Of course, you are right. It is not our church’s fault that their goodness is used other than intended [to free up beer and smokes money.]
Some homeless really can have attitudes. I had a guy yell at me, “got change for a penny?” and all the other homeless laughed at me.
Sad, it would be easy to get angry, but being a hospice nurse consider this: I had a man abuse the entire hospice team so badly that we had to discharge him. He simply wasn’t yet at the stage he could accept our help let alone his disease.
He was only 44 years old with kidney cancer.
You can’t take it personally, how would I react to the news that I was dying, going to die and only 44? I turned 47 today and have young kids that sang me happy birthday when they got home from school, so I can’t even FATHOM dying right now! Not now.
The homeless have no one to target their anger for a failed life or bad circumstances but themselves or those within easy proximity.
Best just to ignore that behavior, keep helping them and ask yourself how Jesus would have YOU react.
Sometimes they’re mentally ill and also very territorial and stick to each other. And sometimes this is just how they try to “break the ice” with outsiders, to test your mettle to see if you’re just a do-gooder to make yourself feel better OR truly care about THEM!