very well known person. The ladies that normally congregated to beg would bow their heads deeply to me as I passed. They never asked for an envelope, but whether I had given them one or not, they bowed and made a knowing eye contact.
It’s funny, after just a little while, the ladies I hadn’t given to had heard what was likely in that envelope, and from that time on, the excitement when I dropped an envelope couldn’t have been higher if I were running a state lottery.
It was a risk to drop off charity marked with a cross. I could have gotten in big trouble. It was worth it.
By the time I left, there wasn’t a place I could go in town where I wasn’t recognized by a certain segment of the population. Total investment: about $300 bucks over 6 months time.
Bums Inc. LLC
If God moved your heart to help then you did the right thing. If that is her only way to earn enough for gifts for her grandkids, then she earned it by making a sign, pulling at your heart. It is a blessing, to give rather than recieve.
You'll know the ones who need help because they're scared and reluctant, almost embarrassed to ask you for help. Do not give them money. If they say they're hungry get them something to eat. If they need gas, offer to put gas in. No money. As far as they're concerned you carry none. It can be dangerous trying to help these people. Substance abuse and mental illness are rampant and often combined.
The funniest example I can provide would be a wheelchair bound black woman who had lost both her feet, to diabetes apparently. She had an accomplice who would hide behind bushes or down a side alley. Wheelchair lady would position herself near popular nightspots and restaurants downtown, and try her latest wild tale of woe on people as they entered and exited.
After she'd worked that spot for a while, out came the accomplice and away they'd go at a sprint, I kid you not, to the next place. I watched it from my office window, and I also got hit up numerous times. She had poor recall or was buzzed, maybe both.
The craziest story involved her car getting towed to the impound lot with her baby inside. I GOT TO HAVE FIFTY DOLLARS TO SAVE MY BABY SHE NEED HER FORMULA!!!
Stupid as it sounds with all the logical contradictions, people were still giving her money.
Giving them money is wrong, like throwing gas on a fire. You're only feeding their substance abuse.
Never again will I ever be tempted to give any of these con artists a dime.
I had this broad ask me to borrow my cell phone but then I got paranoiac of it getting hacked when she was crying on it asking for a western union transfer and trying to explain to me what she was doing out of sympathy. I called bull on this.
Watch the language, people DYING of cancer give everything they have away, they do not beg. It is those who fight cancer that may ask for a bit of help.
Also ask them questions. Tell them you are unemployed too and ask them for advice after giving them a dollar, and see if they are territorial. I asked one if he knew about crime in the area, because they know about this stuff. He looked like a druggy and was asking for work, but sublevel he did not want to work, it was just a scheme to gain sympathy or maybe prostitutive services.
I help those who help me, who tell me about the cops, the criminals, who treat me like a neighbor or a family member in need I would trust and who would trust me. Once someone asks money, either they have to show enough humbleness to let you graduate and minister to each other, even being mastered by you, or they at least must be friend like and explain things.
I never give and go away, always looking for the rude ones I fell uncomfortable with and who give me that tinge of uneasiness and anxiety when around them.
There is in France a famous bum named Max, and he is from Switzerland. He never asks money nor give a cry baby story. He just talks to people casualy and people give him money. The swiss are the best at making it all legal.
Hot food - accepted each time, thanked once.
Single bills - accepted each time, thanked each time.
Change (when it was all I had) - accepted then insulted for it not being enough
Decent walking shoes and clean socks - refused as the person walked away on his purple-brown feet waving his arms and speaking gibberish to pick food out of the nearest trash can.
Declining to give - Followed me to my car threatening violence.
I think people should be mindful that the "homeless" as a group are a mixture of the mentally ill, criminals, addicts and drunks, and bums. I would be quite surprised if the number of people "down on their luck" is not the smallest minority. Live in a beach town for more than a decade and see if your experiences are different.
I believe it is wrong to give money to them directly because we can pretty much be sure what they'll use it for. My wife thinks we should give anyway as it isn't up to us what they do, just that we are told to give. If the guy has a sign that says, "I need $20 for a rock of crack cocaine, please help. God Bless" should I feel compelled to provide the money for it? Taken a step further, if there were a guy with a sign that said "I am selling heroin, please help. God Bless", should buy it from him, if not personally, but by proxy? Isn't this the enabling behavior of a drug using teen's parents?
If you want to feel good about yourself for doing something directly, give them actual food (not gift cards they can sell or use for booze) if they'll take it. I've offered shoes as an obvious need, and was declined for unknown reasons. Don't offer cash and never engage them. Yes, they are human and should be treated with civility. But intentionally living like an outcast (schizophrenics and other mentally ill notwithstanding) should give you pause, just as your friend's Labrador is not the same as a stray dog wandering the streets of Tijuana.
My current policy is "Don't feed the pigeons."
My son was at the parking lot of walmart. A man walked up to him and handed him a card. It said something to the effect of, “I’m deaf and lost my job. Anything will help. God bless you.”
My son handed the guy a dollar.
As the guy was walking away from him, my son said, “Oh, hey! You dropped your wallet.”
The guy turned around and said, “Where?”
My son grinned at him and said, “Gotcha! Now gimme back my dollar.”
The guy sheepishly grinned, said, “Fair enough,” and returned the dollar.
The case of the NY police officer who saw a homeless man sitting on the sidewalk, shoeless, and bought him a pair of boots has gotten a lot of attention because a tourist happened to snap a photo of it. Apparently the man later sold the boots and was seen again on the sidewalk shoeless. The cop spent $75 of his own money to help him. I don’t know if they tried to find out what the homeless man spent the money on. My guess is booze.
Now that Obama has been elected Pharaoh, he is the go to guy for these folks. So it is written, so it shall be done.
I do however try to help the truly needy, who especially appear to be too proud to ask for help. I have had good success by being at a checkout and a poor family scrambling to find money to pay to the point of taking necessities out of the checkout. What I will do is take a $20 bill and drop it on the floor. I will then say.... "Maam, I think you dropped that money on the floor."
I will also give a walmart nightmare anecdotal scenario that happened a few years ago though. - When I dropped the $20, the lady picked it up looked at it, and the cashier violently grabbed it out of her hand, and said that came out of my register. When they lady left, I told that cashier that I dropped that bill to help the poor family, and I would like it back. She then in turn called me a liar, and finally I was thrown out by a Walmart manager for the yelling that ensued.
My wife still felt bad for him but I told her that so far as homeless people are concerned, well being homeless in Hawaii is top of the pyramid. Sure beats competing for a hot air grate in the streets of Manhattan during wintertime.
“I know...I’m an idiot.”
I’d rather be a loving idiot than the paranoid cynic that I am.
You get more of what you subsidize. With every dollar you give the panhandlers, you are “voting” for them to continue panhandling.