Homelessness and street begging

Its close to impossible not to encounter a homeless person on almost every street corner in New York. The subway system is flooded with people begging for food or money. While there are some people who genuinely appear like they deserve sympathy, I often times also find myself constantly encountering people who clearly abuse drugs to a point where they're in a terminal condition. You develop this mentality that homeless people in general are lazy or will just use your generosity to buy booze or narcotics. Its a cynical way to look at things, but I find myself being less likely to donate to people these days because I feel as if many are just trying to scam ...  Read the complete review

I sometimes do, but you have to wonder where it is going. I once took a homeless guy into a shoe shop and bought him a brand new pair of £40 boots. saw him 3 months later and he still had them on which was good.

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Hi there,

The below mentioned is the way I "handle" people who have fallen in this state of poverty and/or hopelessness, and feel that there is no other way for them to keep "body and soul together", save to beg in the streets . . .

1) If they ask me for money and I can see or sense that they are sincere
and their need is real, I will give, immediately, whatever I can.

2) If I am, at all, unsure what to do, I will give . . .

3) It is only in circumstances where I am as convinced as I can possibly be,
that by giving them money, especially, it will be completely wasted on
them, that I will not give them anything, but I will always, always still be
polite to them.

Thank you for reading!

Mayan820.

Touchy subject this! We all believe we know best about such situations. Reckon I did too until an occurrence that changed my mind. I live in a well heeled town in the Midlands. Very little homelessness or if there is someone seems to keep them out of the public gaze. Seriously. We used to have one or two, one, a young man always in the same spot. My elder daughter who was about 18 at the time and with very little money used to talk to this guy. One day she asked him how he was and it turned out he had the opportunity of changing his circumstances. He had been invited to a job interview up North. The problem was he was short on the train ...  Read the complete review

Homelessness. I find it extremely hard to comprehend how they live, I have been very sheltered - always had food on the table, a roof over my head, warmth and a bed to sleep in. The neccesities, and of course more - mobile phones, laptops etc. I used to live in the countryside - all the way up to age 18 when I moved away to Cardiff city for university. I feel quite awkward and sorry for them really. One man in particular, it was raining really hard, and he had tucked himself into the doorway of KFC, obviously for a reason. I went into Cafe Nero and bought him a cup of coffee. I felt so sorry for him. I am the type of person that would bring him home and get ...  Read the complete review