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I run up and ask them for change for a dollar. Beats them to the punch.
Seriously....I don't give them a dime. Most of the ones in San Francisco are right where they want to be, the city here appears to welcome and coddle them for some reason, and in the end they make a nice little living panhandling. Let them earn it off someone else...not me.
.....There's a lot more dignity in violently mugging someone than eating at a ****ing soup kitchen.
Give to the needy. As much as you can. Period.
"Dignity" is a strange word to apply to the violent mugging of another human being. There is no dignity at all that attaches to it. You seem to have so much concern for needy people that you don't want to see them eating at a soup kitchen, as if that were somehow such a terrible, horrible thing. Panhandling on the street is certainly less dignified, per se, than eating at a soup kitchen.
I'm wondering why you do not have any concern for the victim of a violent mugging? You seem to be saying that the "needy" are deserving of respect but that a potential victim of a mugging is not. I find your system of morality scary. Or maybe you just like to come up with the most outrageous thing possible to get a rise out of others posters. If so shame on me for taking the bait.
There's an old Indian saying: Give $10 away, and $30 will come back to you, in some form or another.
Giving to panhandlers/the homeless, then, can make you richer, in some form or another?
I generally get angry when I see the homeless sleeping on the street, the anger comes from my envy/jealousy that I'm not tough enough to live like them myself! And how I wish I was that tough!!!
Imagine a world with no worries about losing the roof over your head or your job, or dealing with car repairs, paying utility bills, filing an income tax return! Accumulate enough $ from panhandling, go to the bus station, and whizz off to the next city and the next and the next! The free-est people in the world, next to the rich! But, as they say, there's quite an affinity between the rich and the utterly poor!
But the fact is, you can still have a job and be homeless in today's america.
But it's very, VERY, hard to get a job if your homeless. All jobs, almost all, 99.999% of jobs require an address on the application to be hired. If you don't have a place to live and you prefer not to go to a homeless shelter because of shame/diseases that are there/ etc. . what do you do?
Some people also are in so much shame, depression, etc, that they literally are unable to think they could ever get a job.
Even though I'm thousands and thousands of dollars in debt and have less than a few hundred bucks, I still gave the guy asking for gas money a few bucks. I still gave the homeless guy 5 bucks when he made up a bizzare story right away.
If it's in my wallet, I will give at least a couple bucks if not more..
Why?
Because I give to those who ask. Sure it might not be much that I give, b.c I can't afford it. If I was a millionaire I would live pretty damn cheap for a millionaire and have a lot of fun helping out random people. If I was a billionaire, oh man, America would be a lot better place.
I'm soon to be homeless myself, we'll I am technically. I have no job no nothing. I have severe mental problems that I've lived with my whole life. And it finally hit the point where I can't live a normal life. I'm so alone, no one has ever accepted me for me. I've been abused, made fun of, criticized almost my whole life.
And to think that there are millions of people in this country that have it worse than me is just insane. Because it's the truth. I still have it better than a lot of people, probably 10 million or more people.
I don't know if I can even get the courage to ask strangers for money, but if/when that time comes, I hope they help me out.
.....I generally get angry when I see the homeless sleeping on the street, the anger comes from my envy/jealousy that I'm not tough enough to live like them myself! And how I wish I was that tough!!!
Imagine a world with no worries about losing the roof over your head or your job, or dealing with car repairs, paying utility bills, filing an income tax return! Accumulate enough $ from panhandling, go to the bus station, and whizz off to the next city and the next and the next! The free-est people in the world, next to the rich! But, as they say, there's quite an affinity between the rich and the utterly poor!
While it's true that the homeless do not have some of the chores and worries that you and I have (paying bills, dealing with car repairs, etc.), I would not go so far as to call that freedom. You and I have:
1. Freedom from excessive heat, cold, and inclement weather
2. Freedom from the fear of violence on the mean streets
3. Freedom to take a dump in privacy
4. Freedom to take a shower whenever we feel like it, with unlimited hot water available at the turn of the faucet
And there must be other things I didn't think of. For me, freedom means living debt-free by living below my means, which I've done all my life. That's a very liberating thing, very stress-reducing. Having a roof over one's head and food on the table is a type of freedom too.
There used to be a so called homeless lady that walked the streets of downtown. Since I saw her several times a week due to my job I would give her some money pretty often. Everybody called her the "hat lady" because she always wore 3 or 4 knit hats summer and winter. A few years later when she died the local paper did a story on her because she had been such a fixture in the area. The paper also reported that after some journalistic investigating they found she had over $120.000 at a local bank and no one knew of any family members for her to leave it to. It was then that I stopped giving to panhandlers.
If the beggar that I assessed is not pretending or I think not under a syndicate, I give foods.
I used to give cash to stray children (those who really look like beggars) before only to find out that they gave the collected amount to a certain person.
For me, when I saw beggar most of the times I give foods and I still give money but to those whom I think really deserves it.
I give NOTHING to beggars! I absolutely cannot stand them. My city of Tampa had to pass strict laws to put a stop to their begging because the city was beginning to look like a third world country with all the beggars around. They will take your money and buy booze with it. Many of those people make more money than people making full time jobs because people fall for their tricks.
I give NOTHING to beggars! I absolutely cannot stand them. My city of Tampa had to pass strict laws to put a stop to their begging because the city was beginning to look like a third world country with all the beggars around. They will take your money and buy booze with it. Many of those people make more money than people making full time jobs because people fall for their tricks.
yea, and the biggest thieves of retail and businesses are the employees themselves. So everyone should stop hiring people and get rid of as many employees as possible because some employees steal.
If we applied your logic to treat everyone like a criminal or a lazy bum because of other people, well we'd be a heartless society.
Good thing not everyone thinks like you do.
I'd bet there are many homeless in your area that have had a higher IQ then you. Definitely a lot more class, that's for sure.
I saw someone on a street corner with a sign that said "will work for food." I pulled over and offered him a job for a few hours. He declined. He appeared physically able to stand there for many hours and go to and from car windows to accept coins. I guess he felt he could get more in donations in the 5 hours than the $35 I was willing to pay for his help with a job. That was years ago when $7 an hour would have been attractive to someone on a street corner and the $35 would have bought quite a bit of food.
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Accumulate enough $ from panhandling, go to the bus station, and whizz off to the next city and the next and the next! The free-est people in the world, next to the rich! But, as they say, there's quite an affinity between the rich and the utterly poor!
It depends on how we define freedom.
