What do you guys do when homeless people ask you for money?

I generally give nothing and try not to even make eye contact. I feel bad, but not bad enough to stop doing it.

There is a YouTube channel called "Soft White Underbelly", and this guy goes around and interviews less fortunate people, almost always homeless / drug addicts / alcoholics / prostitutes. Virtually all put themselves in that situation due to direct actions. But almost as often, they had terrible childhood...abused, neglected, forgotten. Many of these people had second chances (or even more), and still end up back on the street. It's very tempting to blame them...but hard to ignore the upbringing they had.

Tough situation to be sure. I don't know how to solve it, and I don't think handing out money to a few individuals who are likely to smoke it or inject it or drink it is going to help.

Several years back I was on a work trip in DC for 2.5 weeks. I'd walk down the street to the McDonald's every day or two and get a coffee and use the WiFi. One day, some homeless guy asked if I had a spare buck or two for some food. I invited him in with me and bought his dinner. We had a nice visit and the guy had an interesting back story. It cost me 6-7 bucks, I got to meet an interesting guy, and he got a meal for the night. Seemed like a good day for us both. I don't do that as much as I should, but I think I'll start back.

But I also like the idea of making them race me 100m first. I might do that, too.

Oh Please wrote:

I generally give nothing and try not to even make eye contact. I feel bad, but not bad enough to stop doing it.

There is a YouTube channel called "Soft White Underbelly", and this guy goes around and interviews less fortunate people, almost always homeless / drug addicts / alcoholics / prostitutes. Virtually all put themselves in that situation due to direct actions. But almost as often, they had terrible childhood...abused, neglected, forgotten. Many of these people had second chances (or even more), and still end up back on the street. It's very tempting to blame them...but hard to ignore the upbringing they had.

Tough situation to be sure. I don't know how to solve it, and I don't think handing out money to a few individuals who are likely to smoke it or inject it or drink it is going to help.

As someone who has worked with the homeless in a day center this is all true. The people on the street are either not willing to accept help or have behavioral issues that got them blacklisted from shelters. Of course that doesn't mean we shouldn't reach out to them.

The homeless in my area who are begging are almost always up to no good. One family was begging around Xmas time a few years ago with two little kids. People in the neighborhood took them in, put them up in a motel and bought the kids Xmas presents. They found the mom a job and tried to get them an apartment. The parents sold off the Xmas presents and used the cash they collected to go on a meth bender and the kids ended up in child protective services custody. I am as liberal as they come, but homelessness is not something that is helped through random acts of kindness and often such acts do more harm than good. Most of the homeless in my area are addicts and giving them spare change just gets them the chance to get more drugs.

I usually buy them drugs or alcohol instead. Skips a step and the process becomes more efficient.

Once a week, I will buy them a meal. Might be a grab and go sandwich or if I am on my way somewhere, I will save the leftovers and give it in a to go box. If it's morning I might buy a coffee.

You can't control where the money would go, but you can help a person become warm and nourished.

jda9ball wrote:

I usually buy them drugs or alcohol instead. Skips a step and the process becomes more efficient.

I've done that several times too. Usually when I've been bouncing around bars in downtown areas. One time in NYC after a Rolling Stones concert, I was making my way up Manhattan hitting a few bars, and I came across two guys set up in a doorway area. They started talking to me about the Stones, and their concert experiences. They had lead pretty wild lives and seen a lot of concerts in their day. Both were pretty nuts, but coherent and witty. There was a liquor store across the street, so I ended up buying about $50 worth of semi-decent hooch, and we drank and laughed for a few hours. Even verbally harassed a few uptight people who were giving us snotty looks, which was fun. Good time, chatting away drunk. That was about 17 years ago, and I'm sure those guys are in a Potter's field by now. They weren't exactly living the American dream.

Strides

When homeless ask me for money sometimes I think- 'They will just use it on drugs and alcohol.' But then one day I realized: 'Isn't that what I'm going to do?'

jda9ball wrote:

I usually buy them drugs or alcohol instead. Skips a step and the process becomes more efficient.

I used to do this but then I felt really bad about the lack of effort

So now I break into the nearest pharmacies and finds a supply of liquid morphine. Not every Pharmacy has liquid morphine so sometimes I have to break into three or four to get a decent Supply

I then give them all my contact contact information and my address and provide them with a cell phone and I tell them to get in touch with me when they are out of that Supply so I can get them more.

These people need our help and I will not supply them or have them exposed to low-grade street drugs. I'm not sure why liquid morphine isn't readily accessible but until this problem is remedy at least I know I'm doing what I can

Give them money if I have any

Pr3fontain3 wrote:

When homeless ask me for money sometimes I think- 'They will just use it on drugs and alcohol.' But then one day I realized: 'Isn't that what I'm going to do?'

At least you have you life in order first before the drugs and booze. Get the food and shelter squared away before the drugs.

I pre-empt them by asking for money first. And when they say no I just walk away.

Curious about what you would do in this situation. We have a guy at our local WalMart who cruises the lot on a bicycle and rides up to people to ask for money. Startles many of them.

Steve Martin wrote:

Curious about what you would do in this situation. We have a guy at our local WalMart who cruises the lot on a bicycle and rides up to people to ask for money. Startles many of them.

I'd tell him that if I had any money I wouldn't be shopping at a WalMart.

HRE wrote:

bowbridge wrote:

If I give a homeless person $20, and he uses it to buy some booze or drugs, did I do the right thing?

When you give your money away it's not your money anymore. You're not responsible for what the party you gave it to does with it.

I’m not sure this is legally true. If I give $1 million dollars to an assassin so he can buy guns to murder my business competitor, I think I would be legally accountable for that.

NERunner53 wrote:

We could solve homelessness tomorrow if we wanted to.

No we couldn’t.

I punch them in the face, give them the finger, then nonchalantly saunter away.

Home do you know if they are truly homeless?