My opinion is the same. There is no single condition behind a beggar. It could be a crazy person who needs treatment. It could be a drug addict looking for an enabler, it could be a professional beggar scamming people, it could be someone who drove off a financial cliff for an infinite number of reasons.
Giving money directly to a beggar is at best money poorly spent. At it’s worst you are handing the person a lethal dose of heroin.
Disagree. I’m handing them five bucks. If they choose to buy a lethal dose of heroin, then that is on them.
I’m not going to patronize them because they are homeless. They are adults living in a free country. My five bucks is for them to do what they think is best for themselves. If they make a wrong choice, I have no part in that.
Again, if I tell them that I refuse to give them money, that doesn’t mean that they will go without a drug fix, reform themselves, and be a corporate CEO in five years. My gift is to get them through the day. The rest of their life is on their shoulders.
No it isn’t. You have no way of knowing. It is none of your business.
Does your boss check to see how you spend your paycheck? Do you drink or smoke? Is he paying for your cocaine habit?
Gonzo, I am in general agreement with you in this thread, but the analogy is not a good one. Your boss pays you in exchange for your services. You earn the money and he is obliged to pay you. You give a panhandler money as a gift and as such, you have a right to put conditions on it.
I agree that the analogy is a poor one, but I have to ask…do you generally put conditions on the gifts you give others?
I am reminded of a Grandmother giving her grandkids each a $20 bill for Christmas.
Followed by, “But you have to spend it on pyjamas!”
There will always be people who fall through the cracks of social services available. People who don’t want that help, people who can’t fit into the structure.
Fortunately there are many ways to give, to suit every different attitude. Better not to judge the giving of others, in my opinion. Give what you like, how you like, to whom you like, and extend others the same courtesy.
It is an excellent one. Your boss should give you a drug test once a month to make sure you are worthy. Those are the conditions you should expect for him giving you a job.
Note the term “giving” . That makes clear that you are being treated generously by a person more powerful. That is what you do when you judge a homeless or needy person.
Give him money or don’t, but don’t decide whether he reaches your standard of worth. Do it for yorself, because you have no idea what he will do with the money.
Michigan just kicked 41,000 people off assistance. 29,000 of them are kids. The Michigan streets will have more desperate people on them soon.
They deserved it. The vast majority of those kids are drug addicts and/or alcoholics, y’know.
No, I don’t. And again, I don’t put conditions on my gifts to homeless people. But, as I said, Gonzo’s analogy is not fair. If I do give a gift I have a right to put a condition on it.
Like that alcoholic cousin-in-law that you have (sure you do, we all have 'em) you might want to pay his electric bill instead of writing him a check for $150. That’s fair. He can refuse my payment of his electric bill if he wants. Same way a homeless guy can refuse a donation of a sandwich because he would rather have money.
But at a job, I have a contractual right to the money. If I spend my paycheck on liquor and Chinese whores, that is of no concern of my boss. He owes me the money as a matter of law. The beggar on the street has no such right.
Yep, and apparently studies prove it. Studies we’ll see aaaaaany minute now, I’m sure.
Frankly, I’m amazed at your restraint–after you clearly delineated the limits of your drug/alcohol usage while homeless in your first post on the subject, I’d’ve given him a mod note for personal insults for accusing you of lying and actually being an addict.
Yes I do. I can be reasonably confident that the money will be used destructively. And I can be certain that my donation will encourage solicitation and possibly harassment of other people in the neighborhood.
I own my own business so this question doesn’t really apply to me. But generally speaking, paying employees for their work is not destructive.
Why? If somebody acts destructively just so he can feel good about himself, what’s wrong with judging him? What’s wrong with pointing out that he is being selfish?
Yes, of course. “Don’t use it to your own or others detriment”.
I donated a car to charity some time ago. Part of the expectation was that the person who received it would not drive when he or she was drunk. If I had known with any degree of certainty that the recipient would drive the car drunk, I would not have given it. Do you really think the giver of a gift bears no responsibility for how the donation will be used?
Do you donate money to Westboro Baptist? Why not?
Regards,
Shodan
I donated cars to charity twice. I mad no provisions because once I gave it to them, it was their business and their automobile.
Do people think charities are selecting the worst people to give help to? Do they think they don’t know how to determine who is most in need and most likely to be able to get off the streets? Generally they will favor helping families with kids.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cn52Px_h7_8
I agree that the money someone gives to a homeless person would be better spent if it was invested in a social system that works towards helping the users and mentally challenged get off the streets and into programs designed to help them help themselves.
I live in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver and have been homeless here for almost three years. I am neither a drug/alcohol user or mentally challenged. I am only a performing artist going to college on a student loan who cannot find full time employment. I am not eligible for government assistance because of my student loan, (which only covers my tuition). The social system here is designed to keep the street people on the streets. It used to make me angry to see all these drug users and abusers get a monthly cheque from the government only to waste it on their addictions, while I, who am trying to further my education and help myself as best I can am forced to either ‘quit my studies’, (what someone in the government office actually said to me) or live on the streets or in a shelter. Now, I often wonder how many of these homeless people have tried to help themselves at one time in their lives, only to be discouraged from doing so by their very own government and complying with the order to “quit your studies and we’ll give you a cheque”. Who wouldn’t turn to drugs? I didn’t but that’s beside the point. Without a monthly income not too many people are that strong.
People ask me every day if I “have any change”. All I can say to them is; “The change you need can only come from within”.
When you give money to a panhandler, you should expect him invest in a good stock. They are living on the streets, but you should expect them to invest wisely for the future. Wasting it on booze or drugs is unacceptable. they should save it in a good money account until it is big enough . Then ,plan on a future of power and wealth.
if you acknowledge that people on the street have lost the skill/ability to take care of themselves then that is like handing a 5 year old a gun to play with.
We should always strive to help others and in the same light we should strive to stretch our resources to help the most number of people. $5 of money can be used to purchase food/supplies wholesale and feed/clothe more people.
And again I ask: When and where people are encouraged to “Give a hand up, not a hand out”, do donations to agencies designed to help the homeless increase? To me, the slogan encourages people to do something vague sometime in the future instead of doing something specific now, and attention spans of some folk being what they are perhaps the end result is that the homeless receive even less help than they did before.
Even better to teach people how to spend money wisely so it goes further.
Give money directly to panhandlers and you encourage the activity. That in turn harms businesses where they frequent which lowers tax revenue. As revenues fall the first people hurt are those in social programs.
Give the money to organizations dedicated to helping those on the street improve themselves and you encourage that activity.
If you want to look at it from a judgment point of view then it’s better not to consider how a beggar judges you and do what is best for that person.
I don’t understand your hypothetical at all. Whenever I see a request for funds it’s specific. And beyond that, personal donations not based on a request usually follows something that hits close to home. Money to victims of (pick-a-disaster), money to homeless foundations, pet shelters, diseases that affect the people around us…
What is great about this age in time is that we can now get on the internet and see how far our dollars go. Not only should be not give to street beggars, we shouldn’t give to commercial beggars who exist to line the pockets of the workers within.