I am asking because I know people from both sides:
- People who discourage it: usually talk about how the beggars might spend their money on, how they might be lying, How donating to them will encourage them to keep begging and how they should be looking for a job instead (My commentary: finding a job is impossible for them this days, matter of fact there is literally hundreds, if not thousands of articles online talking about how hard and impossible it had become).
- People who encourage it: to be honest here, they usually talk only about religious reasons.
(Note: I know that the overview about both sides are highly unbalanced, but I preferred to keep it limited to my personal experiences rather than expanding it from myself, as I intentionally not looking for theories and objective logic, rather I am looking at people reasons and opinions as this is highly subjective matter.)
Anyone got any thoughts about this?
Occasionally I will say “how much more to get some product” followed immediately by “how much ya got”. If they show change in their palm or otherwise engage honestly, I’ll usually top them up. Have your beer dude, if your life is so crummy this is what you need to feel OK go ahead. Never ever ever ever ever ever ever give to somebody that claims they are hungry because that is a bald-faced lie.
But generally the way I give is to check on the addicts in the bus shelter during extreme winter nights, bring them hot/cold water, supplies to plug wind holes and otherwise keep it warmer, plus whatever I salvage in my travels. In summer I maintain the community “ice water” zone which is just at the stump of a tree, but now that all the people in the hood know it’s there, it’s raided continually. I honestly can’t keep up as I just have a tiny freezer but it’s replenished as often as reasonable for me. The community chips in now as well… they’ve started to bring lidded takeout cups and plastic bottles and leave them there so I don’t have to constantly scout containers.