Where does the money go? (Homelessness and street begging)

Name: seantheprawn

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Product:	Homelessness and street begging
Date:	21/08/08 (77 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: free spirit

Disadvantages: cold, hard life

I have always been sympatric to homeless people and always wonder what tragic turn in somebodys life can leave them living on the streets.

They really fascinated me and for that reason I always have time for them and I used to give money quite generously.

On one occasion I gave a really old Romanian women ten euros. She was selling the big issue on O Connell Street in Dublin and she seriously looked about eighty years old.

I know that Romanians are not allowed to work in Ireland legally and I doth she was a drug addict so I didn't mind sharing a few pound with her.

On a few different occasions I gave fivers to homeless people, I knew it could really make there day but for me a fiver was just a coffee with my friend after work and then it's gone.

One day I was walking through town and my phone battery wasted. I needed to ring my friend so I used a public phone box. It was raining badly and I was wearing a woolly cap and I might have looked a bit scruffy.
I tried to call my friend but her phone was off. I was so annoyed that I started cursing the phone, when I hear someone speaking to me from the cubical next store.

"Alright mate, you in the same boat as me, trying to score".

I looked to see a homeless man that was about to use the phone next to me. I recognised him instantly, it was only a few days prior that I bought the big issue off him and let him keep the change from a fiver and now he was right next to me ringing a drug dealer looking for smack.

I don't think he recognised me at all. I just nervously mumbled something and left the phone box.

Since that day my whole perspective of giving to the homeless changed. I don't give to anybody and more now. I started thinking why I should help pay for a swimming pool in some smack dealers back yard.

As for the big issue, I used to think that it helped the homeless save some cash up and eventually get off the streets but I always see vendors drinking cans of beer and in telephone boxes ringing for smack, and it just discourages me to donate at all.

Summary: homelessness is bad