I almost never give money to beggars and I usually feel guilty about it.
Of course the current cashless society makes it so easy to say “Sorry, I would help you but I don’t have anything”.
No, I don’t. I don’t feel sorry for them. I donate to causes (including some for homeless/soup kitchen things) and volunteer for what actually moves me to sympathy, which is more likely to be animal charities.
StG
I don’t give to beggars because I feel it’s just perpetuating their situation. It just helps for just a fleeting moment. Any money I give isn’t going to put them on a track to not have to beg anymore. The money just enables them to continue to live a begging lifestyle. If no one gave them money, they would need to find another solution, and I feel that other solution would produce a more permanent improvement to their life. For example, they might get on social services, get a job, live with friends/relatives, etc.
I always give money to buskers, even if their talent is subpar.
As far as the “they’re just gonna use it for drugs and alcohol” argument? Yeah, that’s what I’ll use the money for if I don’t give it away.
I don’t do it because I feel sorry for them. I do it because at this time of my life I can. And because they need it.
“At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge,” said the [one of the gentlemen], taking up a pen, “it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the Poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir.”
“Are there no prisons?” asked Scrooge.
“Plenty of prisons,” said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.
“And the Union workhouses?” demanded Scrooge. “Are they still in operation?”
“They are. Still,” returned the gentleman, “I wish I could say they were not.”
“The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?” said Scrooge.
“Both very busy, sir.”
“Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course,” said Scrooge. “I’m very glad to hear it.”
“Under the impression that they scarcely furnish Christian cheer of mind or body to the multitude,” returned the gentleman, “a few of us are endeavouring to raise a fund to buy the Poor some meat and drink, and means of warmth. We choose this time, because it is a time, of all others, when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices. What shall I put you down for?”
“Nothing!” Scrooge replied.
“You wish to be anonymous?”
“I wish to be left alone,” said Scrooge. “Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don’t make merry myself at Christmas and I can’t afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned: they cost enough: and those who are badly off must go there.”
“Many can’t go there; and many would rather die.”
“If they would rather die,” said Scrooge, “they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”
A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
What I don’t understand is this. Many businesses around here will pay people to hold up a sign and wave it around all afternoon. Why don’t these beggars sign up and do that instead? But as the ice cream shoppe example indicated upthread they apparently find such a notion to be a deep affront to their sensibilities, or something.
Like the OP I saw an Indian woman begging in the lot at work a few years ago. After initially blowing her off I decided to give her something after all.
She then held up a small sign saying “hotel?”
I haven’t given to anyone since then.
No beggar in the US has to die if they can’t get money on the street. There are lots of options available now that weren’t around in Dicken’s time. And in this example, it was collection for a charity. Which is what I would support for the people who are begging on the street. These are the social programs that can help lift them up from where they are and they won’t have to ask for money from strangers on the street.
There really aren’t that many of those types of jobs available, but I’m sure that if the homeless cleaned up, put on some decent clothes, had a cell phone and a permanent address, they might have a slight chance of taking that job away from the student who got the job from a school work program or from being the son or daughter of one of the employees.
BTW, cute anecdote-but using it to justify to giving anything to anyone since then? Wow.
No. I don’t give them money because I don’t want to. It’s as simple as that. I resent them coming up to me and trying to make me feel like I owe them something. Especially when they always walk through the subway cars with their masks around their necks. Like I wasn’t going to give before, now I just want you to get the fuck away.
Nooooo! Talented street musicians are a blessing to the community and should be supported. An idiot mindlessly spitting into a saxophone or banging on a paint can is unneeded noise pollution. I would only give money to a subpar busker in exchange for them just panhandling in a quieter more traditional manner.
Everybody’s a critic! 
I used to be in a long term relationship. I’d to fly into the Oakland airport and rent a car. When I left to go home, I’d stop at a gas station near the airport to top off the tank in the rental car before returning it. There was one woman who I’d regularly give a few bucks to at the gas station. I’d make sure I had some cash in my pocket for her after it became a regular thing. She might have been a junkie, but she always approached me in a careful way and would thank me (not obsequiously). I felt bad when I stopped seeing her.
We had season tickets for the hockey Kings when they were still playing at the (Fabulous) Forum. There was a guy we cleverly called Saxophone Man, because he played the saxophone outside the Forum. He was awful. I think he had two songs in his repertoire . We never gave him money because he was so bad. Once the Kings started playing at Staples Center, he moved there. I’m guessing he hit all the major stadia in the area. Obviously made enough money for transportation!
It’s not that simple of course. There aren’t nearly enough social services to cover the needs of the homeless population in any city in the US. Also, many of the people begging are incapable of meeting the requirements of the agencies that could help them (picture the woman who accosted you at the Salvation Army center). Many are virtually unemployable due to mental illness, drug addiction, or simply their history. In addition, once you’re out of society, it’s very difficult to get back in – an address, a phone, clean clothes, references, etc are much harder to come by when you live out of a shopping cart.
I’ll give them leftover food if I have any. One time I ended up with a large slice of cake that was way too sweet for me (probably from a coworker’s birthday celebration, but my memory’s hazy), and I was happy to offload it to a beggar in the train station who could make better use of it.
I can’t bring myself to give them cash though. Yeah, I know some others here say I shouldn’t care what the beggars do with the money, but I just can’t live with the knowledge that some of them might be using it for cigarettes and/or drugs. At least with food, the amounts I’m giving them are just not worth the hassle of trying to exchange for a dollar or so, for funding illicit purchases.
There’s no pleasing some people…
I often do this too.
Usually I don’t, but sometimes I do. I don’t care what they do with the money. I’ll sometimes give food if I happen to have some, or get them a burger on the way out if they ask (I remember one guy earlier this year panhandling at a Subway asked me for a very specific sandwich with a very specific list of toppings as I walked in. I kind of chuckled to myself as it wasn’t an easily rememberable order with all the topping choices they had, but I think I got it right.)
During this pandemic, hubs saves every $5 bill that passes through his hands. Just to give to street people. He has favourites!
(We are certainly not wealthy, we would have to reach and reach just to see middle class in the distance, but we can spare a fiver!)
I don’t care what they do with it. If it offers them some brief respite from their difficulties, it’s enough.
When people have asked me to buy them food as I’m entering a place that buys food, I have generally done it. I dunno why that’s different from asking for money, but it feels different to me. Even when the request is for junk food.
Yes, but you can go broke from doing good deeds such as this, and in time you could become a beggar yourself. This is a issue for me every time I get pandhandled. It’s not that I want to deny someone a bit of my small change, or small bills as the case may be, but I am not a wealthy person, and if I gave money to every person who asked for it I too could end up on the street. Best course of action for me: limits what I shall give on any given day or work. Set limits.