Ouch! That sounds like my city!
Visiting mom, huh? I get told they just got into town to start a job tomorrow, but are sort of short tonight. Three or four times this has happened. I wonder at their lack of planning; I would have somewhere to go if I was going to a strange city to start work tomorrow.
He might well react by falling on the ground bleeding, depending on how fast you are driving by when you hand him the six-pack.
MrWhatsit tried to give a panhandler our leftover pizza on the subway one time (it was a whole pizza from California Pizza Kitchen so the guy wouldn’t have even had to be concerned about our germs or whatever). The guy had said that he was starving and hadn’t eaten for 3 days, but when MrWhatsit offered the pizza, he said, naw, he doesn’t like spicy food. This got a big laugh from the rest of the people on the subway car, but MrWhatsit wasn’t really going for a laugh, he was just offering the dude a pizza. We weren’t trying to cleverly catch him in a lie. But dude said he was hungry. We had no cash. We did have a pizza. He clearly would have preferred cash.
So we kept our pizza and he moved on to the next car.
Anyway, my point, assuming I have one, is that if someone says they’re hungry and you offer to get them some food, I think that’s legit.
I tried that solution, but the guy pulling it was pretty dedicated to his con, and before I realized how far in over my head I was, he’d directed me to a strange part of town I was unfamiliar with, and was refusing to get out of my car.
Bottles or cans? Tallboys or regular size? These variances can greatly influence impact.
I’ve never been asked for money for petrol but I was in Town today, on a book buying spree, and was approached by a man who asked me if I could give him $4.00. I barely glanced at him as I declined but he didn’t look like a typical street beggar. I can’t help wondering, though, why he requested such a specific sum of money. I was waiting for the lights to change and overheard him ask at least one other person for the same amount.
Our lowest note is $5, so if I’d agreed to give him what he asked, I’d have needed to dig around in my purse for 2 x two dollar coins or 4 x one dollar coins or some combination thereof. Or maybe he hoped I’d just give him a five dollar note. Still, it seemed a weird amount to ask for.
A woman asked me for $10 at a gas station to buy Disney World tickets the other day, because “her friend had spent all their money on gas.”
This was in downtown Orlando - at least a half-hour drive from Disney World. And at 5:15 in the afternoon.
In what alternate universe can you buy Disney World tickets for only ten dollars??
Because I’d kinda like to go there.
Well there’s efficiency for you - $90k per homeless person and there’s still people on the streets begging. :dubious:
Not that I doubt the figure, but it would point to something of a bigger problem in how the money’s being spent, or the figure has been disingenuously skewed.
I would love to sell you some gas , but I don’t have any on me.
It’s actually way more money per homeless, and the $90k is kind of a “quick number” that isn’t necessarily meaningful. Remember that a lot of that $67bn goes to low income housing and thus because of it, many, many, many people are not homeless. In fact, because of the spending of such money it is extremely unlikely that an individual who wants to have a roof over their head will fail to have one.
I’ve done a huge amount of work with the homeless over the years and while I’m sure some money is being misspent (and I guess Constanze would argue the German government never spends money inefficiently :dubious:) the real reason for homelessness has nothing to do with shelter space, lack of funding or et cetera.
The number one, by far, biggest reason for homelessness is:
Most places that house homeless will not house people who are under the effects of drugs or alcohol. Many, many homeless are addicts and they will choose their drug over shelter, nearly every god damn time.
The number two reason is severe mental illness, and of course many of the mentally ill homeless are also addicts.
After that, much homeless is in the form of the “couch homeless” (people who are suffering temporary financial problems and are living on friend’s or parent’s couches); many of them could qualify for various housing assistance programs but many of them do not apply for such services.
As for the $90,000 number, most news stories I’ve seen actually say that when you factor in their use of ambulances and emergency rooms your average homeless person costs the state over $150,000 a year. So yes, it would be cheaper if we just paid a $100,000/year stipend to every homeless person in the country.
FWIW, I don’t think it’d fix the homeless problem. If you’ve ever known an addict you’d know $100k a year would just make them a wealthy addict.
Anyway, if you’ve ever traveled you know that you’ll find many homeless people in the European utopias. In the United States homelessness is not a function of lack of spending.
I think you may be missing something - that $90k is going to people who are not currently homeless because they get to live in subsidized housing.
For those who think they need to carefully interview the beggar by asking questions to determine if they really need food, let me save you some trouble. They don’t. There are plenty of food pantries and such. They just need a couple bucks because they need it for whatever. They have addictions and demons and all sorts of shit going on that you don’t wanna know about.
You don’t have to give. But I do, even though I know what’s really up.
So, if 99 percent are lying and want money for shit I DONT want to help them pay for (for perhaps very moral reasons) I have several choices.
Give money away and 99 percent of the time have it wasted.
Don’t give anyone any money.
Or actually offer a guy food if he wants food or some gas if he needs gas, and if it passes the the 10 second smell test a TRUE person in need actually gets the help. And thats even better since I certainly can’t give everyone who wants some free money free money, so in this manner I can help more people in true need and not piss my limited resources away on addicts and probably doing them more harm than good in the long run.
There’s no feeling superior about it. Its just basic reasoning skills that they don’t teach on flying fuck airlines apparently.
To Martin and RNATB, yes - I guessed as much, it bugs me though when people carelessly throw around such figures without proper explanation. That’s why I wanted to make a snarky remark to call attention to it
There was a guy standing by the drive-through at Wendy’s who asked me if I’d get him chili. He didn’t ask for money - he specifically asked for chili. So, I got him some chili.
Then I came back around and he was gone. Still, my coworker was happy.
Nobody who is sane-ish and able to get up and walk to tell you they need some cash is going hungry in an American city. Nobody. They might not be eating a fantastic diet, but they are not starving. The people who starve in America are insane or elderly or bedridden or babies or possibly very rural, they are not the guy with the cardboard sign.
With this economy and all the foreclosures, there are plenty of people who are homeless that never dreamed it could happen to them. A lot of homeless are vets who could not adjust to civilization after doing dirty work for us. It is easy to think they are all junkies or people who are scamming ,if you want an excuse not to help out the unfortunate.
Nah. Imma go ahead and say that even a homeless vet can get his hands on enough Ramen noodles and bread to choke a horse.
It is just that, I think the life of a homeless vet, or a crack addict or a broken drunk…is hard enough. There are plenty of do gooders in the world, but sometimes a person just needs a comfort. That is all. Not a leg up, not a hot meal, but a comfort.
Not everyone feels comfortable offering that kind of comfort (giving cash) and that is ok. But all the bullshit games to strip a man of his dignity to get him to admit he just wants a bottle…that gets on my nerves.