Getting asked for money by homeless people

[SFRL]

What's your policy on giving money to homeless people? 

Somehow I always attract homeless people/people in trouble asking me for money. It has always been that way. 

Lately it seems extra bad. But damn I already gave away 20 bucks today. And half a pack of cigarettes. 

And it has been a trend lately. 

I have gone through a rough few years lately and I am in a much better place now. I also feel like I am having a lot more liberal political shift lately. So I feel like helping people out when I see they are in need now I am doing good for myself. 

But it seems to be written on my forehead now. 

How do you go about these things?

[SFRL]

@Keyhole I know what you are saying. 

They still need to ride the bus and eat though. Although part of the money will go to drugs I have no doubt. 

Sometimes it seems like some people really need the help for other things then drugs. It all seems pretty blurry to me. 

It doesn't sit well with me to just take take take from society and never give anything back. 

What do people do to give back? I don't trust giving money to the services too much either. Maybe the salvation army or something. 

[SFRL]

@Keyhole noted. Thanks. 

[Shadowraix]

Perhaps you can find some time in your life to volunteer for an organization contributing to such a cause,  

[pluto]

I like to talk to them, get to know them, buy them food, have lunch with them. You learn so much about their story and who they are as a person in which most cases are amazing people because they don't have much so even a simple conversation or a hug brings them such joy and happiness than just giving them money. Recognize the master within them.

[Jkris]

@Shadowraix is that not a trap ? Not against helping people but may be after realisation but before realisation is that not a trap distraction ?

[SFRL]

20 minutes ago, pluto said:

I like to talk to them, get to know them, buy them food, have lunch with them. You learn so much about their story and who they are as a person in which most cases are amazing people because they don't have much so even a simple conversation or a hug brings them such joy and happiness than just giving them money. Recognize the master within them.

Yeah it happens a lot where they are just happy that you are willing to tell them what time it is, and don't ignore them. 

[Shadowraix]

27 minutes ago, Jkris said:

@Shadowraix is that not a trap ? Not against helping people but may be after realisation but before realisation is that not a trap distraction ?

Depends on your mindset.

Not doing things out of fear of traps is a trap in of itself.

This is why you do everything you do practicing the upmost awareness in everything.

Helping uplift people can be a very stage green thing and we need more stage green people. 

Its important to explore and experience to promote growth. All a part of the journey. Spiritual realization is a life-long process. There is a lot more than sitting in meditation in solitude. 

Edited July 8, 2019 by Shadowraix

[XYZ]

Never, and I ignore anyone trying to talk to me because 99% of the time it's just someone begging for money or cigarettes. 

Hobos will keep flooding into Los Angeles, because by tolerating their presence and trying to help them, it only attracts more of them. The poor, hungry and homeless of America and the world could fill the entirety of LA, Santa Monica and Beverly Hills, and they would if they could. And they're treated like cows in India, given free rain to go wherever they want and you can't get rid of them. The media misrepresents this phenomenon as a "homelessness crisis" rather than areas being invaded and colonized by homeless people form elsewhere. My problem isn't because they're homeless, but because they create unsanitary and unsafe conditions, are constantly begging, make many public places unusable because of their rancid odor, and filthy baggage blocking walkways. So many libraries, parks, convenience stores, coffee shops and bus routes I avoid now because of this.   

A theoretical solution would be to round up the homeless people found sleeping on the street or creating a public nuisance, and subject them to internal deportations to contained settlements in remote areas of the country, as they did in the Soviet Union. This would purge the plague from West coast urban centers and discourage more homeless form migrating. Realistically though, to resolve this problem there has to be both a disincentive for homeless migration to a city, but ways of taking bums off the streets. There would need to be a public agency specifically for this, responsible for physically removing and processing them. And the local services like homeless shelters and supplemented housing need to be reserved for people becoming homeless locally, not anyone who hops on a bus or rides a bike into your neighborhood. 

So basically I don't care about homeless (except in terms of getting rid of them) and ignore their begging because they are eyesores and nose-sores, I live in and frequent places which do not produce homeless people so they are like invasive parasites, not my neighbors. There are so many of them everywhere and they don't stop coming, they don't care about me, only want me to give them money, and if I was in their shoes I couldn't bring myself to beg, I'd use public services available or resort to suicide rather than live as a street bum and begging every passer-by to please care about me and help me.

If there is a homeless person digging through trash, I'll hand them my empty bottle or leftovers, cause I'm trowing it away anyways and then it doesn't go to waste, it gets eaten or recycled.

[Shadowraix]

@XYZ Isn't it amazing how much consciousness work there is to do? 

[Dan502]

@Shadowraix Agreed. I may need to work on my own behaviour too in this respect.

I sometimes use charity marketers in the street to practice awareness because I resent how they try to be all friendly when they don't know me. So I blank them, neither saying yes or no. There's that second or two when they realise that I can hear them and am deliberately not responding.

Similarly, I occasionally use beggars for kicks like if one asks for a cigarette, I'll say no but them go buy them a pack of 20 just to witness their shock and gratitude. I'm not sure if this is entirely responsible. It does feel good but I suppose ideally I would just be kind without needing the added stimulation of that shock reaction.

[Harikrishnan]

I remember @Leo Gura writing something like his work is charity when asked about wether he does charity, couple of years back. I am curious now leo do u give money to poor people?(b/w people will have more benifit from ur work than money) 

[Psyche_92]

14 hours ago, SFRL said:

What's your policy on giving money to homeless people?

I don't make it too hard. If i walk past a homeless person, i look at him and if i feel like i want to give him something i just do it. If i don't, then i don't.

[SFRL]

8 hours ago, Keyhole said:

@XYZ I don't agree with this at ALL.  Wow.

I think that we need to centralize areas in cities for the homeless, where all of the resources are pooled into one spot - so that their well being can be monitored.  Foodbanks, clothing banks, financial services, mental health services, tent cities, and keep them contained if they are addicted to drugs and alcohol until they are clean.  Keeping the problem centralized, you can control drugs and prostitution easier.

Not sure how to create a system that would do this - I'm not really a systems thinker tbh - but it would need to be done with rehabilitation and dignity in mind and not like a concentration camp.  More like a school for life, basically.

Idealistically that sounds really good. In practice I just don't see that ending well. 

Once you start putting people in camps that's already one step towards creating a ghetto or concentration camp. 

[yellowschnee]

16 hours ago, Keyhole said:

Well, I live in Seattle and so it has become a bit of a problem.

I will give them food, but not money as I've witnessed that money go straight to crack - like, the person literally made a b-line right to their dealer in front of me; and I have been lied to in what the money is being used for; things like insulin, bus fare, stuff like that. 
It depends on where you live, in Seattle - I am poor so I know this, and use these services - there are foodbanks, clothing banks, they are always offering to help house people, we have tent cities - the problem is that many don't want to get off of drugs and so by helping the ones who are begging on the street, they fall into a state of sort of coasting off of that money to slowly kill themselves.

I would donate, instead, to services that help get people off of the streets.

Giving them food is cool. You might also just give people money who don't look like drug addicts. 

 

Maybe I'm an exception but I had been living on the street myself without doing drugs and people would bring me food all day. I couldn't take most of it because of my strict vegan diet. 

And some people were buying me junkfood. So I mostly appreciated money instead of food. 

I remember that one young lady came to me one day and brought me a large bowl of salad. Oh, I will never forget how happy that made me. 

Conclusion: If you are going to get a homeless person food then go for the healthy and vitalizing options like salat, fruit, vegetables etc..

Sure some omnivores might also appreciate a sausage here and there but in general you need to eat healthy to have the strength for going about the next day.

[SFRL]

15 minutes ago, yellowschnee said:

Giving them food is cool. You might also just give people money who don't look like drug addicts. 

 

Maybe I'm an exception but I had been living on the street myself without doing drugs and people would bring me food all day. I couldn't take most of it because of my strict vegan diet. 

And some people were buying me junkfood. So I mostly appreciated money instead of food. 

I remember that one young lady came to me one day and brought me a large bowl of salad. Oh, I will never forget how happy that made me. 

Conclusion: If you are going to get a homeless person food then go for the healthy and vitalizing options like salat, fruit, vegetables etc..

Sure some omnivores might also appreciate a sausage here and there but in general you need to eat healthy to have the strength for going about the next day.

Makes sense. 

Then again one of the most common places I see people begging for food/money is Dunkin Donuts for whatever reason. 

[Moreira]

If you give the money they could buy alcohol of drugs. Better give them a fruit, or a healthy drink, if they dont want then fukoff

[XYZ]

Addressing the issue of homeless people politically or in your everyday life is about survival not consciousness. Laying the basic groundwork for societal evolution to take place.

@Keyhole

This is essentially what I suggested, and do imagine it working more as compassionate containment. But in areas outside the cities besieged by homeless migration, otherwise it would be yet another measure to help hobos that attracts them to cities which implement this program. Expanding rehabilitation and support for those about to become homeless or sleeping in vehicles in their city of origin would be part of a solution. In LA county it could be built in the Antelope Valley desert outside Palmdale and Lancaster, lots of open space there.

You would need civil security and biohazard remediation squats to round them up, bus them out there and clean up the mess they left behind. And you couldn't simply remove people for being homeless in public obviously, so most of the intake would be voluntary, and occur in tandem with eliminating the local services that incentive homeless migration and enable them to stay on city streets. Banning things like public feedings and street camping sounds cruel and contemptuous towards homeless, but their existence encourages thousands more to flood into the city. Shut it down and offer a bus ride to a containment center where they can get food and shelter, not being a blight on residents of the city.

After thorough processing and evaluation, it can be determined who gets sent to a hospital, mental institution, senior/disabled living, reunited with family, sent to immigration/customs enforcement or police in places they have warrants, offer euthanasia for those really in pain and suffering with terminal illnesses. Then for the rest offer them living accommodation and income opportunities, and programs to re-integrate into society. As for who is responsible financially for all of these programs, cities should not bear the burden of homeless migration, so it would need need to come from the state or federal level.

Very related concept is refugees and asylum seekers coming through the Southern border. The world's poor, hungry and homeless will keep showing up, far more than they system can accommodate, hence the "concentration camp" conditions reported in the media. To accept them and process them securely, they need more funding, and it shouldn't be the US worker trying to get by paying for rest of the world's humanitarian crises. A stage yellow president might get grants from the UN to build refugee camps, and tax states based on how many homeless people originating form those states there are put through relocation and rehabilitation programs.

Edited July 8, 2019 by XYZ

[Emerald]

Back when I was 20, I paid my rent/bills by busking (playing guitar and singing for tips) in the pedestrian area near where I lived. And most of the buskers were either poor or homeless. I was the former but not the latter. 

And me and the other buskers would work quite hard to earn our tips. And in the month, I made just about enough to pay my rent and buy some very basic groceries. But I never had enough money to keep the lights on. 

But I got a bad taste in my mouth about the panhandlers that circled around where I was playing, as they'd usually get more tips than me because they'd come up with some story that they pedaled every day and they'd actually go up and ask for money. 

One of them was like, "Hey, a couple of buddies and I want to go get some hamburgers from McDonald's. Do you have a few dollars to spare?" And that was an every day story he'd tell. And he even hit me up with that one despite the fact that I was pretty clearly not doing well myself financially, and he was certainly making more money than me. And I think he was probably using. A lot of that is the case. 

So, because of this experience, I'll opt to get them food from wherever around instead of give money directly. That is, unless I really feel that the person is having a hard time and struggling with pride as they're asking. I just don't want to fund someone's potential overdose as I want to give money to help and not to perpetuate the harm.

 

[Emerald]

@XYZ I wish upon you the privilege to be humbled one day.