Anonymous
05/11/2021 09:33
Subject: Begging - why?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Is begging better than working? It’s just not some old person these days. Families, able bodied men/women - everyone wants in apparently. I, do not want to give them money and encourage but my DW thinks i am being insensitive and mean. Am I? I don’t talk bad about them, but with plenty of jobs around what is their reason?
If these people truly needed assistance, there are a TON of food banks, county and federal assistance programs, church organizations, 3 recent stimulus checks, and the list goes on....to help.. I have no sympathy for them.
Once I was poor enough to qualify for government assistance and it was incredibly difficult. I had to gather a ton of paperwork, get to the assistance office during certain hours, prove that I had attempted to get a job, etc. And I had to go through the process every three months.
If I had a mental illness, even just ADD, I do not think I could have done all that.
Plus, benefits have been cut and it’s gotten harder to make ends meet with government assistance and food banks.
Anonymous
05/11/2021 09:33
Subject: Begging - why?
I'll give an answer based on my knowledge of ONE person. In her case it was depression and probably a lack of executive functioning skills.
In my spouse's family, there was someone who lived on the streets for a while (before I came into the family). I knew her and when she passed I found a lot of her writings about that time of her life.
The person had been making a decent living as an artist but also suffered from severe bouts of depression. She lost her apartment and exhausted her extensive friend network for couch surfing. She ended up living on the streets and living off of the charity/kind acts of others.
She tried to find help with organizations but found that most (at least where she lived) were specifically for addicts (which she never was and did not do illegal drugs) or DV victims (also not her). Her main skills were her art, but she had no place to advertise or sell her art at that point. She used to have a gallery space in better days. She didn't have a permanent address or a phone so it was impossible to find work (although she really tried as we found stacks of application copies when we cleaned out her place). She was just caught in a bad loop.
Most public services have long waiting lists (section 8, etc.) so eventually her name came to the top of the list and she was able to live in an apartment.
But you never know the stories of people. Maybe there are a few people scamming the system. Maybe there are addicts. But after I read her writings, I realized that I can't assume.
In my spouse's family, there was someone who lived on the streets for a while (before I came into the family). I knew her and when she passed I found a lot of her writings about that time of her life.
The person had been making a decent living as an artist but also suffered from severe bouts of depression. She lost her apartment and exhausted her extensive friend network for couch surfing. She ended up living on the streets and living off of the charity/kind acts of others.
She tried to find help with organizations but found that most (at least where she lived) were specifically for addicts (which she never was and did not do illegal drugs) or DV victims (also not her). Her main skills were her art, but she had no place to advertise or sell her art at that point. She used to have a gallery space in better days. She didn't have a permanent address or a phone so it was impossible to find work (although she really tried as we found stacks of application copies when we cleaned out her place). She was just caught in a bad loop.
Most public services have long waiting lists (section 8, etc.) so eventually her name came to the top of the list and she was able to live in an apartment.
But you never know the stories of people. Maybe there are a few people scamming the system. Maybe there are addicts. But after I read her writings, I realized that I can't assume.
Anonymous
05/11/2021 09:31
Subject: Re:Begging - why?
Anonymous wrote:People become untethered from the sort of life where getting a job seems feasible. It can happen gradually and might have nothing to do with your physical ability to work. Loss of a loved one, medical debt, drug or alcohol addiction (your own or someone close to you). Often people wind up homeless for some length of time. Then it can be very hard to get back to stability. If you are homeless and/or have a drug or alcohol issue, it becomes very likely that you will have a criminal record -- homeless people are often arrested for things that housed people do regularly with no repercussions.
If you have no address, if you have debt, if you have a criminal record, it is incredibly hard to get a job. Any job. There are programs designed to help people in this situation but they are underfunded and oversubscribed. Plus people come to mistrust the system (or possibly never trusted it) after going through things like this. They are very rarely treated with kindness or empathy. People assume they are lazy even though it is much, much harder work to beg for money and live on the streets than to simply go to a paid job every day.
When I see homeless people or people begging, I never think of it as an indictment of that specific person. I have no idea what they have been through. But I think you can judge a society by how it handles people in this situation. We don't handle it well as a society and we obviously the solutions we propose (including "get a job") aren't working. I can see how someone winds up begging for money on a street corner. It's harder for me to understand how we, as a society, can see this problem as one of individual choices instead of larger systems that afford some folks few other opportunities.
This is a great post. I don’t think it’s easy for these folks to just go get a job. There are barriers that aren’t obvious to us, lack of address, lack of cleanliness, lack of executive skills, mental illness, addiction...
Anonymous
05/11/2021 09:31
Subject: Begging - why?
Why is the fact that it’s coordinated or the fact that their signs are misleading at best a reason not to give money? They probably aren’t making that much money from the scheme and I think that they are the type of people who would be getting the money you would get from a charity.
I get that there are reasons not to donate, like if you want them to stop impacting traffic or if you give enough to charity already, but the fact that it’s a coordinated thing doesn’t seem to me like a reason not to give.
I get that there are reasons not to donate, like if you want them to stop impacting traffic or if you give enough to charity already, but the fact that it’s a coordinated thing doesn’t seem to me like a reason not to give.
Anonymous
05/11/2021 09:29
Subject: Begging - why?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Is begging better than working? It’s just not some old person these days. Families, able bodied men/women - everyone wants in apparently. I, do not want to give them money and encourage but my DW thinks i am being insensitive and mean. Am I? I don’t talk bad about them, but with plenty of jobs around what is their reason?
If these people truly needed assistance, there are a TON of food banks, county and federal assistance programs, church organizations, 3 recent stimulus checks, and the list goes on....to help.. I have no sympathy for them.
I have sympathy for them, but I don’t give them money.
Anonymous
05/11/2021 09:28
Subject: Begging - why?
No, you aren’t. They do it because they make more money and it’s tax free.
Anonymous
05/11/2021 09:27
Subject: Begging - why?
When you see people at intersections or in groups, that is a coordinated thing. It’s as fake as the person who approaches you in the parking lot asking for bus fare to get home. I never give money to those people.
If I see an actual homeless person, like sleeping on a bench, garbage bag full of their belongings type homeless, I will try to help them out with money or food.
If I see an actual homeless person, like sleeping on a bench, garbage bag full of their belongings type homeless, I will try to help them out with money or food.
Anonymous
05/11/2021 09:26
Subject: Begging - why?
I think it’s insensitive to assume they are able-bodied and should get a job instead of a handout. Many cannot.
I don’t think it’s wrong to not give to panhandlers. There are reasonable reasons to not give to them.
I do give frequently. Once I gave twenty dollars to somebody who looked like they desperately needed it, and the look of shock and gratitude on his face will stay with me forever. That isn’t why I did it, I did it because we were kind of in between choosing charities, and I had just left a Pilates class that cost me 20 dollars, so I figured why not? But now I give the benefit of the doubt.
I don’t think it’s wrong to not give to panhandlers. There are reasonable reasons to not give to them.
I do give frequently. Once I gave twenty dollars to somebody who looked like they desperately needed it, and the look of shock and gratitude on his face will stay with me forever. That isn’t why I did it, I did it because we were kind of in between choosing charities, and I had just left a Pilates class that cost me 20 dollars, so I figured why not? But now I give the benefit of the doubt.
Anonymous
05/11/2021 09:21
Subject: Re:Begging - why?
People become untethered from the sort of life where getting a job seems feasible. It can happen gradually and might have nothing to do with your physical ability to work. Loss of a loved one, medical debt, drug or alcohol addiction (your own or someone close to you). Often people wind up homeless for some length of time. Then it can be very hard to get back to stability. If you are homeless and/or have a drug or alcohol issue, it becomes very likely that you will have a criminal record -- homeless people are often arrested for things that housed people do regularly with no repercussions.
If you have no address, if you have debt, if you have a criminal record, it is incredibly hard to get a job. Any job. There are programs designed to help people in this situation but they are underfunded and oversubscribed. Plus people come to mistrust the system (or possibly never trusted it) after going through things like this. They are very rarely treated with kindness or empathy. People assume they are lazy even though it is much, much harder work to beg for money and live on the streets than to simply go to a paid job every day.
When I see homeless people or people begging, I never think of it as an indictment of that specific person. I have no idea what they have been through. But I think you can judge a society by how it handles people in this situation. We don't handle it well as a society and we obviously the solutions we propose (including "get a job") aren't working. I can see how someone winds up begging for money on a street corner. It's harder for me to understand how we, as a society, can see this problem as one of individual choices instead of larger systems that afford some folks few other opportunities.
If you have no address, if you have debt, if you have a criminal record, it is incredibly hard to get a job. Any job. There are programs designed to help people in this situation but they are underfunded and oversubscribed. Plus people come to mistrust the system (or possibly never trusted it) after going through things like this. They are very rarely treated with kindness or empathy. People assume they are lazy even though it is much, much harder work to beg for money and live on the streets than to simply go to a paid job every day.
When I see homeless people or people begging, I never think of it as an indictment of that specific person. I have no idea what they have been through. But I think you can judge a society by how it handles people in this situation. We don't handle it well as a society and we obviously the solutions we propose (including "get a job") aren't working. I can see how someone winds up begging for money on a street corner. It's harder for me to understand how we, as a society, can see this problem as one of individual choices instead of larger systems that afford some folks few other opportunities.
Anonymous
05/11/2021 09:20
Subject: Begging - why?
Anonymous wrote:Is begging better than working? It’s just not some old person these days. Families, able bodied men/women - everyone wants in apparently. I, do not want to give them money and encourage but my DW thinks i am being insensitive and mean. Am I? I don’t talk bad about them, but with plenty of jobs around what is their reason?
If these people truly needed assistance, there are a TON of food banks, county and federal assistance programs, church organizations, 3 recent stimulus checks, and the list goes on....to help.. I have no sympathy for them.
Anonymous
05/11/2021 09:18
Subject: Begging - why?
Easy way to get cash for their drug habits.
Stand on the median strip at the local intersection for a few hours and you'll have collected a few hundred bucks - tax free, only a few hours of work, dont have to resort to stealing/breaking into cars, done and done.
Stand on the median strip at the local intersection for a few hours and you'll have collected a few hundred bucks - tax free, only a few hours of work, dont have to resort to stealing/breaking into cars, done and done.
Anonymous
05/11/2021 09:13
Subject: Begging - why?
I think they get mixed up in groups that force them to continue w begging and some organizer takes a cut. Some are individuals down on their luck truly struggling. And I think they get a decent amount begging in busy areas. I’d rather support shelters than hand money out the window.
Anonymous
05/11/2021 09:09
Subject: Re:Begging - why?
I’ve always thought it was wild, the people begging outside my office had regular “shifts” and it seemed to me like a hard “job,” out in all kinds of weather for long hours, but I think it pays well or people wouldn’t do it.
Anonymous
05/11/2021 09:07
Subject: Begging - why?
Anonymous wrote:Is begging better than working? It’s just not some old person these days. Families, able bodied men/women - everyone wants in apparently. I, do not want to give them money and encourage but my DW thinks i am being insensitive and mean. Am I? I don’t talk bad about them, but with plenty of jobs around what is their reason?
People have different reasons. Someone who looks able bodied may have a mental illness. I don't think you are insensitive or mean. If your DW wants to hand out her earned money, let her. You are not obligated to and should not be shamed.
Anonymous
05/11/2021 08:56
Subject: Begging - why?
Is begging better than working? It’s just not some old person these days. Families, able bodied men/women - everyone wants in apparently. I, do not want to give them money and encourage but my DW thinks i am being insensitive and mean. Am I? I don’t talk bad about them, but with plenty of jobs around what is their reason?