Beggars

[Jherico]

I've always held the belief that giving to someone on the street corner is a good thing. The idea being if they're deceiving or misusing my generosity then it's on them, if they're not then I've done a good thing and my Christian duty. The problem is now days I see very young healthy people begging on the street. It's getting hard to believe they're people in need (of handouts anyways) and not just freeloaders. What's your take on this?

Probably a question for my Pastor but I thought I'd post it here and get some opinions.

 

[RstyShcklfrd]

I have only given to a few people here in Austin. It basically comes down to if their sign made me laugh. I feel like a dollar is well worth the laugh I got from their sign.

Two particular examples come to mind: "Need funding for research on homelessness and poverty," and, "Need money for fuel for space ship."

 

[Younggun]

I rarely give anything. Can't remember the last time.

Not cause I'm cheap, I just don't trust someone with little or nothing to lose standing in my window.

 

[Sugar Land]

You have to have missing parts before I give.

 

[Southpaw]

You have to have missing parts before I give.

Nice!!!!

 

[LJH]

I tend to not hand out money to panhandlers for any reason. Its not that I don't care, but I imagine that if I was down on my luck, most panhandlers would not lift a finger to help me. I donate to causes in my community, to organizations that support my beliefs, and to individuals that are in need. Not to individuals that look like they are in need.

 

[GrandpaOf18]

I generally don't for 'out of work', etc... for people that could do 'a' job. My exception, and soft spot, is when it is obvious that they are ill, and sign mentions cancer. Been there, got better, but a lot don't.

Even then, I'll ask a couple of questions that the answers would indicate that they at least know something about their illness, having been there.

 

[Radioman93]

I just tell it like it is when they come up to my window. Obama decided where my charitable donations go with his healthcare law. The regulars already know not to bother asking, and yes I see the same groups on the same corners everyday.

One that gets me the most is the youngish chick holding the sign saying lost everything on the corner with her man doing windshield washes and behind the traffic light control box is a pair of very new looking mountain bikes and they are both smoking up a storm and texting on their phones when they think no one can see them.

Radioman

 

[Skip]

I dont give them money, but lately I've been giving them my lunch.

Sent from my GT-P3113 using Tapatalk 2

 

[RetArmySgt]

I usually give food, a bag of chips, a burger, handed a group of people some MREs once. When i was in Austin a few years ago with the horribly hot summer i stop and gave a guy a Styrofoam Ice Chest full of ice and 2 gallons of water, spent the next 30 mins trying to get the crying dude to let me go. I dont give them money but i will provide food or water.

When i was a child i was leaving walmart with my parents and there was a young couple holding a sign that said will work for food, so my dad pulled over and asked them if they meant what there sign said. We ended up taking them home and put the to work in the yard for a few hours and feed them lunch and dinner. My mother then tried to give them $100 and they kept refusing it and said all they wanted was a ride back to the corner we picked them up at. As my parents loaded the bags into the car that they brought with them (small beat up backpack the kept their blankets and water in) my mom slipped the $100 bill into one of them.

Now i have also given 'homeless' people food and watched them throw a fit about how they wanted money and not some fucking food, and there have been times that it took alot not to get out of the car and beat their asses.

So not all of them are trash but there are a lot of them that are.

 

[matefrio]

If you're religious I believe you'll be judged on your heart and generosity not if you're being deceived. If I feel prompted, I give what I can.

That said, I believe that to do the most good sometimes money and effort can go into better programs than giving to the person on the street.

Shelters offer more than food and a bed. Most have resources and programs to get folks off addiction and to help keep folks on the drugs they need for medical conditions, hygiene, government aid help and job resources.

Church programs vary but mine is excellent and extends, via partnership, to Cypress Area Ministries.

Welfare of others is a complicated issue. The easiest thing to do is donate cash to the guy on the corner and that's not a bad thing, the more complicated issues that need to be resolved can only be helped by donating time to shelters, church programs and community resources.

20+ years experience helping families and individuals in tight situations here holistically. More if I consider the trips made with my dad doing the same when I was young.

That includes but not limited to going into a home in need, sitting down and putting together budgets and assessing needs, helping them fill out paperwork for government assistance, driving them to the lines, finding job opportunities, getting food when they need it, finding doctors to do dental work for free or low cost, stepping in between domestic disputes so dad doesn't get thrown in jail, moving batter women out of homes, moving kids into foster care, repairing broken cars, etc. all to the point to where they become self sufficient.

Goal is always to get them off the tit and become self sufficient. I've won some and lost some of those situations. Really has more to do with the pride of the family or individual than circumstances.

 

[Dhayes]

Year before last, IHOP had Eggnog pancakes on their Holiday Menu from October thru January. OMG those pancakes were AWESOME! Hubby and I went every chance we got to get those. One day there was a guy sitting out in the parking lot looking like he needed help. Hubby wouldn't give him cash, but I had a plate of those pancakes that I hadn't touched so I asked the waitress for a 'to go' box and took them and some plastic utensils out to the guy. (That was a big deal to me, I craved those things so much,I'd told Hubby many times if anyone tried to take those Eggnog pancakes from me I'd hurt 'em.) I went out and offered the guy the container and utensils and he said he wanted money. I tried to tell him how good those pancakes were and he still refused to take them and asked for money. I just said I didn't have any and took my stuff back inside. I don't feel sorry for beggars anymore asking for money. They just want the $$ to go buy booze or drugs. It makes a person NOT want to help when those beggars pull crap like that.

 

[AngeliaH]

I see the same people everyday around my job with same stories. My car broke down. I just need bus $. They tell the same thing to everybody over and over again then come back a few minutes later with a can of beer or a bottle of wine. Saw one guy spit on the business owner next door because he called him on one of the lies. I did try to give a lady some $ outside the pharmacy next door one day. I opened my wallet to give her a few bucks and she grabbed all my cash and ran. After that I will not do it again.

 

[Dhayes]

I see the same people everyday around my job with same stories. My car broke down. I just need bus $. They tell the same thing to everybody over and over again then come back a few minutes later with a can of beer or a bottle of wine. Saw one guy spit on the business owner next door because he called him on one of the lies. I did try to give a lady some $ outside the pharmacy next door one day. I opened my wallet to give her a few bucks and she grabbed all my cash and ran. After that I will not do it again.

HOLY CRAP! That's jacked up!

 

[kusai]

Cash is just an exception for me perosnally.

If they need food: I will buy them a burger
If they need gas: I will fill up some
If they need medicine: I will go up to the counter and pay for it (ofcourse I will open up the seal so they can't get the refund etc) *highly unlikely but I do it only for people I know and/or referred to by someone I know

No sympathy for people getting fat on purpose to file disability and live off tax money.

 

[hkusp1]

I've seen bums around Dallas make $200-$300 a day. I watched a bum in a wheel chair get up after he was done begging for money and put his wheel chair in the trunk of his brand new Lexus and drive off one day.

 

[45tex]

Most of them are professional beggars. But now and then I give a buck or 2 anyway. The wife once bought a case of bottled water and a styrofoam cooler. Put an older man in the water buisness. He did Ok for awhile till HPD jailed him for not being licensed or some such thing. He told her upon his return to begging that it was Ok as he ate regular in jail too. This is a woman that carries animal food in the trunk for strays. Ans may explain why we had four dogs at one time.

 

[RetArmySgt]

There was on begger in Houston the the 90's that was making upwards of 5k a week they even did a news story on him after he got exposed.

 

[benenglish]

Most of them are professional beggars.

Yes.

How many stories should I bore you with?

Story 1 - Common scam. Guy approaches me in a public parking lot with a busted fan belt in hand saying his car was broken down two blocks over and his family was stranded. Gave him a couple of bucks. Less than three months later, the same guy approaches me in the same parking lot with the same busted belt and the same story. I told him he needed to keep better track of his victims because he had hit me just a short while back. I also told him that I'd make sure security paid more attention in the future. He just turned and walked away.

Story 2 - Why has this happened to me 3 times? I'm at a gas station and someone pulls up next to me, hails, and asks for money saying they're really short and need gas money. However, they're driving a brand new truck. WTF? They see the look on my face, explain that the truck is borrowed, and I walk away.

Story 3 - Guy at the freeway intersection has a sign "Will work for food." I'm in my truck. I tell him "I'm on my way to clear out my storage unit. Come along and help and I'll give you food. If you do a good job, there'll be money, too." He turns around and walks away. I wasn't on my way to a storage unit. If he had offered to get in, I would have given him money and left.

Story 4 - Guy at the freeway intersection has a sign that says "Hungry". I swing through McDonalds, buy a full meal, and drive back through the intersection. I motion the guy over and give him the bag. He looks at it, confused, as I roll my window back up. The light turns green, I start to roll, and he throws the bag at my car.

Story 5 - This one I got second-hand from my sis and mom. They were eating breakfast at McDonalds. So was an obnoxious older couple who were loud and boorish. Oh, well. After a while, the two of them get up and leave. They walk to their (slightly older) Cadillac and open the trunk. They pull out a wheelchair and the guy sits down. They pull out a neck brace that the woman puts on, then she pulls out crutches. This pair of cripples then hobbles over to the freeway intersection on the other side of the McDonalds and holds up a sign begging for money. They stayed all day in the same location for over a week before someone must have noticed and reported them. For whatever reason, they moved their scam elsewhere and I haven't seen them again.

Story 6 - Saving the best for last. I once had a bad day where I needed to run a bunch of errands around the area of my office at lunch but there were just too many. I asked my boss for an hour of vacation time to get it all done and hit the road. I criss-crossed all over SW Houston, crossing the SW Freeway at least a dozen times from multiple directions. There seemed to be a beggar at every overpass, no matter which direction you approached.

On this day, though, I had to retrace my steps several times. I saw many of these people more than once. And something wasn't right. I couldn't put my finger on it so after my errands were done, I actually started looping around on the service roads looking at these people carefully. Something weird was going on and I had a real bug up my butt to figure it out.

Something about them all was similar. They all had cardboard signs with tales of woe. That's not unusual. However, they were all brown cardboard. Real beggars will write on whatever they can get but that could be a coincidence; brown cardboard is the most common.

Then it hit me. Every Single Sign was written with the same wide, black marker in the same handwriting. The Same Person had created all the signs. This was a business run by someone who was deploying a crew of professional beggars, completely blanketing that part of town. I assume they dropped everyone off in the morning, brought them supplies during the day, and picked them up at night in exchange for a cut of the action. Whatever the details, it was clear that those dozen or more beggars were actually part of a single (potentially very profitable) business entity.

Conclusion - I never give to beggars. I'm happy to give to charity but street beggars get nothing from me.

 

[Anger]

I've always held the belief that giving to someone on the street corner is a good thing. .

Respectfully, IMO, you and your kind who give to these beggars are idiots.