Please dont. Dont give cash. It encourages them to live outside aid in homeless camp, which are dangerous for them, a high fire risk, and hazardous to the environment.
If you must give, give socks.
I always give to buskers, they are doing a job, and should be paid.
Exactly, there was a lucky busker at Leicester Square tube station playing an excellent guitar. He got a lot of my UK coins as I was heading to the airport a couple of weeks ago.
For $1.99 I can buy pretty much any song available on iTunes, and I will be entertained. Buskers, anyone doing some kind of performance–even if it’s just good interactive storytelling, gets a buck or five if I have it. No biggie for me, plus I’ve been entertained. If all you have is, “Gimme a dollar.” then I’m broke too pal and things are tough all over. I put forth an effort to put money in my pocket, I expect you to do the same.
I’ve been broke. My situation has included owning a nice, relatively new vehicle (acquired when I had a good job, which was subsequently gone) and no way to feed it, and a new gig that required my vehicle to have gas. So I can’t say I’d be willing to call someone a liar or even irresponsible who says they’re broke despite having some decent stuff. I’d have had them pull their SUV up to my pump and filled them up just for the laugh. I’ll blow $50 on a bottle of absinthe and get hangovers for my trouble; $50 in gas for a stranger, just to see what happens next, would totally be a thrill and worth every cent.
I guess you could eat socks.
I did this. The man was driving an older car and he had an elderly woman in the front seat. I pumped him about $5 worth of gas into his car, which should have been enough for him to drive home (he said he was local, it was hot, and I didn’t want that poor woman sitting in a car without AC.) I didn’t see him drive off, so I don’t know what he was trying to pull, unless it was to steal gas in some fashion.
There is frequently a trumpet player outside my office building who begs for money while blowing his horn for hours at a time. I am fortunate not to be on that side of the building, but as far as I can tell, he is uniformly hated by those whose office placement means they have to listen to the theme from the Flintstones over and over again while they’re trying to work. Apparently he scrounges enough coin from people who don’t have to listen to him all day long, but there are certainly plenty of people wishing that this particular troll was not getting fed.
Which is likely why I have yet to see a Wal-Mart in my area w/o a panhandler at the parking lot entrance(s). Poor people aren’t as invisible to other people of few means.
As DrDeth suggests, I give socks. A couple years back I went through all my thick socks (one accumulates a lot of socks in 30 adult years), picked out just enough for my work days and set aside the pairs in good shape. Those I put in bundles of 2-3 pairs w/ a rubber band around them and offered a bundle to panhandlers at the exit ramps around SLC (along w/ cheese sticks and clementines or bananas when I had them). This way, I hoped, no one would get rolled for their obviously brand new socks. Everyone took them, thanked me - some overjoyed to have clean socks, others wanting cash instead. No one was rude to me.
In cold weather I’d also offer a sweatshirt and within a few months my Super Large Ziploc storage bag of socks and sweatshirts was empty.
I should imagine so. I can’t think of anything worse save for bagpipes.
Perhaps they could take up a collection and bribe him to go away.
That split the guys who need help from the scamers.
We’ll offer him some socks – to stuff into his horn. ;):o
Food is not a problem. Really. Plenty of food is available. Housing is the main issue, and it’s critical, then healthcare.
You should have said, “No, but you are one.”
AIUI, those buskers have to audition - can’t just drop in w/ an instrument or sound system.
“Busker” is a word I had never heard (or read) before today.
You live a sheltered life, my friend. 
Good plan!
Who in the hell enforces that? Is there like a busker’s union, some group of homeless musicians using out of work pugilists as enforcers?
Some cities require a license or permit.
I usually have an extra dollar on me. I am not in the happen of carrying extra socks.
And he may be homeless, but he doesn’t want the socks from MY feet.