Not My Fault (Homelessness and street begging)

Name: davidso_99

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Product:	Homelessness and street begging
Date:	01/08/02 (101 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: none

Disadvantages: many

We advise you to prepare your review offline, then to copy it to this space. This ensures that in the event of a connection time-out your contribution is not lost on posting.Big Issue?'
'Yes ok'
'Thanks. Have a good day.'

'Big Issue Sir?'
'No thanks. Already have one.'
'Can you spare a bit of change then please?'
'Ok. Here's my spare change.'
'Thanks. Have a good day.'

'Big issue mate?'
'No thanks. Already have one.'
'Can you spare a bit of change?'
'No. Sorry. Gave it to the last man.'
'Ok. Have a good day sir.'
And you leave with an immense sense of guilt.

.......Sound familiar? I walk through the centre of Leeds every day to and from college and as sure as there is oxygen, you will be confronted by a homeless person on every street corner without fail. I am fully aware that I speak with danger of being loathed by the largely and rightly sympathetic audience but nevertheless this is not a popularity contest. I will not even pretend to understand the extent of the hardships and suffering experienced by the homeless and in fact I do give when I can or want to. But nevertheless I hate being confronted by the homeless.

Every day I am forced to endure the mental torture that is the unfair sense of guilt I feel when I'm unable or indeed don't want to help the homeless. Everyday I walk past the town hall and an old, meek, frail and generally very sympathy evoking woman sits there holding a declaration of her homeless status in the form of a torn piece of cardboard with a rusty metal cup beneath her. She doesn't beg. She doesn't say a word. But I found myself doing a d-tour so as to avoid her on many occasions. The fact is that as soon as I am in 'giving region' I am immediately antagonised. That is unless I pay for not being so via her cup after which admittedly yo
u get a great feeling inside but the fact that you paid for it is unfair.

This is my main problem. I ask myself, ?Am I a bad person because I walked past the Big Is
sue seller without even having the courtesy to offer him more than a murmur-that-can't-be-arsed-sounding-like-' No thanks.' Of course I always arrive at the same conclusion-'No I'm not.' I give to the homeless sometimes particularly when I'm loaded (which isn't too oft' with me being a student).' But nevertheless I hate having to feel like that. I know its nothing compared to the indignity of having to beg for money from strangers but why should I feel guilty? After all I'm as much a victim of this cruel capitalist society as the man I see before me clad in rags.

Poverty is problem for the powers that be to solve. We, the middleclass are begged for the basic human needs that the government fail to provide. Any feelings of guilt I have are quickly diffused by the thought that government can afford to pay the 'Royals' excessively for sitting on their behinds all day and maybe giving the occasional public wave, yet cannot provide basic human needs for the poverty stricken. And this is truly disgusting but Mr Blair or Mr Prescott should get the bad looks for failure to provide a bit of relief. Not me.

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