What do you guys do when there is a beggar on the street? Do you give them money? do you not? Do you buy them a sandwich?
And for the religious, doesn't it say somewhere that you never know when it's an angel in disguise? What do you do?
Printable View
What do you guys do when there is a beggar on the street? Do you give them money? do you not? Do you buy them a sandwich?
And for the religious, doesn't it say somewhere that you never know when it's an angel in disguise? What do you do?
A couple weeks ago I was heading towards Dallas. There was a couple at a gas station with backpacks and a sign that said "Homeless, trying to get to Tyler, Please Help". Now I was going in the opposite direction so I was good. Had I been going in their direction I still probably wouldn't have given them a lift, but I would have felt a slight twinge of guilt.
When somebody on the street asks me for money I’ll generally make a snap judgment that goes something like this: Is this person panhandling by choice or out of necessity?
I almost always fork over a few pesos if I’m in a tough town. On the other hand, if I’m in a place like Portland or San Diego and an able-bodied twenty-something with a guitar and a backpack asks me for money, I’ll usually hang on to my dough (unless of course he can play The Yellow Rose of Texas and sing it – with feeling)
A year or so ago I had a guy ask me for money as I going into a McDonalds in NYC. I brushed him off, but then as I was ordering my meal inside and the girl behind the counter said, “Anything else, sir?” I said, “Oh yeah, gimme a Happy Meal and a Coke, take-away.”
I gave it to the guy out front and said, “Hey man, I got you some stuff.” I half expected him to throw it in my face, but he said thanks and dug right in.
My dad was a busker, he was famous in our hometown as The One Man Band , as a kind of salute to his memory I usually give buskers a bit of change if they look like they are making an effort (you do get some pretty rubbish ones).
However I tend to avoid out and out beggars as some of our local ones can be intimidating and rude, but occasionally I buy the big issue.
Anyway most of the time I am out with just the "plastic" so I genuinely can't "spare a bit of change, love ? "
Once when I was visiting London I saw an old man rooting through the litter bins and drinking a bit of left over orange juice, it nearly broke my heart to be honest. I thought about him all the rest of that trip and felt so bad for just walking past when my friend who was with me ushered me on.
There but for the grace of God and all that.
There was a guy sat next to our bus stop today - forties, not scruffy, but perhaps drunk. I didn't give him anything because I thought it would just go down his neck.
Recently I saw a posting on our local police twitter, (yeah I'm an up to date guy now), showing a picture of a beggar who had been fined/ jailed for aggressive begging in a nearby city. This bloke was a complete pain, and had been done in our city for the same, and had moved elsewhere to do it, where he had also come up against the law. I think he's got mental health problems - it certainly seemed that way the times I've seen him - but giving him money certainly wasn't the solution. He's been at it at least 6 or 7 years. In the current state of things it's pretty insoluble. It said he'd been done for drug and alcohol abuse too. There doesn't seem to be any system for dealing with a bloke like him.
On the other hand I've been to India where kids beg on the street. What do you do? They were probably run by gangs anyway. We used to give them sweets.
I saw my first begger when I was fifteen on a student exchange trip to Toronto, it was a lot of our's first begger. He was standing outside of the CN tower, uber dirty, long hair and beard, cardboard sign, the whole shebang. Most of us had only seen them in movies, it was a bit of a culture shock. Some of us couldn't wrap our heads around it. "Why don't they have jobs? What if they get sick? Why doesn't the city take care of them?" I move around a lot nowadays and have seen a lot of beggers since turning eighteen, whether I give them money or not depends on whether I have any on me and if I feel like it.
I hadn't eally seen any until my first trip abroad. At that time in the UK - early 90's, you'd only see the tramps - those who travelled from place to place, or an occasional mad person. You didn't tend to get them in the small cities I used to frequent, though no doubt there were plenty in the larger ones.Quote:
Originally Posted by JuniperWoolf
They became more prevalent in cities during the 90s in the UK. Oddly enough they seemed to grow in number during the boom years up to 2008.
The local authority has adopted a no begging policy for the city, on the grounds that there are agencies who will deal with them, and the social security net. I know that the local agencies get together during very bad weather to, between them, provide extra beds, but there are always a few addicts and drunks. Fewer now though. The no begging rule seems to generally work. So long as it is backed by some kind of provision or opportunity, then perhaps it's a good thing.
I don't because I'm disabled, as weird as that sounds. And not because it's a "I'm disabled and I've done something with my life so I don't feel obligated" mindset, it's actually because I'd just find it an odd situation for me, someone obviously in a not-so-great situation (not financially, but otherwise) giving money to them. Maybe they'd feel weird, too. I don't know. I just don't bother with it.
To be honest it's shocks me, as it's not a familiar site here. I believe there are substance abuse issues behind the majority of these cases and homeless shelters do not tolerate substance and alcohol. No easy answer there, but there should be an answer:
I think by focusing on treatment for drug and alcohol abuse in a robust manner rather than the criminality of possession would solve 70% of the problem.
More importantly, on a community level, it would be encouraging to see the same Energy that the churches put into opposing gay marriage and other social issues, instead put into helping other people(granted even the self inflicted ones). They are so organized in these social/family value effort(s) - it would have great positive impact on the problem. Plus given local problems are best handled locally - it is the best fit in terms of solution.
On a personal level, I tend to offer to buy food. I can appreciate how one can get lost in the shuffle and make bad choices in terms of behaviour and direction.
Then again, I can see if I did come from a big city my sensitivity would be dulled. I hope that never happens on so many levels.
I usually buy the big issue and it also depends on my frame of mind. When I see the same people over and over again, I'm not inclined to help them.
There was a time when I'd flip them a coin, but then I saw an investigative television report and discovered that most of the local ones were making more begging than I earnt busking.
Now I keep my coins and one day I'll buy a new yacht with the savings.
I’m an easy mark for kids.
I had to pay this little guy 20 or 30 Rupees before he’d let me pass. (That’s Mrs. Sancho to the left, almost out of the picture, grinning)
http://i971.photobucket.com/albums/a...emeadollar.jpg
Here are a couple of mini-buskers down in Buenos Aires. The second I snapped the photo the little girl was all over me. That snapshot cost me 5 Pesos. (That’s me in the ball cap in the window reflection)
http://i971.photobucket.com/albums/a...esosorelse.jpg
These two little sweethearts were hanging on the side of the cab in heavy traffic in Mumbai. They got about 50 Rupees out of El Sancho (and they almost got his camera too).
http://i971.photobucket.com/albums/a...oryourlife.jpg
Damn kids! Makes me think of that overrated movie Slumdog Millionaire.
P.S. You're wife looks like a looker, Sancho. :thumbsup:
Yeah, you and Mrs. Sancho look like a handsome couple. although I always thought of you as a burly guy for some reason. :D
Sometimes I give. I actually haven't seen any beggars for awhile. I used to take a toll road to work and there was one guy there every day for most of that year. I gave him a dollar occasionally. My son, bless his heart, once threw a beggar some money from the school bus he was on. I'm not sure if that was the same year he got kicked off the bus for misbehaving. Kids.
I have a friend who keeps blankets in her car to give away, which I think is an awesome idea. I never think about that when I'm at Wal-Mart, but I think I'll pick up a couple in October, when the weather is about to change.
Last year when we had parties at the end of the school year, the teacher in the room next door had a lot of food left over after one, and she took the food down to a place where a lot of indigent people hung out. That was a cool idea, I thought.
It depends on how they ask and whether or not I have much money. When I have money I give generously to the right beggar. There is one guy in town who begs and who I've gotten to know and I often give him a few dollars. I have busked before and I will busk again, though only when I'm so poor I literally need the money. So when I have money I give it away because when I don't have any I often rely on the generosity of friends and, on the occasion that I busk, strangers.
I saw my first beggars a few years ago when the Romanians started coming to Finland. I never give them money. If they are so poor, how could they afford to travel all the way here? Also, the crime rate rose quite a lot once they started coming here. (Nowadays there are less of them than there used to be, since most Finns have stopped giving them money.)
I never give to big issue sellers. I'm not sure why, I used to but stopped (I might have read an unfavourable article about them somewhere).
In the past when a beggar asked for money I would look ignore them (partly through being a student and having no money to give), but now I work it just depends on if I have money or not.
A few months ago I was walking through Liverpool and someone was asking for money, as normal I ignored them but something about him nagged at me - I think it was because he looked so hungry (and I had just been paid a few days earlier). After I had walked about 3 or 4 hundred yards I turned back and gave him £5.
I don't know if he spent it on food, drink or drugs, but I know that for at least one day he had the option of not going without food and in all honesty I did not miss the money.
Since then if I have some money to give I will do, I would like to think that if I ended up homeless that someone would do the same for me.
I will say this: there are a lot ore beggars around here the past couple of years than there were before. It used to be you never saw them. Now, depending on how much/where you travel, you see them everyday. There used to be one I. Particular that would stand at an intersection I use. One thing I've learned is they're not dumb, because he knew this intersection was mostly used by people coming home from St. Louis, so he knew they had jobs. It wasn't unusual to see people handing him money. I always wonder how much he made. I've heard stories of professional beggars. One guy in particular made 30-40 thousand dollars a year begging outside sporting events. Not a bad haul.
I do see more and more "Romanians and Bulgarians" in Helsinki (most or all are gypsies-from my eyes), but opposing my earlier statement these types are professional beggars and thieves who pass it on from generation to generation. I have no time for them.Quote:
Originally Posted by Annamariah
They are also present in London where some years ago, they managed to lift £1000 from one of my accounts. The bank immediately repaid the difference but as far as I'm concerned they should be hunted down and disposed of.Quote:
Originally Posted by tonywalt
Unless a beggar comes off aggressively I am always nice. I am usually too broke to help them but I do what I can when I can. People who hate beggars need to go read some enlightened literature and learn the sublime beauty and simple necessity of compassion.
There are no beggars on the ice. I saw one for the first time though when I was 12 and in Hamburg Germany. it was a guy around 18 with a really skinny rottweiler. I kinda felt sorry for the dog but my aunt who was with me dragged me along. I didn't get it then but now I think it's because he was on drugs.
But like I said no beggars on the ice but a lot of homeless drunks though but even they are on some sort of welfare so they don't bother much.
You see, I know why I will never have to beg. I have never begged, been starving, close to being malnourished, milked my parents and friends of every scrap of food or cup of coffee they could spare and never begged. But anyway. I will never have to beg for one simple reason - I look like a movie star and I come of as incredibly charming, which means all I have to do is find a rich heiress to get hitched to. Every young woman has a rebellion streak in her. A rich young heiress, encountering an impoverished model-like poet like me, will surely be unable to pass up the chance to live out the grand Tristan-und-Isolde-esque romance that awaits.
Darcy- you're a gem. You should move to Hollywood, it's the perfect place for you. If you can't find the heiress, you can find work playing a beggar in a movie.
I've never seen children begging in the metro area but it could be different in the outback towns and that would be heartbreaking for me and change my viewpoint.
Believe me, I have thought of going to Hollywood many, many times. But I think I prefer the writing life. I would not want to put up with the constant scrutiny that actors receive. That industry is so much about image. I am not about image. I am real, too real for Hollywood. I would rather live poor and keep my privacy and integrity than dance for the cameras and look down on my humble roots. I don't like cameras. I am very good in front of a camera, I have actually done a lot of acting practice, but just the camera itself, the intrusion it presents, turns me off of that industry.Quote:
Originally Posted by Buh4Bee
Furthermore, I am very family-centric. I want above all to HAVE A FAMILY and take care of the family members I presently have. That might seem easier with an actor's salary, but the constant harassment celebrities receive can drive a person quite literally mad.
I am already respected in my circle as a poet. I think the poet lifestyle is better and easier on the family.
The verse you’re thinking of is Hebrews 13:2 "Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it."Quote:
Originally Posted by papayahed
This thread is really interesting to me because this is a sub-plot to my book.
When my hubby and I were on our honeymoon in Plymouth, a man approached us trying to sell beaded necklaces out of his backpack. We didn’t have enough cash at the time to buy one. So instead, he asked us for some spare change so he could get a cup of coffee. My first impulse was to buy him the coffee and a meal ourselves with our card (there was a shop not 20 feet away), but my hubby was already digging into his pocket for some coins. He gave him about a dollar and I thought, “Eh, we would have given him cash to buy a necklace anyway.” We were on our way back to our car and decided to stop in first at a convenience store for snacks. Apparently, we had given the man just enough to add to whatever else he had, because after we'd gathered our snacks and were going up to the counter to pay, there he was, buying beer!
So after that experience, no, I never give money unless it’s in the form of a gift card. I usually carry snack bars (especially now because my dining out options are incredibly limited), and I’ll offer them out. If I have the time, I’ll run through a drive-thru and get them an entire “super-sized” meal.
Once a panhandler, who had a sign saying “Hungry”, turned away in disgust when I offered him a pastry (untouched) that I’d picked up at a coffee shop. I really want to believe that his attitude was because he was a diabetic or celiac and couldn’t eat it, or even that it was because it was merely wrapped in cellophane and he feared malicious intent on my part. But that was the only time that happened. Most of the time, the panhandlers seem grateful for my food offerings.
Yeah but if I was a beggar and it was the 10th pastry of the day being offered, I'd get pretty nauseated too....which brings us to the ultimate question:
CAN BEGGARS BE CHOOSERS or are we just looking for some grateful reward for ourselves?
Well beggers too can strive for a balanced diet. Simply solved my standing outside different kinds of restaurants, bars, and bistros.Quote:
Originally Posted by Delta40
I normally opt to stand outside the Ritz Carlton beach bar - they make a killer dirty martini and excellent lumpfish caviar on Waters Biscuits.
Yea, one of the litter (Freudian slip) ones snatched my girlfriends bracklet off her arm, and when i chased him (which was the point of the distraction) the bigger one tried to take her purse. It was a helluva calamity. The other Roma stood around and watched. I think they enjoyed my rather loud dissertation on their culture.Quote:
Originally Posted by Emil Miller
Well, I’d certainly draw a distinction between a mugger and a beggar, or for that matter a larcenist (or even a gypsy). Additionally, I’ve never been all that squeamish about giving a wino some spare change and knowing that he’ll probably spend it on a bottle of Mad Dog. I think the depths of his addiction has taken away his ability to choose and I doubt rehab is truly an option for him. Therefore, I go back to my original post in this thread – the snap judgment I make when somebody on the street asks me for money: Is this person out here by choice or necessity? Maybe my pocket change will take away (even temporarily) a little pain in that person’s life.Quote:
Originally Posted by tonywalt
You're in Helsinki?Quote:
Originally Posted by tonywalt
Yeah, they are Romanian and Bulgarian gypsies who come here, and there is some organized crime involved.
I go there on business. There was a whole pack of them on Mannerheimintie and Aleksanterinkatu.Quote:
Originally Posted by Annamariah
When were you in Mumbai Sancho?Quote:
Originally Posted by Sancho
I was there in 1990-91, and the whole lack of social care had a big effect on me. I think the origins of this seem to lie in attitudes - perhaps formed by caste. You could see it outside the Taj Mahal hotel, (the one attacked by the terrorists last year), where there would be a family with little kids living on the pavement whilst rich Indians passed them by without a glance as they went into the hotel.
No social care - lack of provision even for children, and you end up with child beggars who are probably being run by gangs in the tourist areas. Disgraceful then and now considering the economic might that India is developing. It makes you wonder how long they can sustain such a discriminatory system.
I was in Munich when I heard of the overthrow and summary execution of Ceausescu and his wife by firing squad. Another scumbag dealt with was my immediately reaction but, given the subsequent sequence of events whereby begging and thievery have become commonplace in various European countries as result of the influx of Romanians, I feel a lot more sympathy for the Romanian dictator than I did at the time.
Funnily enough we were on our way to India, via a number of European countries and Turkey, when he fell. We were on a train on our way from Belgrade to Thessaloniki. We were in the end carriage, and we saw three young blokes climb onto the train between. They seemed ok, and one of them spoke good English. he said that they were escaping from Romania after working for Ceaucescu's regime. They just disappeared under the train when we crossed the border and the new guard checked all the tickets. We got off in Thessaloniki with them, and met them a couple of times. Later, one of them wrote to us saying they had found work on fishing boats. We were pleased for them.Quote:
Originally Posted by Emil Miller
Quote:
Originally Posted by tonywalt
Bloomin heck. There are a few Slovak gypsies (?) in Sheffield at the moment and without being prejudiced, and by all accounts, all they want to do is just steal everything in sight, no matter what it is. This is true in the schools, supermarkets etc and believe it or not there were two little kids on the tennis courts the other day trying to steal one of my balls! "Is that my ball? Yes it is give it me back. Shoo" was the response, but they generally are becoming a bit of a pain. I hope we don't get any more of them. I'm sure it is just the vast majority ruining it for the minority though as they can't all be that bad???Quote:
Originally Posted by Emil Miller
As for giving in general - not often to beggars but sometimes, probably rarely if truth be told. 50/50 for buskers if they are good and I'm not in a hurry, just loose change - I don't consider buskers beggars at all. Big Issue sellers, not any more because they are always shouting and it gets on my nerves. I would be more willing to buy one if they shut up for a minute. Besides, it has been said that there are very few if any genuine homeless people here but I don't know if that is true or not.
See I would find that really annoying. I don't know how much 20/30 Rupees is, but if someone blocked my way I would not be happy.Quote:
I had to pay this little guy 20 or 30 Rupees before he’d let me pass. (That’s Mrs. Sancho to the left, almost out of the picture, grinning)
Sorry to break the flow, I'm just going to answer the questions in the OP.
Where I live now there are almost no homeless or beggars, because I live in such an isolated area. In the bigger surrounding cities, you may see a few, but they are not aggressive. They usually just sit there on the side of the sidewalk with a cardboard sign. In most cases I just walk by, but if I have food I will give it to them. I have bought homeless people food in the past, because I may talk to them and ask them if they are hungry. Some homeless just want money, so I tell them I don't have cash only a debit card. I learned all this from my sister-in-law, who is a minister in the States. She always says, don't give money, instead give food or water.
:thumbs_upQuote:
Originally Posted by Darcy88
I live in Beirut and there are TONS of beggars in some areas. If they're kids, I buy them a sandwich, so they don't give the money to their parents.
My friend educates children who can't afford school and there's this one beggar girl who I know she teaches. The girl is always at my favourite coffee shop. Once I saw her there and she sat down with me and asked to call my friend so I let her call her and bought her a milkshake. The staff said "you actually let her use your phone? It was so sad...