<p>I would not do that, simply you do not have enough money to handle those “angles”. When we were traveling in China, we were reframed to show if we have any money. We only bring enough money for the food or if we were in a tour, we only bring credit card and some changes for snacks. If you give one dollar to a begger, there will be 100’s follow you around all the time.</p>
<p>In Beijing, I saw one begger who’s body is halved, he was on a roller and was using only two hands to move around.</p>
<p>I have a soft heart for this kind of thing and if I have some extra food in car, like granola bars or something, I’ll roll down my window and give it to them.</p>
<p>I used to give a few bucks… but then I noticed it was the same people in the same locations, day after day, year after year. Then I happened to see the woman who always has the sign saying she’s 77 and starving–taking off her wig and cloak, then walking off in her jeans and t-shirt, carrying a backpack, estimated age, about 40. I have to admire her street theater, but I haven’t given her a thing since.</p>
<p>I always give them a dollar. If they look like drug addicts my mom and I will offer to by them food or give them our lunch. I’ve always been taught that “We may not have a lot, but there are quite a few people who have less.”</p>
<p>I just get tired of the same old “ran out of gas” story. It’s made me cynical.</p>
<p>Once, when my daughter was maybe 7 or 8 years old, a young woman came up to me in the grocery store parking lot and said that she and her daughter were living in a motel and didn’t have money for food. Although we were not in a great financial situation, we did own our own home, so we were certainly better off than many. I felt it was also an opportunity to show my daughter the importance of helping those in need, but I knew there might be another lesson in there, too.</p>
<p>Sure enough, I asked the young woman to wait while I got the groceries which I would share with her. I made a very quick grocery visit and got her a bag of staples. When I came out she was gone. Clearly, she wanted cash and not food.</p>
<p>It kind of turns my stomach when people run scams like that. They make it so much worse for those that really do need food.</p>
<p>And that is the lesson my daughter learned that day. Some people are just lowlife scammers.</p>
<p>"I’ve heard withdrawal from heroin is pretty uncomfortable as well so if you suspect the person is a heroin addict do you be sure to give them plenty of money to sustain their habit so they don’t have to experience any discomfort from their self-inflicted condition? "</p>
<p>This is my professional field. Withdrawal from heroin is extremely uncomfortable, but not dangerous. Unsupervised withdrawal from alcohol can be, and often is, life threatening. (I am currently watching literally thousands of 18-25 year olds in my state move from occasional prescription opiate abuse to full-blown heroin addiction. I don’t think it’s particularly useful to anyone to cast blame about.)</p>
<p>“Mini, if you’d really like to give them a roof over their heads, why don’t you bring one home?”</p>
<p>Wish I could, but I currently have a homeless Iraqi refugee with major PTSD living with me (for the past 14 months).</p>
<p>According to the United States Conference of Mayors,[5] the main cause is the lack of affordable housing.
The three next primary causes are: mental illness or the lack of needed services substance abuse and lack of needed services low-paying jobs
The minor causes cited by the mayors were: Prisoner release Unemployment Domestic violence Poverty</p>
<p>I very specifically did not refer to the beggers as homeless. I have no idea if they are homeless or not. Their dress and appearance would make one believe that they are homeless, but that doesn’t mean they are.</p>
<p>I have definitely been “taken” before by people asking for $$. I have also taken someone to buy them lunch. </p>
<p>Since there has been a discussion about homelessness here, I do want to share what I think is a wonderful ministry. It’s called “Family Promise”. I think it used to be called the Interfaith Hospitality network. Through this program, churches within a particular geographic area bond together and each congregation hosts up to, I think, 4 homeless families with children for 4 weeks per year (spread out…about 1 week per quarter). These families are screened by the organization so there are no drug issues and nobody with any sort of “criminal” record. </p>
<p>The host church becomes home to these people for one week at a time. We convert Sunday School classrooms into comfortable bedrooms (beds are provided by Family Promise), and our Fellowship Hall becomes a big family living room and an eating area. Host volunteers provide and prepare meals and snacks; help with homework; play games with the kids in the evenings; visit with the parents (if they want); other hosts spend the night there with the families (DH and I have enjoyed doing this and it’s easy since we are “empty nesters”). Each morning a van and driver from the Family Promise organization picks up the FP guests and they go to a central location where they can shower and get ready for their day…the kids are picked up by bus for school and the parents are given counseling and a place from which to research opportunities for jobs and housing. They return to their host church in the evening for dinner. </p>
<p>The success rate for this is astounding. Something like 85% have jobs and housing within 3 months of entering the program. The blessings and benefits, not only to the families in the program, but to those host churches, are innumerable. I can’t think of a better use for church facilities. Nor of a better way to meet and help out some amazing people who have just had a hard time. </p>
<p>We also have a very active local food co-op that we donate to, and our church college group has taken food to downtown Atlanta to distribute. THAT is an interesting experience…</p>
<p>I have given sometimes but more often I don’t. When confronted with a beggar I always have an internal conflict between my desire to help those in genuine need and my desire not to be the victim of a scam. I regret to say that the latter wins more often than the former. </p>
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<p>There is one intersection in La Jolla that for some reason is a major panhandler magnet. Often two or three, and sometimes all four, corners of that intersection will have beggars working it at the same time. And some of them are long-timers that come back day after day, month after month. One that particularly infuriated me was this woman who used her three little kids as props to garner sympathy. They were all blond-haired and and very fair-skinned, but still she’d have them sitting there on the curb for hours, baking them in the hot noonday sun. In her case I was more inclined to call Child Protective Services than I was to give her any money.</p>
<p>It bothers me a lot more when I am taken by the gas and electric company and the cell phone providers, than by a person who truly may be homeless and has a family to support. </p>
<p>Statistically, the homeless are roughly 40% alcoholic, drug addicted and mentally ill.</p>
<p>Expensive communities have more of the homeless and they may be self delivered to the expensive communities because those people have the money to give. University Ave in Palo Alto is one of the busiest locations for extremely decrepit homeless, that I have seen. </p>
<p>Are their shopping carts full of their belongings props? Are they wearing ten layers of clothing when it is 90 degrees and sunny to trick people?</p>
<p>We have something like Family Promise here in the Sacramento area.</p>
<p>Actually, I was part of establishing another program for the homeless in my area, and it changed my perspective. I used to give money or feel guilty about if I didn’t. Now, I know that it is better to provide food or talk to them about the local services.</p>
<p>The reality is that there are two types of homeless: those that are truly in dire circumstances and just need a leg up to get back on their feet, and those that are homeless by choice or because of drugs or mental illness. It is important to discern just which group someone is in before you decide to help.</p>
<p>It is definitely better to give your time and money to social services in your area that work with homeless, and to let homeless know what services are available.</p>
<p>Yes, sometimes.<br>
If someone looks extremely miserable (like the guy missing a leg, and very dirty), I will give a small amount. I can’t do this for everyone, just a day in NYC, DC, Philly, San Fran and parts of CA would cost too much! I will give out leftovers that I might be carrying out of a restaurant, and I have to say that in NY I never had these refused. I used to leave my deposit bottles in a spot where the homeless bottle pickers would find them on the corner when I lived in NY. Did you ever see those bottle pickers in NY? I was shocked at how many homeless live near the beach in CA - Santa Barbara, Santa Monica, Venice Beach, La Jolla. I guess it is better than freezing in DC or NY.</p>
<p>In general, I have to admit that I try to avoid the seemingly homeless panhandlers on the beach in CA, where there seem to be many. However this past Christmas Eve, my H really surprised me. We went to get a pizza (this is not our holiday, so we did not make a big night of it), and a homeless woman was looking at the outdoor menu. She was dirty, and still had some hospital wristband on her arm. She was missing a few teeth too. H bought her a pizza, and she was so happy. Talking to her while waiting for our pizza, it was clear that she had a bunch of problems, and was probably a drunk or a drug addict. However, she was hungry and was so happy to get the pizza. I have to say that over the next couple of days we unexpectedly received a couple of random acts of kindness ourselves from strangers (these were unsolicited acts). Maybe the guy from India is right. I was kind of thinking that myself…</p>
<p>I always give a dollar or two ,especially if there is nobody around .As a 50 something female ,I don’t want any trouble . I never give money if I am with other people . My neighbor was shot to death because some punk wanted his watch ! He was very wealthy ,and his wife couldn’t understand why he just didn’t give up the watch .</p>
<p>I haven’t given beggars money in the past, but I may start. This fall, I took a class given by NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) for the family members of mentally ill people. In one class, we were to each describe a problem we had with our family member that we would like to solve. Mine was something like, “I can’t get my son to take showers often enough.” Well, the next person’s problem was heartbreaking: “My son is living on the streets in a city in Alaska, and I’m trying to figure out how to get him inside by winter.” The father explained that he was willing to pay rent for an apartment, but his son wouldn’t agree to live in it. The young man probably has schizophrenia, but he refuses to see a doctor.</p>
<p>There are a LOT of people like that living on our streets. And yes, a lot of them abuse substances, to try to escape the pain of their illness. I don’t know what the answer is. I do plan to get more involved with NAMI, because at least they’re trying to help people.</p>
<p>We have a project in Seattle (that is now being copied elsewhere) called the “1811 project”. Basically, it is a small apartment building for alcoholics. Seattle-King Co. identified a list of the 100 “highest cost” alcoholics - those who spent the most time in the emergency rooms, in jail cells, committing petty crimes, detox centers. They then tracked them down and offered them rooms at 1811. No strings attached. People were allowed to drink as much as they wanted in their own living space, though not in common spaces. Some folks theorized that many homeless alcoholics didn’t want to live inside.</p>
<p>Well, they went down the list - by the time they got to number 78, they had filled all 75 slots. (There are few “apartments” in the building that are semi-open air - no floor-to-ceiling walls.) People didn’t have to go to treatment - the average person there had been to treatment 16 times previously! They did offer treatment onsite, and about 8% of apartment dwellers went. A nurse came in for a few hours every day, and helped get the folks to their physical and mental health appointments, and a case manager helped get them to court dates. The residents pay a set one-third of their income (often SSI). </p>
<p>The results? After two years, medical expenses dropped by two-thirds. Emergency room use down 90%. Drinking dropped by half. Crime went down by 70%. Need for detoxification services became rare. Folks began taking their mental health meds. 30% got jobs (more would have, but jobs weren’t available.) There were almost no issues with the neighbors, and police calls became rare. It saved millions in the city’s budget. </p>
<p>I’m glad to see that New Haven has addressed this issue. Years ago I lived in New Haven and worked at Yale. The number of panhandlers seemed to grow almost daily. It would have been impossible to help everyone who asked on what I made…we don’t have a lot of panhandlers where I live now but we do have people who are struggling. I am on the board of the local nonprofit that runs our food bank and give them quite a bit of money every year. In fact I have made a conscious decision to keep my giving local. I won’t give for a well in Africa or Ghana when we have homeless and hungry children in our own neighborhood. Of course YMMV.</p>
<p>For those that give out money, keep it in a place separate from your wallet.</p>
<p>A student at my son’s school was approached for money and he took out his wallet to take some out to give to him. The recipient assaulted the student and took the wallet and ran.</p>
mental illness or the lack of needed services