Do you give money to pan handlers/beggars?

Hey man, I am all for doing what you want with your money. He doesn't have to want to give them money, that's fine by me. I choose to give people money, and that is my choice, I don't really care what other people do, nor am I some kind of tree hugging, save the whales, love every son and daughter mother ****er. I didn't make lots of money giving it all away in some attempt to me noble and righteous.

What angers me is the attitude of "I will print some small flyers, about the size of a dollar that reads "GET A JOB". When they ask for money, I pull out my wallet and hand them one." It is similar to the other poster that said " I used to hand out employment guides to the people that where begging for money here in the Greensboro NC area." That's real ****ing clever, I bet they have never heard that before. They don't need to be preached at by someone more fortunate than themselves who has no idea what being homeless is like. It is clearly just an cheap attack on them. I lost it last time I saw someone do something like that, it's rude, ignorant, disrepectful, and uncalled for from someone in a such a fortunate position. You don't kick a man/woman when their down, you don't have to help them, but don't lay the boots to them.

 

there's a guy in SF makes 45k a year panhandling.

 

As I mentioned in my above post, I don't care that he doesn't donate, I care that he would go out of his way to humiliate a homeless person. That belief of mine is not BS, an I cannot imagine many people believe that is the right thing or even a funny thing to do.

 

Never given a dime to anyone. I have, however, offered to buy them food if they approached me directly (not just stuck a hand out as I walked past). A couple took me up on it, the rest lost my sympathy when they refused to accept anything but cash.

At school in Lubbock, we always broke a brewsky out of the 30-pack for the guys at the underpass near the beer store, because they always appreciated it.

 

The 9AM drunks get my canned response. "If you can afford to drink, you can afford to eat."

 

Yes, we did, but man, you drank cheap beer.

 

Only on days ending in the letter Y. BTW, how is your 3 legged dog tripod? You ever get that shopping cart wheel to stop wobbling?

 

Never. Get a f ing job...

What's that? Oh you don't want to work?....well neither do I.... I'd rather be a rock star flying my jet all over the world chasing babes... but guess what... that didn't work out and I found a jay oh beee.
Welcome to the real world.

 

Let me first state that I do not care whether or not you give them money. This should prevent people from wrongly jumping down my throat.

Now, that is such and incredibly naive attitude. You have no idea what type of situation these people are in. Maybe they can't get a job, maybe they have tried and couldn't find one, maybe life kicking their asses right now and they're on the canvas getting the count. It's not as easy to get a job when you're homeless as some people here would like to belive. You can't just walk into McDonalds and fill out the 'be part of the team" form then voila you got a job. A lot of these people have mental disorder, physical ailments, or are just down on thier luck. It happens. By the same token, some of them are just being lazy asses, but certainly not all of them.

You should go to a third world country sometime and take a look at the "real world" because you have no clue what it is like to struggle, to truley struggle to live, and you certainly don't seem to understand the realities of this world we live in.

 

Humiliate them? JESUS! Let me set you straight, my friend! If I were making fun of a mentally handicapped person, you would have full right to b!tch and Moan, but I am not doing that. I am sick to death of career beggars wanting my money while I am trying to enjoy the day. I pray for the day that one of these slobs takes a swing at me for not giving them money.

The last person that hit me up for money, I sent them to my girlfriends restaurant to wash dishes. He has been there two months and is doing a good job. THAT is the kind of homeless person I respect.

About a year ago, I did give a five spot to a guy in SF. His sign read "I'll be honest, I want a beer".

 

It was in Houston, but I have no idea where at. It happened many years ago. It could be that guy.

 

No, they can earn their own #%^&@#! money! I've spent too many years owning rent controlled properties and SEEING FIRSTHAND what lives there and HOW they end up homeless to ever give a plugged nickel to a panhandler.

Eighteen years ago as a naive teenager, I would have given you a different answer, and may have even agreed with Shiggins but not now.


That being said, I might be inclined periodically to give to charities that help the homeless AND:

given that many of those homeless are former military personnel who have an extremely difficult time adapting to civilian life, and given that we are now producing quite a few of these "future homeless" courtesy of our doings in the mideast, I may be changing my tone. BTW, the fake "Gulf War, Afghanistan, Iraq" vets are coming out of the woodwork just as the fake Vietnam vets did some years ago.

 

Handing a homeless person, whose situation you are unaware of, a piece of paper which reads "GET A JOB" is humiliating and degrading. Maybe if you knew the circumstances surrounding each persons path to homlessness, you might be justified in handing these out to some. The fact is you don't know, you don't why they are homeless, you don't know anything about them. Some people, believe it or not, are genuinely homeless through circumstances beyond their control. They're not all career beggars, many of them work damn hard to get their lives sorted out again, and they appreciate the help people give them. Unfortunately, as evidenced by this board, many let a few bad apples ruin the bunch.

While you are waiting for the day one of these slobs takes a swing at you for not giving them money, I am waiting for the day I see someone humiliating a homeless person for no good reason again. Don't get me wrong, if a homeless person took a swing at me for not giving them money, they would regret it. However, so did the 20 something year old pretty boy who spit on a homeless person for kicks as he stumbled home drunk from a bar with his girlfreind. She incidentally became my girlfreind shortly after. I don't know if that hurt him more, or the fact I gave the 65 bucks in his walletto the homeless guy.

It was nice what you did for the gentlemen who got a job with your sister though.

 

Why don't you enlighten me as to what you have seen. Does it apply to 100% of the homeless people out there?

 

BWAAHHHHHHHHAHAAHAHAAAA!

 

Spare us the righteous indignation then, thief.

 

Like I have said before, I do not care one iota if you people give to homeless people. I am not trying to preach, or sound righteous, you are free as I am, to do what you will with your hard earned money, and I respect that. However, I will not sit idle while people make sweeping, and false, generalizations of groups of people and spout off with trite ideas such as "welcome to the real world".

Should I have stolen his 65 bucks, no, was it the right thing to do, maybe not. But I will be damned if he ever spits on another homeless person again.

 

Dishonesty earns no respect in my book. and no handouts...

 

BRAVO! Korr...Bravo!

DL

 

Incredible...

thank you for opening my eyes up

 

What makes you think I have no physical ailments? I do.

What makes you think I never been to a third world country? I've been to several.

So, now who's incredibly naive?

What makes you think I didn't grow up in a third world country? Well, I didn't, but you didn't know that until you just read this.

I agree with some of your response; a few of these people actually do have severe mental and physical problems. However, this is not the majority; most do not, these are the ones I'm talking about. MOST are LAZY ASSES as you pointed out. I see the same ones 5-6 days a week asking for money.

I'm referring to the ones that don't work because they can't find something they LIKE - they just continually leach off others. I'm talking about the ones who are not working because they "are just having a hard time"; "they are just in a bad place in their life". They can't stand the thought or put forth the effort of working hard at a place of employment (or school); they have no interest in waking up each morning and giving 100%, you know why? Because they just don't feel like it.

>"Down on your luck" What the hell is that? You know what - we all have tough times. Suck it up and pull it together. Please don't tell me:
"Oh, the guy got a divorce and was so upset he started going to strip bars and lost his job cause he was doing poorly at work." - or-
"One of his parents just passed away and he developed a gambling problem".

 

"The people scoopers are coming!"

Like most things in life, homeless people don't all fit into one neat category. The generic solution people like to throw out is "Get a job". Well, guess what? This IS their job. And by subsisting off of the generosity of strangers, they maintain pretty simple lifestyles. The work they would qualify for would be entry-level, low-wage manual labor. Long hours. Most likely working for some prick who gets off by feeling superior to them and their "yes sir, no sir" subserviance. Plus, now that they're working they'll have to find and pay for an apartment along with utilities, etc. So, while some may be looking for drug or liquor money, there are some out there who have found a simple life of subsistance and don't really want to take on all the change, except the kind that's in your pocket.

There are also a lot of mentally ill people who have been released into the wild, and they have absolutely no idea how to take care of themselves.

When I lived closer to downtown, I'd walk the mile to and from work every day. I would get asked for money a few times each way, which began to annoy me. But every now and then there would be the one person you could really feel sorry for, or even take inspiration from.

It's your choice as to whether you want to give them your money--sometimes I do, sometimes I don't--but don't automatically deride them as some kind of sub-human race, like C.H.U.D.

 

FWIW....

shiggins comes from Toronto where recently several bums (panhandlers is to polite a word for these worthless pukes) were busted by the local media for actually having nice cars.....nice houses with leather sofas and big screen TV's....etc......one of them even packed it up and moved to Montreal to carry on her trade. They were known the "shaky lady" and the "sticker lady"......as the two most recent examples reported in the press.

Here in Calgary they actually interviewed a couple of them who stated that they do it merely to support their drug addictions..........fair enough..........at least they where honest...........but............lazy is still a most appropriate description however, as surveys in Canada have shown that over 80% of drug addicts have full time employment.

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My latest bum experience........

I am standing on the subway station two weeks ago and an able bodied twenty something male was making the rounds down the platform asking for money for food........when he got to me I said he could go to 3 different places where they feed the people for free and offered to show him where they were. He then said he needed the money for an apartment.........I said he can get housed for free.............would he like to know where...........then he said he got kicked out of all those places and wasn't allowed back in to either the kitchens or shelters.......then I offered him a job at $12 an hour (seriously.....I could have gotten him a job) to which he replied he didn't want to do that.......so I said......"well.....if you weren't so f*cking cracked out every hour of the day they might let you back in the shelters and feed you"........."so go f*ck yourself"...........

 

I never give them money. Never.

Here's an interesting story. I lived in a condo in downtown Austin for three years. Homeless people are everywhere in Austin, especially downtown. At the homeowners' meeting one month one of my neighbors told us a pretty frightening story. He had felt sorry for some homeless guy who hit him up for some money on Sixth Street and he gave the guy $5. The guy proceeded to follow him home and hang out around the building off and on for the next 3 months. When the guy was particularly under the influence, he would sit outside the gate yelling my neighbor's name at the top of his lungs. A couple of times the guy managed to get into the building and find my neighbor's front door and pound on it until the police came and either took him away or chased him off.