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I usually give people money if they come up to me with a sad story and they work hard at selling it to me. If I'm skeptical of the story but the performance is believable, I feel as though they earned something from me. One lady told me her car ran out of gas and needed money to walk to the station to get some gas, so I told her to tell me where her car was and I would drive the few miles to my home, grab my 3 gallon can and bring the gas to her car. She walked away.
Able bodied men who sit around with a cardboard sign could be working, in many instances, and the reason they are not is because of alcohol or drug addiction. I don't like to underwrite their addictions with handouts.
If you really want to make a difference in their life, offer them a ride to a nearby restaurant and offer to buy their dinner. That's not something I've ever done.
I usually give people money if they come up to me with a sad story and they work hard at selling it to me. If I'm skeptical of the story but the performance is believable, I feel as though they earned something from me. One lady told me her car ran out of gas and needed money to walk to the station to get some gas, so I told her to tell me where her car was and I would drive the few miles to my home, grab my 3 gallon can and bring the gas to her car. She walked away.
Able bodied men who sit around with a cardboard sign could be working, in many instances, and the reason they are not is because of alcohol or drug addiction. I don't like to underwrite their addictions with handouts.
If you really want to make a difference in their life, offer them a ride to a nearby restaurant and offer to buy their dinner. That's not something I've ever done.
Offer a stranger a ride.. I would not go there.....bus money maybe
I was thinking along the lines of some social agency or anything to help her. The last thing I would want to see is more burden in her life.
There was an older homeless woman in our neighbourhood who lived in a small copse behind an upscale mall. Over the years people donated many things to her, tents, bedding, food. Every once in a while the police would pick her up and take her to the crisis centre for evaluation.
She would be gone for a couple of days but would return to her copse without her "stuff". The neighbours would once again replenish her little camp. For several years, all attempts to get her off the street failed.
After she was found dead, the neighbours put a small obituary in the tiny local paper and held a simple service. She had become a "stable" fixture in our wealthy suburb and a stark reminder of the frailty of life.
Some people can not (do not wish to) conform to the pressures our society demands.
There was an older homeless woman in our neighbourhood who lived in a small copse behind an upscale mall. Over the years people donated many things to her, tents, bedding, food. Every once in a while the police would pick her up and take her to the crisis centre for evaluation.
She would be gone for a couple of days but would return to her copse without her "stuff". The neighbours would once again replenish her little camp. For several years, all attempts to get her off the street failed.
After she was found dead, the neighbours put a small obituary in the tiny local paper and held a simple service. She had become a "stable" fixture in our wealthy suburb and a stark reminder of the frailty of life.
Some people can not (do not wish to) conform to the pressures our society demands.
Bless her heart.
If not for marriage and a wife, I could see myself living in a small community outside of Manaus Brazil (think surrounded by the jungle) or somewhere in the Mohave. From one extreme to the other. And yes, I've traveled extensively in both.
Why do homeless people walk around with coats on when it's boiling hot outside? I see that all the time in the city. I would offer someone who is homeless some food but I would never give them money. You never know if they're chemically dependent and I don't want to contribute to their habit.
John had to run this homeless guy out of his town, only he wasn't really homeless. He lived with his sister. He would dress like a bum to beg for money because he just liked living off of some one elses money.
I found out that my brother was homeless living on a beach in Florida. Some one I knew from my childhood and I connected with on Facebook told me that he took him in for a year. My brother used him and screwed him over and moved on. Yep that's my brother. I would never take him in. or give him money.
I love the ones that beg for money wearing expensive gym shoes and nice clothes.
It was very nice of you to care about her nicet4 but maybe that money would have been better spent donating to a homeless shelter? Better yet, donate it to a homeless shelter for animals. They have no choice, but humans do.
You cared about her right up until the point where you found out she had money.
Why not take two peach ice creams and sit down with her and have a chat?
She could very well be lonely. There is more we can do for the forgotten or displaced than give them money or point them at a shelter. Kindness is just as scarce as money is for some people.
My mother's younger brother came back from WWII with issues that today would be classified as PTSD. He could not hold a job because he would show up for a few days and then find some excuse not to show up for work. His marriage eventually failed and he wound up living on the streets or wherever he could find a place to stay for a couple of dollars a night.
He kept in touch with his older brother who tried to help him but as others have pointed out, some people are their own worst enemy. He just couldn't fit into any kind of a structured life; it made him "nervous", as my mom used to put it, and he'd disappear for days or weeks on end. Every so often he'd call my mom and plead for money; she'd send a $5 bill to whatever address he was staying at (that $5 was one-half of the weekly household allowance that my mom got from my dad, by the way) and felt guilty that she couldn't send more. My dad, who was normally the most generous, open-hearted, open-handed person in the world (and had been through his own bad war experiences himself) referred to my uncle as "that bum".
I only met him once, when I was in grade school. My impression was that he was a kind person who was more than a little childlike himself. Not in a "slow" way but more that he seemed unworried and unhurried, but at the same time sad -- as if he knew he should be living a life different than the one he had. I think he had a keen sense of how disappointed people were in him.
He died in 1981 when in his mid-60s. I think he was living near his older brother at the time. Because he was an Army vet, at least he was entitled to be buried in a National Cemetery. I do know that my mom and her brother tried to get him mental and physical health treatment at one of the VA hospitals but he would usually make the appointment and then not show up. I've often wondered how many veterans past and present ended up in a life similar to my uncle's even though help may be or may have been available.
Offer a stranger a ride.. I would not go there.....bus money maybe
I'm absolutely adamant about not picking up hitchhikers, but I've given strangers rides before.
Once I was coming down from Fremont Peak and there was a little old lady pulling a basket behind her walking down the road. When I slowed and asked her where she was going, she said San Juan Bautista, which I knew was about 6 miles up the road. I offered her a lift.
Another time I was on my way to town in 100 degree heat and passed someone walking the other way. He was still walking when I came by him again and I stopped an offered him a ride home (a couple of miles up the road). I swear, I thought he was going to pass out from heat exhaustion.
I usually pay pretty close attention to my gut instincts and if there had been anything off about these people, I would have driven on after I stopped. And I tend to be wary of everyone I meet for the first time, homeless or not.
There are 40,000 homeless people in NYC. When I go into the city for work (part-time/occasional), I might pass two or three begging for money in a single block.
You do get jaded. It has bothered me that it doesn't bother me when I've walked past people sleeping on the sidewalk under a mound of blankets on a winter morning. It's just part of the city. There are shelters, but they are dangerous places and these people would rather be on a street in the business districts than to sleep somewhere that they might wake up and find their shoes have been stolen.
Some of the beggars are missing limbs. Can't fake that, but they could be getting a DAV check, too. One lady I see all the time has her cardboard sign out but doesn't look up because she's playing on her phone. A lot of young people, mostly white, from other parts of the country think it's cool to come to NYC and live on the streets. They usually end up as junkies. They are easy to spot. What upsets me about them is that they get dogs and cats to sit with them on the sidewalk because it adds to the sympathy factor. Then the next day you see the same dog being used by a different junkie.
Many of them are quite unimaginative and use the same stupid stories on their cardboard signs: Need a bus ticket home, need money for a hotel room, my sleeping bag was stolen and I need to get another--all popular and overused lies to get you to give them money for heroin.
I did give a buck to a couple of guys in Union Square whose sign said, "We are homeless, blah blah blah" for the honesty and humor factor. Same with the guy whose sign said, "I'm not gonna lie, I want money for beer."
Then there's the guy on the sidewalk on Broadway near Wall Street with his Trump mask and his cup. Didn't give him money, but I laughed the first time I saw him.
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Offer a stranger a ride.. I would not go there.....bus money maybe
