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Post by Crystal on Dec 14, 2011 11:49:59 GMT -5
So yesterday, walking at night to a dance club, I was stopped by this lady who spun me a story and asked for a couple dollars. I gave her the money and asked her name, and after I said goodbye she spun off and skipped down the pavement laughing and yelling "Ho ho ho!" (like Santa would do, lol). And I was like "Well, I don't think that's gonna be used for a bus ticket anytime soon."
Anyway, this happens to me a lot. I'm a major sucker for homeless people. I give away money all the time, just because I have some and they don't. It's not like I don't know when I'm getting scammed, since Malaysian homeless people and American homeless people are of a different caliber. American bums just look kinda seedy and down on their luck, but Malaysian bums are emaciated, frequently cripples, dress in rags, and usually very old or very young. (Ecuadorian bums are almost always old folk, women and children.) Occasionally I try for food, or volunteer in a church soup kitchen, but not often.
I've been told that the smartest thing to do is to feed (or otherwise buy material goods for) someone who asks you for money. But that isn't always possible; maybe it's late and nowhere's open, or it's too early in the morning, or it just doesn't cross your mind at the time. Maybe you're a young woman and it's dark out and you don't feel safe. You can also talk to them and listen to them; but that isn't always possible either, and it requires a lot of time on your part. About all you can always do is treat them politely and with dignity.
So I was just curious as to what the forum thought of homeless people in general. If you see someone sleeping on the street, or a guy holding out a sign, what do you do? Do you ignore them? Do you stop and talk to them? Do you give them money? Do you try only to donate to charities?
What do you think is the ethical thing to do, if you consider that the money you give a homeless person often goes to alcohol and drugs?
If you had the money to give away (and by that, I mean that you're not homeless), where or where not would you spend it?
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Post by Dju on Dec 14, 2011 12:00:37 GMT -5
Hmm, this is complex... Our maid has a hard time saying no, and she donates to these institutions very often. The problem is that these groups get the money for themselves instead of helping those in nee, the man who is painting our house said he saw it for himself! Once he was painting one of these groups' building and someone donated them huge televisions for the children to watch movies, and the owner of the institution himself said "They're not going to use it, I'll take it for myself", and watched as he loaded it on his car. Donating is really tough, me and my family never give money, we give away items instead! Like soap, shampoo, pillows, food, toys... They can be stolen? Yep, but it's better than money itself, I guess... :/ EDIT: But if someone stopped me at the street, I honestly don't know what to do. XD Once a man asked me, but I said I didn't had any and I said it without even thinking, it just came out. Once another man asked me, and I gave him the change I had. Depends if I feel safe or not?
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Post by Jo on Dec 14, 2011 12:21:09 GMT -5
If I see someone with a sign or sitting on a street corner, I wouldn't give them money. If I had for example a sandwich I wasn't going to eat, I'd give that to them, but if it's money, you don't know what it'll be used for. I think if it's an issue you feel strongly about, then it's better to give the money to an organisation which provides beds etc for the homeless rather than giving the money to the people themselves. That way you know what your money's being used for. Our school does a collection of items each year for our local homeless shelter, and I donate stuff to that. Also, if you're walking around London giving money to every homeless person you see, you won't have much money for very long XD
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Post by Avery on Dec 14, 2011 12:50:14 GMT -5
I might give someone food, but I don't think I'd outright give them money, just because I don't know what it would be used for. I would hate to contribute to them buying drugs or alcohol or something else of that vein. I agree with Jo-- if you really want to help those in need, volunteer at a soup kitchen, donate to a reputable organization, instead of directly giving money to someone who is homeless and may not use the money in the way they should.
... also, a semi-related true story, that is sort of extreme and crazy but valid all the same, and shows that while you have good intentions, not everybody receiving your help will: About a month ago, two people showed up at our doorstep. They said they were homeless, their house had burned down, could we please give them $15 if they raked our leaves. My mother felt bad for them, so she said okay. She even gave them an extra 5 bucks because they seemed down on their luck.
Roughly a week later, a woman was murdered less than a mile from my house in a home invasion. The killers stole her ATM card, which they tried to use several places, and ultimately this led the police right to them. Upon arresting them, the police discovered these two people had been hired by the murdered woman a few days prior to her death to rake her leaves, and neighbors said they'd been roaming the neighborhood recently asking to do chores for money, saying their house had burned down. The police said this was probably their way of casing out potential victims to rob-- who would be an easy target, who wouldn't.
They showed the suspects' pictures on the news. It was the same people who had showed up at our house. We gave them 20$ because we felt bad for them. They were just scoping out potential targets, trawling house to house until they found someone they thought would be good to rob, and using the cash they made to prolong their stay at area motels while they searched... and when their eventual victim fought back, they slashed her throat.
Not a typical story, mind you, but yeah. Summary: you may feel bad for someone, like you ought to help, but if you're really intent on assisting someone in need... handing them cash is not necessarily the best option. There are other ways to help.
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Post by Breakingchains on Dec 14, 2011 14:09:52 GMT -5
^ Son of a biscuit. ; That is a terrifying story. I admit I'm a little torn on this. But I tend toward the "go ahead and give 'em the change" side. My main reason is this: I'm thinking about what it would be like to be so down on your luck that you had to go begging, only to be turned down. To know that no matter how polite people were about it, it was probably because they assumed you're an addict. And a fair number of those people aren't going to be polite about it. Not everyone is going to hide their scorn, and anything you said would fall on their ears as a lame sob-story or excuse, so you end up taking verbal abuse and contempt from total strangers who have never been where you are in their lives. I don't want to risk walking away from someone who is genuinely facing a world like that. Do I want to hand good money over to someone who's going to squander it on an addiction? No. But if I turn them down based on that unverifiable suspicion, they're not going to say, "Well, shucks, I guess I'm going off crack! It's too expensive!" and go home. They're going to get the money elsewhere and continue living exactly how they always have. I'm not saving anyone if I withhold the cash, nor am I forcing them further into drug addiction if I don't. So in my mind, the question here is, which is the bigger risk? Walking away from someone who needs it, or getting conned by some jackass who doesn't? Personally, I weigh the first one as a higher risk. That said, it's entirely possible I'm oversimplifying and this looks like it's going to be an interesting discussion.
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Post by Crystal on Dec 14, 2011 15:50:16 GMT -5
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Post by Gelquie on Dec 14, 2011 17:16:03 GMT -5
If I'm right by them, I might give them food if I have it. But giving them money sounds like something that's too risky. There's Carrie's story, for one thing. (Eep. ._. ) But mostly it's the fact that the money could be easily used for drugs and alcohol, which isn't getting them any further off the streets. And I really don't want that encouraged.
I do, however, donate to reputable charities. I'm not rolling in riches, but I'm not so poor that I can't spare a few dollars or coins or something. My family often donates old clothes to clothing drives, which we often have way too much of anyway, so that should help. And my campus sometimes does food drives in case students have extra meal plans in their account by the end of the semester. Meal plans disappear by the end of the semester, so lots of students take advantage of that. (I have a different food plan, but I still gave them something to donate the other day.) So yeah, if you look for the right ones, the middleman is helpful in that regard.
That's an interesting article though, Crystal. Seems like that sort of thing would work if it kept that degree of oversight, especially with the personal accountant part. Still, it seems to have potential.
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Post by Nimras on Dec 14, 2011 20:22:22 GMT -5
With the exception of a very skilled violinist who is always at a certain intersection on a certain day, I don't give them money.
Instead I donate to the local homeless fund, which had a good track record (you can see how they spend all their money online), and they help the homeless get medical care, food, shelter, and even lend nice clothes for job interviews. When they ask for money, I point them toward the mission.
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Post by Komori on Dec 14, 2011 20:52:58 GMT -5
Welp, the Bible says if someone asks you for money, to give it to them. And who am I to decide what they do with it once I've given it to them? I'm not their mother. Money's just money, so it's not my place to judge whether one thing is worth the money and another isn't. I've blown money on lots of worthless crap; candy, Pokemon cards, grabber games at the entrance to Walmart. Once the money's left my hands, it's not my money, it's their money. And condemning them for spending it on booze or drugs feels too hypocritical to me, because that money might well have gone to my own useless spending. That said, I rarely carry cash with me. The only time you'll find me with change in my pockets is when I'm going to do laundry. So I'm usually not much help to anyone. D:
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Post by Joker on Dec 14, 2011 21:00:08 GMT -5
I don't usually give anyone money, because I'm selfish and I don't have much anyway. xD But I actually don't have any moral qualms about giving homeless people money just because they might be drug addicts. Maybe they are, maybe they're not, either way they've probably had a rough life - it's not my job to tell them what they should spend their money on. I'd rather have them use my money to buy crack than have them steal it somewhere else. It's also worth noting that many, many homeless people in America are schizophrenic or otherwise seriously mentally ill.
In other words, I don't feel obligated to give anyone charity, but I also don't feel the need to dictate what it's spent on if I do.
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Post by Stephanie (swordlilly) on Jan 4, 2012 14:18:07 GMT -5
If you had the money to give away (and by that, I mean that you're not homeless), where or where not would you spend it? Some of us on this forum are still financially dependent... What gives me the right to give away my parents' money when I haven't done anything to earn it? Sure I'm not homeless, but the reason why I'm attending a private university is because my parents worked hard and saved for years. All that I currently have is really my parents' investment in me. I think there was also a chapter in Appiah's Cosmopolitanism that talks about investment as a more efficient way of helping people. If you're a teen, you can do little things like giving away $5 of your pocket money. But if you've established yourself as a CEO and can actually start up a fund or something, that would have a much more tangible effect on the world. Obviously I'm talking extremes, but the point is, sometimes putting your resources - whether it's time, energy or money - toward a longer-term investment could result in a bigger difference overall than just giving away what little you have as soon as you have it.
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Post by Crystal on Jan 4, 2012 14:42:31 GMT -5
If you had the money to give away (and by that, I mean that you're not homeless), where or where not would you spend it? Some of us on this forum are still financially dependent... What gives me the right to give away my parents' money when I haven't done anything to earn it? Sure I'm not homeless, but the reason why I'm attending a private university is because my parents worked hard and saved for years. All that I currently have is really my parents' investment in me. I think there was also a chapter in Appiah's Cosmopolitanism that talks about investment as a more efficient way of helping people. If you're a teen, you can do little things like giving away $5 of your pocket money. But if you've established yourself as a CEO and can actually start up a fund or something, that would have a much more tangible effect on the world. Obviously I'm talking extremes, but the point is, sometimes putting your resources - whether it's time, energy or money - toward a longer-term investment could result in a bigger difference overall than just giving away what little you have as soon as you have it. Haha, that's kinda cool, because I did the exact same thing! As I remember, my parents sold a house to send me to university overseas... the amount of zeroes was staggering. It was worse because I paid out-of-state tuition and because the exchange rate was 3:1 to USD. For a long time I tried to live on as absolutely little as I possibly could. To be honest, though, looking back at the numbers, I spent hundreds of dollars on all kinds of things that just couldn't be helped... lab fees for a class where I barely set foot in the lab, textbooks, even the compulsory health insurance. And I skimped on all sorts of necessities, like decent food, good winter boots, warm clothing, heating. Now, in hindsight, I think I should have eaten better and taken better care of myself. Giving away $5 once in a while certainly wouldn't have affected me. I don't know how much it would have helped, though. However, I am certainly no expert on your circumstances, and I completely agree that it's more difficult when you have little yourself. I'd also like to bring up that that putting off the act of giving for later tends to make one forget about it. People who grow up to be CEOs that give away vast fortunes to charities are usually also people who've had a passion for it all their lives.
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Post by Stephanie (swordlilly) on Jan 4, 2012 15:21:22 GMT -5
Haha, that's kinda cool, because I did the exact same thing! As I remember, my parents sold a house to send me to university overseas... the amount of zeroes was staggering. It was worse because I paid out-of-state tuition and because the exchange rate was 3:1 to USD. For a long time I tried to live on as absolutely little as I possibly could. Awe! Totally sympathize. I'd also like to bring up that that putting off the act of giving for later tends to make one forget about it. People who grow up to be CEOs that give away vast fortunes to charities are usually also people who've had a passion for it all their lives. When I was younger and all filled with rage at the world's injustices I wrote some stuff about how even a small difference is still a difference, how every ocean is made up of little drops etc. Then at some point I got tired of barely making a dent and became less angry and more accepting of my current powerlessness. But you brought up a more positive way of looking at it, which is not in terms of actually making a difference, but in terms of just keeping a passion alive. That could be a good way of thinking about it.
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Post by Komori on Jan 5, 2012 20:53:35 GMT -5
Well, if you have no desire to become a CEO, and your career goals only make a modest amount (like if you wanted to be a teacher), then you might as well give away that $5 now. :B
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Post by Deleted on Jan 6, 2012 0:21:26 GMT -5
As someone who has been living in the negatives for a few years, I've had little enough on which to survive, let alone give to the poor. I have recently come into some disposable income, however, and have thought a lot about this.
In Dunedin near where my father used to live is a man with a tin in ragged clothing. He is homeless, he is very likely starved on most days, but if you give him any money, he will disappear for a few days and then be back on the street corner muttering incoherently to himself with no extra food, no extra clothes, and a lot of extra illegal substances in his system. He's an addict, and one who is well known to all the local homeless shelters and city missions. They have all tried multiple times to assist him in breaking out of his addiction but he has always left and none of them have the legal means to force him into anything.
There is another man in a similar condition that I have seen some nights rummaging through people's rubbish bins. I have never seen him begging, but by the state of him he's clearly homeless. He is also a regular at the Christchurch city mission which gives free meals to the homeless and it is well known to the staff there that, aside from his condition in life, he is a gentle, jovial and rather clever man who is kind to people, if a little jaded.
If I see a homeless person, how am I to know which of the two he is? Is he an addict who will use my money to get his next fix? Or will he take it to buy his food and some warm clothing for the winter? I have decided that giving money to the poor outright is not the wisest of things to be doing, and especially for someone in my state because I can't exactly see what state this person is in, I wouldn't have a clue if they would be dangerous or not, and if they are, I would be an easy target for them. Though I would wish dearly to help them, caution has me nervous and Scar has absolutely forbade me to approach any lurking stranger at night for any reason. I think he is wise to temper my generosity. xD;
But Komori is right, the Bible does say to give to those who ask it of you. It does not, however, say when or how that giving should be done. Nor does it take into account the fact that in this day and age, a beggar is just as likely to hurt you, themselves or someone else as a robber is. I give in my own ways.
When I was poor, I sometimes volunteered at the city mission. Now that I have a bit more money, I give to them in addition to my work. I also will freely give clothing or food if I happen to have some on my when passing a beggar, but the thing to note is, New Zealand doesn't really have that many. There are a handful, but not many. The welfare system here is good, so the only people who would really become homeless are dangerous people, criminals or the very unfortunate people who fell through the cracks of the system, because as good as it is, it isn't perfect.
Put simply, in New Zealand, you don't become homeless for no reason, and the reasons usually aren't good. I'm not by any means cold-hearted, but caution is wise with this sort of thing.
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