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I used to give 50 cents here, a dollar there until I wised up and realized it goes to their drug and/or alcohol addiction. Now, I give nothing. I wish these people (I know, some of them have mental issues) would stop making their problems everybody else's problems. YOU screwed your own life up, don't look at others to support your poor decisions.
In lieu of cash, I willl usually stop at a fast food establishment or grocery store in an area that sees a high number of panhandlers and purchase a few sandwiches/burgers and hand them out. If they are hungry they appreciate it, and they generally cannot convert it to drugs/alcohol.
I live in the country and that is just one of the things I do not miss living in a cess pool city is pan handlers. In my old ghetto neighborhood you could not walk to the store with out being pan handled 2 or 3 times. And the store was just 4 blocks away. Bums would even pan handle you if you were eating inside at the Burger King.
But if you are the Larry Bowa that played and managed in the bigs you can afford to slip them a twenty
They are not all "bums". There are those that are legitimately homeless through no fault of their own and lost all will when they lost everything.
I would say half of those on the streets are alcoholics, drug addicts and frauds.
When I was in NYC last month I was amazed at the junkies sitting in the streets with their signs "Please help me I'm hungry". If they weren't nodding out they were sitting there in a daze and you could see the track marks running up their arms.
If I see someone who I think is homeless I will tell them I won't give them money, but I will buy them a meal. It's up to them if they want to take the offer or not. If they accept it I'll go into a store and buy them some food. Junkies aren't usually hungry for food.
If I think the person is genuine and really does need help, I will usually give.
However, if the person I think is a bludger or a fraud I never will.
The last person I gave to, he looked in a very bad way and his plee for help really did seem genuine. So I gave him a decent amount by his standards. Have been on that street a few times since and there is no sign of him. Unlike several of the other bludgers/frauds who you see all the time.
We rarely see bums, in fact I never have seen one around here. I have seen the 'will work for food" guys, but that is it. In NM we saw more. I never give them money except for a time or two when there were children involved and they said they needed gas. True or not, I didn't know but I did what I thought was right.
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