No one helps that why we need to take!

I give when I can. There are many reasons a person is down on their luck. I never check to learn how they use the money or even ask them for their story.

I always use the thought that what I do is between me and my conscience; what they do is between them the theirs. I give sometimes and don't give other times. There's a cottage industry of professional panhandlers in New Orleans. They stand on the neutral ground (median anywhere else) with a sign, sometimes a chair, oftentimes a dog, and walk up and down the strip. Some look pretty hard up, others do their best to look honest and "clean". Here's the thing... the signs are all written in the same handwriting. They're dropped off in vans and picked up at the end of their "shift". I give sometimes, but never to anyone holding a sign that looks just like the sign up the street.

I try to take each on an individual basis. Some I give, some not. When not pressed for time, I watch from several yards off or get to talking with them and try to figure their story to decide if they really are in dire straits. Even those who are most likely to use the money for booze will occasions get a dollar. Never to a known druggy or a person who has a lousy altitude.

Go down the street with me and I know a lot of these folks by name.

Yeah I get the individual thing and I think that is what is it -- I didn't ask or talk about the use of the money - I was just hoping this angry guy didn't irk him for some reason and to change his calm kind exterior he always seems to have.

I don't judge - on the surface he looks like most in a sense - but he has a kind calm nice way about him I guess you can't quantify; kind of happy/positive smile.

I used to give in New York, London or Italy. Especially if they kind of smiled or opened a door or something
As we did not have any beggers in Sweden, I did not have to give there.
Now they sit everywhere. Just sit and talk in their mobil phones Not once do anyone get up and help someone with their groceries to the car.
Older people buy things for them, but often it is just thrown away.
They usually come from Rumania, spend a few months in Sweden begging and go back again by bus. Often they are brought by car or small buss to where they sit and picked up in the evening.
I do not know, some say there are criminals behind the beggers taking the money, others say no.
I do not give anything - I pay into organizations helping instead. Salvation Army, or something else.

I think what stops a lot of people from helping is the fear that we are being conned. Are they really down on their luck or just playing us? I was at a rest stop and a guy came up and said he and his wife were desperate for gas money to get to relatives. There was a women sitting in an older car, clearly with possessions inside. I gave the guy a $20 which would have been enough gas money to get him to where he said he was going. I usually don't do that and I wondered for the next hundred miles if I got taken. The reality is that I'll never miss that cash. He asked me for an address so he could pay me back. I told him to give it to someone else in need. Hopefully that happened.

I am not a total push over. When I encountered a number of men wandering around with empty gas cans in the same little area, I knew they were not looking for gas money and they got nothing.

That brings back memories. When I was in Cremona, which you probably know, saab, is where the Stradivarius Museum is located, I was out walking the town in a pretty area and came across a fellow playing his violin. I stopped to listen. He had a hat or basket to accept donations, and I put in some paper lire, I forget the amount, let's say moderate. I forget now if we talked in english or italian or a mix of both (I'm a stumbler in italian) but we talked for maybe ten or fifteen minutes. He was from Romania, and learned I was from California, the mention of which set his face aglow. I'm no violin expert, but his playing sounded quite good to me. I saw him in another part of Cremona some time later and we waved across a piazza.

P.S., the Stradavarius museum is wonderful.

Some stuff I heard at the soup kitchen during my homeless period also led me to think they might be organized.

I take that view of welfare recipients. I think anyone willing to put up with that system should be able to get support.

Me also.

I think Linkat is a sap, and that she did the right thing. We need a few more saps.

At the same time, i really get Engineer's comment about people thinking they might be conned. There was a guy in Columbus who would work the downtown bus stops like a job--he'd go along saying "Gotta cigarette, gotta dollar, gotta cigarette, gotta dollar?," and you'd have to stop him if you wanted to give him a cigarette or money. Later, I'd see him at a coffee shop north of there, eating a $6 slice of cheesecake and drinking coke after coke, between trips out side for a smoke. Someone later told me that he gets a nut check (Ohio slang for peole who get a check and public housing from the state, now that the state hospital system has been shut down).

I've also seen healthy young men, black and white, dropped off by the wife (or main squeeze) to "work" the streets in the Ohio State University neighborhood, where they became so aggressive that campus and city police eventually put on extra foot patrols.

I used to be pretty brusque, but I've changed attitudes over the years. I'd still rather buy them a coffee or a sandwich. They might genuinely be hard-luck cases, and still willing to go buy a 40 oz. bottle of beer if they get enough money. There are a lot of people who are homeless because of things they couldn't control, and situations they can't tolerate. If an older couple, especially if they are not married, cannot stay in shelter or a group home, they end up sleeping on a steam grate or behind a dumpster.

So, be a sap, help someone out if you can afford it. These situations are very complex, we can't know the background, and the real shame is that this is a problem in the world's largest consumer economy.

I guess many of us react depending on a particular situation and how we feel at the moment. I recall one guy telling me, "Please. Please. Enough to get a sandwich." I grinned broadly as I took out my wallet. "You ain't gonna git no sandwich," I told him. Still, I handed him what he asked for and left him to eat or drink, as he chose to do with his money.

I have often thought I might be among them, and still live in fear, right now, about to lose my house, seriously. No kidding.
I'm not looking for money, criminy, but am interested about understanding.

If I had not gotten married when I did there is a good chance I would have been a professional hobo.

I think you got it spot on. I normally not hand out monry, but if someone were to ask me to buy them coffee I would and have I have given money when someone seems sincere.

I've cooked hot meals or made sandwiches and fed the homeless for a while and all of them are appreciative. I've paid for their groceries when they happen to stand in line somewhere behind me (I give money to the cashier) and I would buy coffee. I don't easily give out money as I don't want them to buy liquor or cigarettes, but I've given homeless women money. Somehow I feel they need it more.

That's so sweet. More recently due to my kids schedule I can't spend time like I used to volunteering. But I try to help where I can.

I think this hit me because one angry man walked by this man and said he should just take because others don't want to help. And I want to let him know that is not the case.

Hard situation how to promote help over someone encouraging crime

Pray for the two dead Catholic nuns in Mississippi, murdered in their home.
They gave up their comfortable lives in Massachusetts and Wisconsin to "help" the poor.

Would you do the same?