She might have just been a little short. Hell, I once asked a nice old lady to give me 75 cents to get across the Mid Hudson Bridge. My wallet had been stolen :eek: that day and I had to cross it every day to get home from college. With all of the stress, it didn’t occur to me until I was less than ten minutes from the bridge. And I was only nineteen or so. I went to a grocery store and asked a nice little old lady, who admonished me not to use it for drug money (really!) and gave it to me with a smile.
Nice lady, I will never forget you. I didn’t know what I was going to do! I didn’t have a credit card or anything.
Shortly after the birth of my daughter, I went to the local grocery store late one evening to pick up a few things. Getting out of my car, I was approached by a couple carrying a plastic gas can. They said they were from out of town, ran out of gas, and just needed a bit of money to get back home. I don’t usually hand money or food out, but I was feeling particularly emotional and gave them $10. They were really grateful and walked off toward the nearest gas station. I went on my way.
Two nights later, same time in the evening, I realize we’re out of xyz and head to the same grocery store.
You know where this is going.
I’m approached by the same couple, carrying a plastic gas can.
Them: “excuse me sir, we’re from out of town…”
Me: “Why don’t you stop there. I was here two nights ago and stood in this spot and gave you $10. Don’t you remember that?”
Them: “no, I don’t think…”
Me: “You’re full of shit. Goodnight”
I volunteer at a local food coop and at a community garden that gives away food for an hours worth of work. When I lost my job I got boxes of food from Catholic Community Services, so I volunteer there now as well. There are plenty of resources in my community for people who are hungry.
All, no. Almost all, yes. This is confirmed by multiple people I know who advocate for the homeless. Almost no one who claims to be hungry, doesn’t know where they can get food. In some ways the chronically homeless suffer from less food insecurity than the working poor, as they have a lot more flexibility to take advantage of various programs that are out there, and more knowledge of available services.
No cite, but I believe that people are more willing to give if a specific amount is named. As in the reason seems more logical and thus acceptable. Although 17 cents seems way to low for anything but an actual specific purpose.
I sometimes give these guys a pittance, because I love hearing their stories they are making up. As they walk away I think to myself, “enjoy your booze, mister.”
I can afford it, and it’s kind of a source of entertainment for me, hearing about how they are scraping up enough money for a mcdouble at McDonald’s, or need bus money or whatever it is.
And honestly, that change sitting around in my car wasn’t going to be used for anything I needed anyway.
But no I am never under the impression that I am actually helping these people. I am probably just helping feed their booze and/or drug addictions. Oh well. Sucks to be them.
This scam always gets a chuckle out of me. So you had enough money to buy the gas can, but didn’t have any for the actual gas? Gas cans aren’t cheap, usually $20 or so for a small one… Heck, the one time I needed gas for my boat and the marina pumps were closed, I found a milk jug in the garbage at a gas station on the river and shuttled gas in it back and forth from the gas station to the boat, jumping a fence along the river each time.
To make you feel better, knifebreaker, I’ll tell you about the one I fell for. Shopping in Michael’s one day, looking through the beading section, with my SO, I feel a tap on my shoulder. I turn and a young man presents a slip of paper to me.
It said something like
I AM DEAF AND MUTE
PLEASE SPARE WHATEVER YOU CAN TO HELP ME
Something like that anyway.
I live in upstate NY. It’s a quiet area, and this kind of thing never happens - you never get approached in stores. I was completely shocked. I looked up at him, and he looked legit enough, and I gave him $5. It’s not like I could tell him anything - if he was really deaf, and I don’t know sign language.
I wish what I had done was taken his stupid note and gone straight to the manager to tell her that someone was basically panhandling in her store. And let her deal with it.
I wasn’t even naive. He was totally playing on the fact that you don’t expect people to come up to you in a store and ask for money. And I know there are organizations out there for deaf-mute people.
And people wonder why we end up hardening our hearts.
I don’t give money to beggars. I don’t believe them and I think I’d be enabling bad behavior. But when I volunteered at a local soup kitchen, the guests were generally far more polite. We’d scrape plates for those who had dogs outside. The downtown parish I occasionally went to had a lot of beggars hitting up people after Mass. The church asked the parishioners not to give cash, but suggested McDonald’s gift certificates (they used to sell $.50 gift certificates) if they wanted to give.
The one guy that came to my farm looking to see if he could pulled some scrap metal from across the road to sell has ended up being my handyman. He wasn’t begging, he was honest enough to ask for the metal before he took it, and he turned out to be a very diligent and hard worker. He’d lost his drivers license because of a DUI and couldn’t get a job without one. (Mind you, he was driving without one). After working for me for a few weekends he had enough to pay all the fines and was able to get his license back. He has less time for handymanning now, because he now has his first real, full-time job in 10 years.
Totally agree - I’m assuming the person that posted the $0.17 thing realizes that most people don’t pause and count out 17 cents. They pull out a dollar and get out of there as fast as possible. As long as the person gets more in the long run than they lose from anyone giving out exactly 17 cents (vs. a request for a dollar) - they come out ahead. If I was homeless I’d be doing A/B split tests all the time to figure out the optimum approach
I will say that when I was at Wal-mart last month, a girl was running her purchases through on the self-check next to mine and was short by something like $.40. I didn’t have any cash or change, so I paid for all her stuff with my debit card and she gave me her cash. It was just at the time college kids are going back to school and she had about $70 with of stuff for her dorm. I didn’t want her to have to go all the way back to the dorm, get her wallet and come back. And it was all higher-priced stuff, so she couldn’t just take the candy bar out and be good. That was just a decent thing to do.
I agree, at least approximately, about the odds. But my point is that the person in front of you in any given case is not “the homeless,” they are one person with their own situation.
As far as free-food availability, the circumstances you describe may be true in some cities but they sure as hell aren’t universal. I have given food to people who were very, very glad to get it.
This is pretty much how I’d probably be too. If it really was food they were after, I’d tell them “If there are leftovers, I’ll be happy to give them to you, but please allow me to finish in peace”.
My former boyfriend and I were approached at a food court and the guy asked if he could get something to eat. My boyfriend said “sure! get in line with us and you can have whatever you want”.
The guy says “well, I don’t like Chinese, I wanted to get some burritos at that place by the entrance” (this was Grand Central Station so it was WAY away from where we were). My BF didn’t miss a beat, he said “okay, well our food’s hot now, so after we’re done, we’ll walk over there and get you something”.
The guy disappeared in a nano-second. Still I’m kinda torn, on the one hand, if a person is really hungry, I feel bad and would want to help. On the other hand, it would just encourage and reward “bad behaviour”. I don’t know what the answer is.
Dude in a wheelchair with a sign saying “I’m a veteran, I’m hungry, any help appreciated, etc.” The fail? Panhanding directly in front of The Coalition for the Homeless. After a morning of people asking if he needed help with the door, he moved to a different spot.
I listened to a dude in a wheelchair playing a keyboard on the boardwalk in Atlantic City. I put some cash into his donation box and hung out for a bit. He was talented.
When he was done for the day I was still there. I saw him fold up his keyboard/speaker setup, stand up and put his gear in the chair for the walk home. I laughed, and asked what was up. He said he never claimed to need the chair. He could use a shopping cart, but he’d need to haul a chair.
The person in front of me in any given case is part of a group. This group has a very high percentage of scammers in it.
I give money to various charities, and I’m careful about which charities I give to. If I have a budget of $100 for charity, I’d rather that most of that money went to people who actually need it, rather than people who find it easier to stand at an intersection and hold up a sign than to work. Yes, I might refuse to help someone who approaches me who is generally needy, but with my system, more of my money goes to people who need it, rather than people who are good at telling a sad story. With my method, about $75 of my $100 goes to people who need it. If I just hand out money to people who approach me, perhaps $5 out of that $100 will go to someone who actually needs the money.
I was wandering around Riga, Latvia, well off the beaten track in a graveyard (how people treat their dead tells you a lot). Walking back into town I was approached by a couple of very drunk guys who asked for a few Lats for beer. This wasn’t in the nicest part of town and I was a foreigner in their neighborhood, so I thought of it as a tax to pass through. They cheerfully accepted my donation, shouting their thanks as I high-tailed it back to the city. I think that was a fair exchange.
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