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.
Just stick the needle in their arm.
Is this satire?
If you like having bums around.
Exactly. It's my money. Enough of it goes to taxes and charities and tips to hard-working people already. I get to choose how I spend it and to whom I give it.
Hey Matt
How much have YOU PERSONALLY given the homeless? How many ave you put up in your house? How many do you let camp in your back yard?
Yeah — thought so.
No funding of bummery.
Still think that was incredibly bigoted for a liberal to say.
I never carry cash anymore anyway.
Are there no prisons? Are there no work houses?
So it is OK to hand out $20.00 to that dude with the beard and the cardboard sign on the corner of Lincoln & Pico , who pulls down $450. per day after expenses?
Give the Homeless money simply because they want it.
Does someone actually pay this author so he has money to give away?
Uh, no.
I saw a homeless man regularly carrying the classic “will work for food” sign. Surprisingly, I also saw him doing multiple odd jobs in the same area. I used to use buy-one-get-one-free coupons to get my lunch in that area and hand him the second lunch. He was always polite and thankful. I am responsible for the results of my charity, including any alcohol/drugs purchased, so I only give food - but I am comfortable giving food to those who try.
There are many charitable agencies offering assistance to the real needy. If they don’t want to accept these opportunities because of pride, then they can take their pride to get off the side of the road and off the sidewalks begging!
*snicker*
Odd of me, but I do not wish to give drug addicts a shot, but would not mind giving them some food.
It’s not their money. It’s my money.
He’s basically saying that their homelessness is YOUR fault.
There are city ordinances out there. No sleeping in the street-vagrancy. Solution is simple. Put them in a HEATED warehouse outside city limits. Separate the sexes. No security. No booze allowed.
I worked as a janitor at a hospital to help pay for my university education.
One night, I walked in to clean a restroom and someone had been really sick in it.
It’s a seriously humbling experience to have to clean up someone else’s crap.
I could have just quit.
But I knew that my education would pay off in the long run, and it has.
Sitting on the sidewalk and begging is too demeaning?
Make em clean up someone else’s shirt. That’s demeaning.
My high school buddies were taking jobs that paid pretty good. They worked during the day, with weekends off.
I was going to college during the day and working nights and weekends.
My buddies had better cars and serious relationships.
I was sacrificing for the long term.
If I’m supposed to feel sorry for someone, then let me see their toilet cleaning technique, first.
If they won’t do that, then don’t expect pity from me.
“They have the right to spend their money as they choose – and it is their money, once given”
this statement makes Matt look like jerk.
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