I put this in IMHO because I don’t know how much of a debate there would be, and I want people’s personal anecdotes as well. But please feel free to relocate it if it’s more appropriate elsewhere.
I’m a person who sometimes gives to beggars, and sometimes doesn’t. It can sometimes depend on my mood, and sometimes it might just depend on how aggressively I’m approached (I tend not to give to people who are really aggressively begging or who act as though they are entitled). Because I’m not much for confrontation, if I don’t feel like giving, I will usually just say that I don’t have any money on me. But until recently, that was rarely true for me.
I’ve noticed that more often these days, however, I really don’t have cash on me. It is so rare for me to encounter places that don’t take debit cards that I just don’t think to go to an ATM very often. And it’s easier not to carry change on me for a variety of reasons, including the fact that I tend to get a lot of holes in my pockets that change likes to fall through.
I feel as though it is becoming increasingly common for people to not carry cash on them (although I admit that it’s just a sense I have, and not based on any cites). If my feeling is correct, though, I wonder if the homeless population is beginning to be impacted in any noticeable or measurable way by the migration away from paper and coin currency. Are people generally giving less simply because they’re carrying less to give?
I’m interested both in comments about an impact on society at large as well as any impact you’ve noticed through changes in your own individual cash-carrying habits. Thanks.
Out here in San Diego, I have seen fewer sidewalk-based homeless people and more people standing at the entrance or exit of a mall/ island in an intersection at a left turn lane asking for money with a sign. I assume this must be because people are likely to have spare change in their car, ad are presumably more willing to part with it. This seems to have grown more in recent years, perhaps in conjunction with less success in sidewalk begging. Besides, everyone drives everywhere in California even if where they are going is a block away.
Personally, I never go cashless because I will never remember to record my transaction if I do and will throw my checking balance out of whack. That said, I rarely give money to the homeless and would be more likely to give them leftovers from a meal than anything else.
I have noticed that I hardly ever have anything but a debit/credit card on me these days, and nothing to give, if I wanted to. I wonder if they’ll start asking more minorities, esp Hispanics that may be illegals and much more likely to deal strictly with cash.
The city (i.e, the government) needs to give every homeless person a battery powered wireless credit card machine. That way, all you gotta do is to give the homeless person your debit/credit card, and enter in the amount that you want to give him along with your pin and signature.
I still have cash for daily stuff - I don’t pay my 10 Euro groceries with credit/ debit card (except one store, because they give me a bonus only when I pay with their card which is deducted from my giro account).
However, as a matter of principle, I don’t give to beggars or homeless persons. I buy - when I remember - the street paper BISS which is produced monthly and helps people in social difficult situations (originally, it was intended for the homeless, but after over 10 years, the focus of people who need help and go there has shifted almost away from homeless). I have a city with a good social policy: people get rent money if necessary, there are soup kitchens and asylums to sleep in, a tea kitchen with social workers, washing mashines and showers, the train station mission, some monasteries, … If families are evicted, the city pays to put them in pensions instead of having them live on the street. So help is available. It’s not always pleasant to apply, and people with emotional problems can fall far while being in a depression. But still, there are ways away from the street, and giving some change for alcohol won’t solve these problems the way long-term help does.
And lots of beggars are really groups from Eastern Europe run by bosses who bring them here by the busload and take most of the profits away, so giving the poor people money is not helping at all.
When I walk past one of those beggars, I see very few other people giving, either. Probably most people know about the scams going on and other methods of help.
Which they turn around and sell for $3.50 so they can get the equivalent amount of crack/heroine/booze. Really, they don’t want food. (I’ve tried giving food and most reject it asking for money/cigarettes instead)
I remember the one and only time I gave $5.00 to a homeless guy… He hit me up for money leaving a parking lot, and at the time I didn’t have any change. He specifically asked for money to buy a hamburger. Then when I left the store we were in, I found a $5.00 bill sitting on the ground. No sooner did I pick it up then I saw the same homeless guy, though his back was turned to me. Thinking I was being generous, I approached him and gave him the $5.00 bill. Rather than thanking me, he grabbed the money and practically jumped on top of me saying “Come on man, I KNOW you got more money than that you can give me! Give me $10!” What a dick. That one homeless guy in Austin,TX permanently destroyed any semblance of charity to the homeless I ever had after that.
I did this once this guy looked pretty sorry, so I told him I didn’t have any cash but I’d buy him a cheeseburger and coke at McDonalds. He seemed pretty appreciative of it.
I stopped giving cash to the homeless/beggars my freshman year. They were bleeding my dry around USC. I did, and still do, offer to buy them some food (mc donald’s, cheap truck stall food, etc). In LA I was almost never turned down, but in Pittsburgh I am quite regularly turned down.
I must have been 10 or 11 that time a woman with two boys came to our house asking for food. It was after school, a time when Spanish kids will usually have a sandwich. We gave them sandwiches, letting them choose between the fillings we had available.
They left the sandwiches, untouched, on the stairs heading down; I found them when I went out to buy more bread.
I think the biggest impact it’s had is that you’re more likely to be believed when you say you don’t have any cash on you than you would have been 10 years ago, and therefore not solicited so aggressively after saying so.